#that there are very clear signs that there was a pretty brutal rewrite at some point

[rawliverandgoronspice]

still a hardcore believer in the "totk was absolute development hell" theory btw, even if I know it will never be confirmed or denied, but all the signs are there honestly

[shsldepressedlesbian]

HAHA LOOK BUT MAYBE 75 FOR THE PROMPTS THING I have headcanons about Nagito being a huge crier during sex--

75: "You know, you look real pretty when you cry."

komaeda is definitely a huge crier i agree lol.

but, as good as a prompt this is for them, i feel like i didnt do it justice 😔 a little more just plain pwp then i feel like i could have done. however, i think its ok for now, but expect a rewrite one day 🤔

-

It's so hot, so stuffy, and it's hard to think, Komaeda finds, clutching desperately into the sheets.

"Hinata-kun," he manages to wheeze in between all the other lewd noises he's making.

His only answer back is his partner's own deep breaths, and the grip on his hips tightening, accompanied with another sharp thrust that causes Komaeda to let out an almost strangled sound.

Ironically, this seems to get a chuckle out of Hinata, though it sounds more wheezy then a real one.

"Sorry, are you already overwhelmed?"

Before Komaeda could manage a response, he feels Hinata's chest push against his back, and the shift of movement has him feeling all of it, from the burning, wet feeling inside of him to how Hinata's cock throbs, moving painfully slow-

Hinata had moved to nibbling at Komaeda's neck, tracing over the already made marks, and somehow, that only gets him more sensitive.

"I can't," Komaeda shudders, his whole body practically trembling. He should be used to this, being fucked roughly, but the problem was that Hinata wasn't being rough, and every deep, drawn out, torturest thrust of pressure on his prostate, aiming to get as many noises out of him, sends him into a downward spiral. 

"I can't-"

A shushing noise in his ear has him whimpering out of pure frustration, instinctively pushing his hips back. He can tell it's meant to be comforting- but every nerve in his body has him wanting Hinata to hurry and finish the job already.

Only the feeling of a hand gripping his jawline to tip his head up has a part of his brain finally turn on.

"Ha, don't…!" His instincts have him thinking about how embarrassing it would be to have Hinata look at him in the face like this- he must look so gross, so repulsing, absolutely wrecked-

But Hinata doesn't seem to care about that, keeping a firm hold on the other's face and turning it towards him just enough for him to apply soft kisses and nips to Komaeda's cheek- the gentleness much more different compared to how sadistic he was treating him everywhere else.

"So good, Komaeda," He mutters, letting go of Komaeda's face and starting a more rhymetic pace, and while it's hardly enough for Komaeda, it's much better than the previous torturing one. "You feel so good."

The praise falls on mostly deaf ears, but the very tone of Hinata's voice is enough to get Komaeda to let out another wheezy moan.

He could say he's almost fine with this new pace, as it seems to quicken, and become more promising… which makes the sudden full halt too much to bear.

The noise that Komaeda makes is pathetic even to his own ears. But he doesn't ponder it. No, the sudden stop and now, feeling of emptiness as Hinata almost entirely pulls out despite Komaeda's own objections and trying to constrict around him, just when he thought they were getting somewhere good, is a whole other type of teasing.

"Hinat-"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, however, when he's suddenly tossed onto his back almost effortlessly.

It's a relief when Hinata slams back in, so suddenly that Komaeda lets out another loud, primal noise, almost akin to a scream, his toes finding themselves curling into the bedsheets.

"Sorry," he vaguely hears Hinata apologize once again, though this one sounds more genuine then the first one.

With some of his brainpower being briefly returned as Hinata seems to take time to adjust enough to make Komaeda comfortable, the boy in question finds himself feeling rather exposed. Not something he usually cared or worried about, but with Hinata's previous praises, something inside once again tells him to at least attempt to cover up some dignity, mostly by covering his face as best as he can with his arms, avoiding eye contact with his partner.

Any plan for that, however, is ruined by Hinata himself parting his arms, giving him a clear view of how terrible Komaeda must look.

"I want to see your face." Hinata exclaims, voice firm though breathy.

Of course he did, Komaeda berates himself. Why else would he turn him over?

But the gentle undertones of his voice gives Komaeda enough security to look up at him- and feel a twinge of satisfaction at the fact Hinata, despite how calm and dominant he had been, didn't seem much better for fare either.

His own bangs stick to his forehead, speckled in sweat, his eyes almost cloudy and face flushed. If it weren't for him still feeling unsatisfied and knowing that he looks way worse just judging by the feeling of dried tears staining his cheeks, Komaeda would have chuckled at the sight of both of them looking like filthy messes.

But Hinata grins for him, once again making Komaeda feel exposed.

"You know, you look real pretty when you cry."

Komaeda feels his own face flushing up(if it was even possible for him to feel hotter), turning his head to once again avoid eye contact, finding himself once again unable to fire off a response. No, there's nothing attractive about his sobs, he's sure, and it's bad enough that he seems to almost always get like this when their fucking-

Hinata bucks his hips again, seemingly deciding to carry on, and Komaeda yelps. As though taking advantage of his guard falling, he felt his partner once take his face in hand, bringing their mouths together. And despite the teasing, Komaeda finds himself not hesitating at all to open his mouth and welcome his tongue in.

But attempting to focus on that proves difficult when Hinata immediately takes a new, brutal pace, and despite it being exactly what he wanted, the sudden change of tone and attack on his mouth has Komaeda’s brain going fuzzy, half registering a guttural groan he wasn’t even aware he himself could make.

And when they part in order to catch their breath, Komaeda can barely do even that, finding his legs being lifted off the bed as Hinata took him by his thighs, effectively finding a deeper consistency to pound into him.

Komaeda can’t tell if he even makes a noise when he opens his mouth, not being able to focus on anything but the sensation that is quickly bringing him closer and closer to his release, almost too fast-

When Hinata leans forward, Komaeda takes the chance to cling and dig his nails into his back, as though he were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

He hears Hinata grunt something, yet he can only make out the call of his name and a warning(to which he had to briefly wonder if he himself has already come without fully realising), but he merely keeps his hold.

He quickly finds the answer to whether or not he had already meant his climax answered, as his vision goes white and ears almost ring.

He almost believed that he passed out for a moment, because it feels like he's lost his sense of time, as he comes off his high. 

The first thing he brings his attention to, despite his exhaustion, is the little nitpicks.

From the weight of another body on him(Hinata doesn't seem in a much better state then he is, having fallen onto Komaeda in a half hearted embrace, his breathing equally as heavy), to the stickiness both across his chest and inside him that makes him want to squirm, if he didn't want to actually pass out more.

And soon, the embarrassment: to orgasm so hard from just that, when they've done so much more before… ah, pathetic. Perhaps he was getting too easy already. 

Well, it's stuff to muse over later- when he's less tired, perhaps.

Which is why he attempts to shut off his mind by closing his eyes and getting control of his breathing, but sure enough, Hinata, with his ever blessed energy, shuffles from being tangled on top of him(accidentally shifting a little too much pressure on Komaeda, to which he gives a soft "sorry" at his displeased noise), and stopping beside him just to lay down again, his breath still unsteady.

"Komaeda," Hinata breathes, though Komaeda chooses to turn his head away from him instead of responding. His partner seems to ignore this sign, however, continuing. "Sorry, did I…?"

It's probably better that Hinata chooses to not continue with that question, or Komaeda would have probably had to make a comment on how many times he's said "sorry" in the last 30 minutes.

"We should clean up," he instead insists, and Komaeda, despite not looking at him, feels him sitting up, and he instinctively grabs for his wrist.

"Let's just sleep, Hinata-kun," he mutters, quickly finding just how sore his throat is(along with his whole body), but still continuing. "We can bathe later."

He can almost feel Hinata furrow his brows at him, which is what gets him to roll his head again to actually look at him and confirm it. And, sure enough. 

"But you always complain about how gross you feel after," he objects, "I just want to make sure-"

Komaeda sighs, an almost rattly sound, turning over so he can bury some of his face in the pillow(an uncomfortable shift, but a necessary one). Hinata's right: he does feel gross, but unless he insisted on picking up Komaeda to take him to the bathroom, he'd rather just get some rest.

"I do, but Hinata-kun has been extra cruel today, and I couldn't get my body started if I wanted to." Not wanting to talk longer than necessary in order to rest his voice, he closes his eyes once again. "Take some responsibility."

Hinata makes a half strangled noise that would make Komaeda chuckle, had he not wanted to strain his throat. 

But, it seems he doesn't wish to argue anymore, as Komaeda listened to Hinata's sign and felt the shift of weight of him lying down again, brushing arms with the other.

The quietness is nice, Komaeda finds, but as he slightly shifts his legs, he bites his tongue in time to keep from groaning.

Everything, from himself to the sheets, will be absolutely gross, and he'd definitely need to take a shower right away.

But it was worth it. Or, at least, that's what he likes to tell his hazed self.

And when his eyes close with the feeling of a warm, comforting presence beside him, it's almost believable.

[natsubeatsrock]

What Mashima Could Have Done To Improve Nalu (And What He Should Do With Nalu Now)

What could Mashima have done to make Nalu work for someone like me? 

Wait, this isn't the rewrite...

I've wanted to make this post for a while. More accurately, I've wanted to make a post about this topic for years. Recently, I've gone through several different drafts of this post with drastically different types of approaches to this topic. However, I feel like this is the right direction to go about this topic.

Obviously, the vast majority of fans like this ship already and are counting the proverbial days until it becomes canon. But I know I'm not the only one who thinks the ship could have made more sense. And, it doesn't seem like Mashima isn't against playing around with the idea of this ship. (I'm not talking about specific spoilers here.)

So, I've decided to point out a few different ways Mashima could have worked Nalu into a better sense of becoming canon through the course of the original series. These are based on what I've heard regarding Nalu on both sides. Near the end, I'll include my suggestion for the best possible route Mashima could take regarding Nalu, especially at this point in the sequel.

Change #1: Natsu Leaving at Chapter 416

Let's get this one out of the way now. The big thing that turned me off to Nalu is how Natsu left at the end of the Tartarus arc, and I know I'm not alone in this. There are two camps of logic about why this is bad. Most people are in the Lucy camp which focuses on Lucy's broken bond with her friend. I'm more in the Natsu camp and focus on how his leaving betrays his ultimate goal of protecting his friends. Either way, Mashima didn't do much to make people who didn't already love the ship like it.

I don't think the argument should be made that Natsu shouldn't have left. He needed to leave to get stronger and if the guild was going to break up, their splitting up was inevitable. There are ways that Mashima could have handled Natsu leaving Lucy that aren't "write her a letter and leave". Given their relationship, he absolutely should have told her to her face that he had to leave and why. That's just a matter of being a good friend.

That's another reason I feel like it's important to start here. Mashima could work to further their relationship from a friendship to a romantic one. However, if their friendship is strained, there's no reason to start that in the first place. With that out of the way, let's talk about how Mashima could have made their relationship more romantic.

Change #2: Clearly Change their View of Each Other

It's not as if Natsu and Lucy's views of each other were consistently positive. It's weird to see that Natsu was dismissive and kind of exploitative was of Lucy early on in Fairy Tail. Of course, this changes throughout the series. Natsu and Lucy come to have a really cool friendship and one of my favorite partnerships in anime and manga.

However, there's no moment where Natsu or Lucy comes to a definite "Oh, I love them" realization. While the other ships in the Big 4 have at least one moment you can point to where the perception of a character towards the other noticeably changed, Nalu doesn't have that. The idea that they could be a couple is brought up every now and then. However, it's always treated as a joke and dismissed almost as quickly as it's brought up. If Mashima were to take Nalu seriously, this kind of moment would be crucial to their progression from great friendship to definite romance.

It's not even as if this couldn't happen. I've seen Nalu fans point to a few different places as possible moments for this to happen. However, my personal favorite moments happen during the Tenrou Island arc. At the beginning of the arc, Lucy looks at Natsu as he's sleeping and mentions how cute he looks. Later on, Natsu sees Lucy struggle against Kain and hears her say "It's more fun when we're together". I think both moments could have been reworked to start them on the trend of starting a romantic relationship with each other.

Change #3: Define Natsu and Lisanna's Relationship As Platonic

Depending on who you ask, we already got this during Tenrou Island. After all, Lisanna told Lucy to take care of Natsu before they went to fight Hades. A lot of people see this as the sign that Lisanna gave up on being with Natsu romantically. (If you can't tell, I'm restraining myself from arguing against this.) Mashima could have made this purpose of the moment more obvious.

Regardless, we didn't get a similar moment where Natsu and Lisanna realize their relationship has changed since Edolas and can't currently be romantic. All we got is a moment that might indicate that Lisanna thinks Lucy is a better romantic fit for Natsu. As someone who's been advocating for more of Lisanna, this change could lead to some interesting moments. Lisanna doesn't have problems with either Natsu or Lucy that would result in any ill will between them. I don't think that should change regardless of how feelings are written regarding Lisanna and the duo.

[insert discussion about Mashima's comment in France here] 

Change #4: Give Us A Real Confession

I've said this plenty of times already. We did not get a confession from Natsu at the end of Fairy Tail. The fact that people are arguing that a straight-up confession would be "out of character" for Natsu and Lucy is proof enough of that. If Nalu was meant to be, this would be an obvious inclusion.

Opinions are all over the place regarding how that ought to play out. Should Natsu confess first or should Lucy? Will their confession be more composed or frenetic? That's not so much of my concern. What matters most is that a confession actually happens for the reader to see.

Honestly, it's a shame that so many different romantic ships can get away with happening without seeing definite romantic confessions, especially in battle action shonen series. I've gone through 11 years of nonsense with these characters. If they end up a couple, I want to see the confession, at the very least.

And those are my suggestions for changes.

You'll notice that I haven't talked about romantic progression in this post. That should be obvious when talking about this kind of thing. I think it's hard not to write characters falling in love if you know you're building to a couple being romantic. Fans are more likely to see it in places it isn't happening. Mashima has proven himself capable of writing good romance time and again in both of his big running series. Of course, we're waiting to see if he'll do it again with Edens Zero.

Though, these are changes that would have to take place regarding the original series. If Mashima wanted to do any of these things, it would be too late to properly do them. With that in mind, here's what I think is the best thing Mashima could do with Nalu, especially at this particular time in the sequel.

Destroy Its Chances.

No, seriously.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for Mashima to give us less ship tease fakeouts or meaningless rejections. I'm not asking that he simply not make Nalu canon. I seriously wish that Mashima would make explicitly clear that Natsu and Lucy cannot and will not ever enter a romantic relationship with each other. I simultaneously wish he would stop playing with the idea that they may start one in stuff outside of canon, like Twitter sketches, omakes, and spin-offs.

I've had a lot of time to sit with Nalu as a possible ship. I've thought over and over about what's wrong with it. And I can't think of anything fundamentally wrong with Nalu. The worst thing about it is the nonexistent progression from friends to lovers and Natsu leaving in chapter 416. I'd add fanservice, but pretty much every Fairy Tail ship has egregious fan service moments.

When people talk about Nalu not being a good ship, there are worse things they could be talking about. They could talk about how one person is clearly pushing for a relationship the other isn't interested in. They could talk about how their relationship started off with one brutalizing the other. They could talk about how Nalu is incestuous or pedophilic. However, when we talk about the ships in Fairy Tail, these topics don't come up regarding Nalu.

Like, people don't like Gruvia because of the dynamic between them. For people to like that ship, you'd basically have to rewrite their dynamic entirely. I know someone who would only make Gruvia canon in its current state if it were an abusive relationship. My suggestions for Nalu don't even change that much about their relationship.

The real issues I have with the ship stem from the fandom itself. The Nalu fandom considers any and all moments that involve Natsu and Lucy as a sign that they can become a couple soon. This ranges from "understandable arguments regarding certain scenes in canon" to "irrational interpretations regarding Twitter sketches". All of it's treated with the same cavalier attitude of Nalu's impending canonization. This is all despite no confession, no indication of romance on either side, and an omake literally made to dissuade people from this idea.

I can't say that Mashima will never make Nalu canon. But if he plans not to make it canon, I want it to be clear that Nalu is never going to be a thing. Leave no sense of ambiguity for readers to argue that it might happen in the future after the series ends. When I read the last chapter of the sequel, I want Nalu's prospects to end with the series.

"But what about the fans who spent years following the series hoping for the ship to happen?"

What about them?

I'm not saying this as someone who has no interest in the ship or empathy for its fans. I could and probably should, especially given the stuff I've seen happen over the years. But I'm not. (People can just as easily point to any of the various extreme Nalu haters like... a certain someone.) No, I have no patience for this view considering another perspective I hold.

I came into the fandom enjoying Fairy Tail. I started this blog because I wanted to talk about the things I liked about it and places I disagreed with fans about it. As time passed, I started to like the series less and see more issues with it. Many of the things I came to like about the series started to annoy me more and talking about this series became more of a chore than anything else.

However, I came to have a renewed sense of love for the series as I revisited it. I found new things to like about it and reconfirmed my enjoyment of the things that previously annoyed me. Consider the ship I talk the most about positively on this blog is likely not going to be canon officially. I'm still here and I still love the series.

I find it hard to believe that fans can come this far into the series only because they want to see their ship happen. I get that this sentiment is popular to hear fans say. However, I can't believe that all those people are so deeply invested in Nalu being canon, as opposed to other aspects of the series, that the series would be ruined for them if it didn't happen.

This is a series that's almost a decade and a half old. We've had more spin-offs, omakes, and tie-ins than series many times more popular than Fairy Tail have received. We just got an anime game that actually isn't just another arena fighter and a sequel has been greenlit. There has to be SOMETHING that these people can come back to and appreciate about this series OTHER than Nalu.

And if there really is nothing they can come to like about this series than Nalu? If they really come to hate the series over their ship not happening? If we really see a fan meltdown over the ship not happening, then...

Good riddance to them!

I know plenty of fans who bowed out of the series after realizing the series wasn't great. I'm still following a few of them for other stuff. Almost every one of them came to the conclusion long ago that the series wasn't as great as they'd like it to be and moved onto other things that interested them. They handled it calmly and left the fandom without a ton of drama. A couple of them even drop in to make new fan content every now and then.

I can respect a perspective that acknowledges a series isn’t doing what you want it to do and decides to engage with only the elements that matter most to an individual. I can respect a similar perspective that decides to cut ties with a series or fandom over how canon plays out. I can’t respect or sympathize with a perspective that says canon is worse because one’s wishes for it weren’t fulfilled.

I'm not even saying that it's wrong to not like how Mashima handles a ship. I still don't like how Graytear played out. You're allowed to feel that Mashima's handling of any part of a series isn't great. However, I don't think the series is worse for what it did to Graytear. Fairy Tail wouldn't be worse if Nalu didn't happen.

I'd argue it would be better, but that's enough for now...

[scifrey]

2019 Writing Round Up

The new year is here, and with it everyone is talking about what they wrote this past year. The last quarter of 2019 was a brutal rollercoaster for me, emotionally and personally, so it’s good for me to have the chance to sit here and reflect on what I accomplished and the good things that happened too.

2019 started with receiving a grant from the Toronto Arts Council for The Maddening Science – said grant went to research materials for the novel, a new computer, printer, and keyboard, and paying off some debts. But 2019 also started in a place of utter burn-out, having slammed through writing, editing, and publishing five big novels in three years, as well as rewriting a feature film and completing the scripts for three seasons of a webseries.

I was also working two dayjobs – one first thing in the morning, for an hour and a half, and then a standard eight-hour shift in the evenings which got me home at around 10pm – so my sleep schedule was a mess and I was having trouble not only making time to write, but concentrating when I did have the time.

I started the year in a place of complete exhaustion and mild frustration that neither of my book series had really caught on, and as my agent once said, “burned out from tried to break out.”  I’m not happy to say that I think I still occupy that place a full year later; but I’ve had the opportunity to rest more, and begin to refill my creative well again, and to reclaim my writing space by no longer needing a roommate.

I’m not quite there yet – turns out finishing two series in four years really takes it out of you – but maybe in a few more months I’ll be ready to sit down and begin to spin out a new novel. In the mean time, I’ve got lots of irons in the fire, as you’ll see.

January

The first third of 2019 was dedicated to rewriting The Skylark’s Sacrifice a second time. I’d rewritten it in the last third of 2018 and my editor ended up agreeing that while the rewrite was exactly what she asked for, we should not have gone down that street in the first place. It was what was asked of me, but it didn’t work. So I took it back to the drawing board, and started the re-write all over again.

I also published WORDS FOR WRITERS: The DO-ING Trap.

I finished the edits/polish on A Woman of the Sea, which I had begun in October 2018 and loaded the book onto Wattpad in preparation for serializing it.

February

I spent February rewriting and jobhunting. I tried to write a short story and Did Not Do Well. It’s half done and likely to end up on the Pile Of Unfinished Tales.

At least I got some new words on the page with WORDS FOR WRITERS – Beta Readers.

And I began releasing A Woman of the Sea a chapter at a time on Valentine’s Day.

March

I completed the Skylark rewrites and handed them over to Reuts Publications.  I also published WORDS FOR WRITERS – From Signing to Signing.

At this point I tried to start The Maddening Science, the book I received a Toronto Art’s Council Grant for in 2018, and bashed out a few chapters and a few scenes. But something was off about it, and I couldn’t pinpoint why, so I kept going into the file and only put a few hundred words in here and there. I couldn’t really sit down and dig in, and because I don’t believe in Writer’s Block as a mystical magical reason for why people can’t write (there are always reasons), I had to step back to try to figure out why I was struggling. I assumed it was probably because I was in the middle of job interviews and decided to try again later.

April

I started a new copywriting job, leaving my other two dayjobs, and it sucked up all my brainpower and creativity and made it very hard to want to sit down and compose yet more words at the end of the day.

I resumed working piecemeal on The Maddening Science, pecking out what I could one molasses-slow sentence at a time. I realized that the incidents in the news regarding the current political comment and the toxic white supremacist misogyny that is rampant in our society today has made it very hard to figure out how to tell a responsible story about a supervillain as the protagonist.

I’m still working on that. In the mean time, while I figure out how to restructure the tale, the book and the progress blog are on hiatus.

May

Still brain-dead from work, I only managed to bash out WORDS FOR WRITERS: How do social media and writing/publishing work together?

June

There were some final edits on The Skylark’s Sacrifice to be discussed, but I really did nothing this month beyond marketing pushes and watching all the webseries I judged for TOWebfest.

July

The director of my feature film, To a Stranger, was going to start shopping the script around to executive producers, so before he did that I got some actorfriends together to do a table read. The read, and their feedback, revealed some character motivation gaps in the film, and I set about organizing their notes and figuring out how to solve the issues.

I also wrote and published WORDS FOR WRITERS – How To Write a Synopsis.

This was also the month of TOWebfest, the festival itself, and I spent a lovely day with fellow creators and spoke to some executive producers about my own webseries to try to garner interest.

I was a guest at Pretty Heroes Con for the first time and LOVED it. It’s great to celebrate strong female leads in SF/F and I loved Sailor Moon as a kid, so I was in nostalgic nirvana. It was lovely to introduce those Girl Power-loving fans to The Skylark’s Saga.

August

I restructured and rewrote To a Stranger, added extra characters and extra scenes to clear up some character motivation in the screenplay. It’s now back with the director and I hope to hear that he’s got a production house and an Exec attached to the project soon.

I appeared at FanExpo Toronto to do some panels, sell some books, and judged the short fiction contest. I also wrote and published WORDS FOR WRITERS: How to Create a Pitch Package.

September

The Skylark’s Sacrifice was published! Yay! I had a wonderful launch party at Bakka Phoenix, and got to simultaneously launch the incredible book trailer for the duology animated by Elizabeth Hirst to a song by Victor Sierra. Friends Adrianna Prosser and Eric Metzloff, and Danforth Brewery made it extra special.

I also got to read at Word on the Street, which was been a career-long dream, reading on the new Across the Universe Stage.

However, September was also the month when I lost the copywriting job. I saw it coming, so I was shocked when it happened and how it went down, but not surprised. I wasn’t fitting in well with the team, the original project I had been hired for had been vetoed by the execs, work was being taken away from me and given to freelancers, and I didn’t have the training they wanted (though that makes me wonder why they hired me in the first place.) In retrospect it’s been a blessing, as the workplace was not at all a good fit for me and was slowly becoming toxic, but at the time it was a devastating blow to my confidence and my coffers.

Just a few days after I was fired, on my 37th birthday, I won a Watty Award for A Woman of the Sea. Happy birthday to me! I was offered a place among the Wattpad Stars program and accepted – and wow, is there a lot of paperwork for that – and I’m still trying to figure out what benefits the program offers. (Though I’m pretty chuffed with my free Canva Premium subscription!) A Woman of the Sea was featured on the home page as an Undiscovered Gem and as of today has about 82k reads. Whoa!

I also wrote and published WORDS FOR WRITERS: How to Plan a Series.

October

I spent most of the month sleeping and crying and working through how I felt about getting fired. When one identifies oneself as a writer, to finally get a job in writing was a thrill and felt like a confirmation that although I was struggling with my next book, I was a writer and I’d get through it. Being fired from the job – even though the reason was an exec decision to eliminate my project and thus my role – felt like a very personal blow. I wasn’t a writer after all. (Or at least, that’s what it felt like).

This had me thinking long and hard. Especially about where I wanted my writing career to go next – as much I’ve been writing in the realm of SF/F the past decade, I’ve begun to realize that was I really am is a Character-Driven Romance writer. Romance set in spec fic and fantasy realms, sure, but Romance and Character Work are my wheelhouse and how I should be selling myself.

This realization has been pretty freeing because it means that the frustrations and roadblocks I’ve been coming up against can maybe be dissolved by reframing my brand and rethinking my career map.

Wattpad added the sample of City By Night that’s on Wattpad to their Halloween Reads list on the homepage and I decided to put the whole novella up on the site for people to read. Read it now, though. It won’t stay up forever as the eBook rights to the novel are signed with an indie publisher. This is just a limited-time promotion.

And knowing that readers were asking what I would be posting next on Wattpad after A Woman of the Sea, I rejigged Triptych for the site and started serializing it from the start. You can read it here. This story also won’t stay up forever, for the same reason.

I also started serializing Words for Writers on Wattpad. I won’t be copying over all 75+ articles I have on my website, just the ones that are specifically useful for Watties.

I also polished a webseries and sent it to a producer with a major broadcaster after our convo at TOWebfest for consideration. I’ve followed up but there’s no reply. I’ll follow up again in January 2020 but I can pretty well assume that No Answer is my ‘No’ Answer.

I am thinking about maybe pitching it as a graphic novel in the future, though I’m going to have to reach out to my friends who write them for publishers to figure out how to put at pitch together.

November

In 2017 I handed over a YA contemporary re-telling of “Northanger Abbey” to my agent, and it was lukewarmly received by both her and the handful of editors she showed it to. It was then shelved for possible future reworking.

In the first part of the NaNoWriMo month, I decided to tackle this reworking, and I was still wrestling mentally with The Maddening Science. This reworking was inspired a lot by reading Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston in October, and realizing that the tone I’d been going for with my narrator hadn’t been irreverent or GenZ-y enough for the story I was trying to tell, and not grounded enough in the technologies and social media that my modern-day Catherine Morland would have access to.

I reworked the Pitch Document for the novel, now currently called “Title TBA”, and got to chapter seven during NaNo. I’ve got some thinking to do about structure for the novel, and how far into using Social Media As A Storytelling Tool I want to go with the idea, but generally speaking I’m pretty pleased with the result of the rewrites.

Partway through NaNo, it occurred to me that there was another story that my Wattpad readers were asking for, and one that would be a lot of fun to write. In A Woman of the Sea, my fictional Regency-era  Jane-Austen-analogue authoress Margaret Goodenough writes her debut novel “The Welshman’s Daughters”. As I describe this non-existent novel in A Woman of the Sea, it’s a gothic romance that’s very Elizabeth Gaskell-and-Jane Austen-esque in terms of it being a character study driven romance, with some of the fun high melodrama and gothic tone of Anne Radcliffe. And, in the world of A Woman of the Sea, it’s the first queer kiss in Classic Western Literature.

A handful of readers have asked where they can find this book, or have confessed to going to the library to ask for it, only to learn that it’s not real. I made it up.

And I thought… well, why not make it real?

So I’m working on the pitch doc and the first chapter now, to see if a) this is something I want to pursue and b) this is something that will help me break through my burn-out slump. I hope it will, but I think I still need to take time to rest before I really push into it.

And I still have the “Title TBA” rewrites to complete.

December

I published WORDS FOR WRITERS: How Do I Get An Agent?, and spent the rest of the month just trying to chill. I’ve become a bit of a reluctant reader, so I am trying to push myself to read a little each day, to remind myself why I fell in love with storytelling in the first place.

A Woman of the Sea was turned down for Paid Stories, unfortunately, because of the structure of the romance. The Stars Team explained that romance stories like this one, with one romantic partner in the first half of the book, and a different one in the second (a la Brigit Jones’ Diary) doesn’t tend to do well on Paid because readers are reluctant to shell out for a romance where they don’t meet the HEA partner until later. It’s heartbreaking to hear, because I was really hoping that this might become a viable stream of income for me. At least the team who turned it down were very kind and expressed how much they loved the story in and of itself.

But no matter – onwards and upwards!

What’s ahead for 2020

Well, I’m not sure. This has been a really, really difficult year and I have really, really struggled with trying to figure out who I am and what I want, both in life and as a writer.

Certainly, there will be lot of hard thinking about the future of my writing career. I have ideas that I love and want to pursue, but this post-firing-return-to-the-job-hunt-depression is killing my desire to create. And honestly, the fact that I’ve worked so hard for so many years and haven’t managed to get any sort of break-through or cultural foothold or ability to even really to pay my bills with this job is disheartening. I’m still paying more in marketing every year than I’m making in Royalties.

However, I have some new opportunities on the horizon – conversations happening behind closed doors, as well as Divine Paradox Films still working toward filming To A Stranger, and Alpaca vs Llama shopping The Skylark’s Song as a teens animated series. And the webseries I wrote is under consideration with a new production team, so I can keep my fingers crossed.

Who knows, perhaps the rewritten “Title TBA” might be just the thing to propel my work into a realm where I’m really earning money. Though I had originally envisioned it as the first of a series, the more I work and think on it, the more I feel like it would be best as a stand-alone. I think it would slap a lot harder if it was a one-off.

And I am genuinely liking the plot of The Welshman’s Daughters, and all the research reading and viewing I am doing to get the tone and mood of the book right (please recommend me your favourite Gothic Romances – film, TV, or books!)

But I’m not going to rush anything. It’s nice to be able to remember how to putter with a book and have no looming, razor-blade deadlines hanging over my neck.

2020 will be, I hope, a year of renewed creativity, motivation, and the year where I complete at least one of the three novel projects I’ve started.

For now, I think I’m going to go have a nap.

*

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[insanely-lovely-and-random]

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood The Catharsis Of Release

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood was not my favorite film of 2019 but it's ending was definitively the one I found the most satisfying and in a year of great finales that's saying something. Tarantino's ode to Hollywood managed this by edging the audience for nearly the entirety off its 2 hour and 40 minute run time, which only made the pay off all the sweeter.

There's a famous quote by Alfred Hitchcock, where he talks about the difference between suspense and surprise in movies. He uses the example of a bomb beneath a table, stating that if you show your audience a bomb going off on screen the audience only gains 15 seconds of surprise. Now should you want to leave your audience in suspense he instead suggests that you let your audience know that there is a bomb and that it will explode in 15 minute's, that's 15 more minute's of suspense.

In Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Sharon Tate is first shown roughly 3 minutes into the movie, a minute or so later we see out first time stamp, Saturday February 8th 1969. We as the audience know that Sharon Tate was murdered on the night of August 8th 1969, this is our bomb and we now know it has 6 months until it goes off, the only thing we don't know is how is Tarantino going to go about it?

Now Sharon Tate is not our main character, she is  a essentially a side character who's entire purpose is to remind us of what is going to happen. Our main focus is on Rick Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth, they are who we really get to know and they're very enjoyable to watch. So enjoyable in fact that often times in the movie you might forget what's happening in the background, you might get a little too comfortable but every time you do something will pop back up again to keep you on your toes.

Enter the Manson clan. They don't turn up until 15 minutes in and when they do they appear eerily singing and they search garbage cans for food. In any other movie we might just believe they are regular bunch of hippies trash diving but this is Tarantino and this is no coincidence. These ones are all girls and one in particular is tall, slim and rather pretty and when we see her flash the peace sign at Cliff Booth I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. They too are background noise but noise that steadily gets louder the more we try to block it out.

The movie follows the slightly washed up careers of both actor and stuntman, they are shown to be more friends than boss and employee and we grow to like and root for both a great deal. Meanwhile Tate in her brief moments is shown to be happy, full of life and in her prime, we don't want anything to happen to any of these characters (Most especially to Tate who was very much real). Tarantino has been shown to be unafraid to both kill off main characters and rewrite history, as the story progresses we have no idea how exactly he will change history if he will at all, all we have is our time stamps slowly counting down the days to August 8th.

Half way through the movie we see Cliff Booth pick up a hitch-hiking Pussycat, this being the hippie he has seen a few times throughout the movie. When he offers her a ride the uncomfortable feeling from before is back, this girl is trouble and she wants to be dropped off at Spahn Ranch, a known home for members of the Manson family. Of course Cliff Booth doesn't know that, but it's clear he thinks something shady is going on and as his old colleague George Spahn owns the ranch he can't help but feel the need to check in on him.

This leads to probably the most tension filled scene in the movie, we see him roll up with Pussycat, who is eager to show him off to the other members, they are far more wary of this stranger, even going so far as to have one of their members, “Tex” check him out. This first encounter could end badly should he screw up and we know it. Luckily Cliff is smart and he knows what to say to get the all clear, we previously heard Pussycat yell at some Cops, Cliff is quick to mention that he once spent some time in Texas busting up some Cop shows. Tex is appeased enough to leave him be and as soon he's gone Cliff shows his true purpose for being there, he knows George Spahn and he will not leave without seeing him.

The clan members suddenly aren't so friendly and make excuses but he will not be dissuaded, it takes some convincing but he eventually gets permission to enter George's home. He has one last glance back before he enters the property and we pan to some unhappy looking hippies and we feel worried for what might happen in that house because we know what these people were capable of and whether of not Cliff might find George dead. It's discovered that George is in fact alive and gave the members permission to be there and we breath a sign of relief, although can't help but feel George is being taken advantage of.

Mission accomplished all we care about now is Cliff getting out of there and he tries to leave walked past the yelling and jeering clan members and comes close to freedom but his getaway is damaged. One of the Mansonites “Clem” has burst one of Cliff's tires leaving him stranded, Cliff tells him to fix it and when he refuses he proceeds to beat him bloody until he agrees. This spurs one the others to send for Tex to return and help them, once again we are face with a time limit. The car has to be fixed before Tex gets back and we anxiously hope it is, seeing Cliff speeding away seconds before Tex returns is the final relief in a scene full of suspense, for now he has gotten away.

We then return the focus to our main duo for a while, building slowly to our climax. The final part of the movie is a culmination of what we have been waiting for. We are finally shown the date August 8th 1969. This night we follow both Cliff and Rick as well as Tate, Sebring and the others, out time stamps are now counting down the clock by minutes rather than dates and we can feel the tension building. Eventually our cast return home and we hit 12:03 with Cliff and his dog Brandy also being at Rick's house.

The events that follow are where we see history truly diverge when the Manson members who killed Sharon Tate and the others arrive they are confronted by a drunk and irritable Rick Dalton who yells at them for being there.

This is where the Mansonites decide to change course and go after the Dalton house instead, this is where our pivotal moment finally hits, this is where our bursting balloon of tension  slowly starts to leak air. Rick has chosen to drink margaritas with his headphones in his pool, his wife sleeps in the bedroom and Cliff has smoked his acid cigarette whilst walking Brandy and is now tripping in the kitchen. Whilst Cliff attempts to feed Brandy she begins to growl at the door, Cliff slowly catches on and heavy dog food can still in hand he faces the door which is soon slammed open, Tex enters wielding a gun and we now await with baited breathe how Tarantino will play this out. They exchange a few words and a very at ease Cliff eventually recognizes them as the Hippies he met before, despite the odds being 3 to 1 everything we've seen so far has pointed to Cliff eventually coming out of top we start relax too. Moments later a frustrated member yells out “Shoot him Tex!” this is Cliff's cue, with a mouth click Brandy his well trained canine leaps into action grabbing the gun wielding arm in her jaw. Finally the balloon has burst, the bomb has gone off and what follows in some of the most gratifying movie violence I've seen in a long time.

It's brutal and bloody and completely cathartic, this whole insane tension filled ride is coming to a close and it truly goes out with a bang. In any other movie had this just been a home invasion such a scene would be over the top but Tarantino used reality to fuel our anger, we know exactly what monstrosities these people were going to commit and so we feel only relief at their harsh punishment.

This finale was truly glorious and I enjoyed it immensely, the movie ends quietly with a slightly injured but victorious Cliff going to hospital and an in shock Rick going up to meet his (still thankfully alive) neighbors. We can rejoice in this fairy tale ending and forget for a moment the sadness that reality did not go the same way. Once Upon a Time In Hollywood was an intense movie, that never let you forget what was coming and it's been a long time since I've felt such a release of tension in any movie so for that  Tarantino I thank you.

[gutterballgt]

12 for the chaleigh ask meme if you're still taking these/if inspiration strikes from this prompt? :DD

From the ask meme: writer and editor AU. I LIKE IT. This one was so fun to write!

Chuck stared at the screen with its multitude of commentindicators and tracked changes and let his irritation grow. Next page, morechanges. Next page, more changes.

Who the fuck did this wanker think he fucking was?

A published author several times over, Chuck Hansen wasfairly confident about his writing skills. Every writer had their doubts, ofcourse, and their periods of “why do I even fucking bother because I CAN’TWORD DAMMIT??”, but overall, his stories about mecha pilots and Lovecraftianleviathans from alternate dimensions sold well enough and got rave enoughreviews that he could usually mute that annoying, nay-saying voice and carry onwriting.

But this fucking guy.

His new editor was a wanker. No other word for it. Tendo hadnever nitpicked every single word choice. Tendo had never suggested he questionhis characters’ motivations and try to find something deeper. And Tendo hadnever, ever accused him of misusing verb tense.

Apparently, “R. Becket” had never read a goddamnbook in his entire life besides Simon & Schuster. Why, oh why did Tendohave to move up to senior editor and leave his entire roster to some fuckingnoob?

Fuck this guy. Fuck this whole situation.

Standing away from his desk, he snatched up his keys,growled at his old man’s questioning grunt, and strode out of the house on agoddamn mission. He was done trying to communicate via email with the uselessfuck. This shit needed handling in person.

Thus, a ten minute cab ride later, he found himself on the lifton the way up to the Shatterdome Publishing offices, wondering whether or notpunching an editor would get him blacklisted from the publishing world. Mightbe worth it. He could self-publish. He was pretty damn prolific.

He exited the lift like a summer thunderstorm looking for aplace to loose his bag of winds and fistfuls of lightnings. The receptionisttook one look at him and picked up the phone, talking nervously and earnestlyinto it, then hanging up just as Chuck reached her desk.

“Mr. Becket will be happy to see you in his office, Mr.Hansen. Just down that hallway, second office on the right.”

Without slowing down, he marched in the indicated direction,gearing up for what his old man would likely call a tantrum but Chuck knew wasa much-needed lecture on exactly what an editor’s place was in thewriter/editor relationship. It was notrewriting an entire goddamn story from scratch and calling it“revision”.

He started talking even before he got to the doorway.“Oi, listen up, fuckface. You got a lot of–”

He came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, eyes wideand rant dissipating like a fart in the wind. He didn’t know what he’d expectedto see, but it definitely wasn’t this.

R. Becket, wanker extraordinaire, was fucking hot.

Like… stupidhot.

And smiling faintly while his pretty blue eyes snapped withannoyance and at least as much piss and vinegar as Chuck had entered the roomwith.

“Mr. Hansen, I presume.”

Oh, fuck, he even soundedhot. This was not at all what he’d wanted. Speechless, he could only nod likean idiot.

“Please. Have a seat. I think we ought to get betteracquainted.”

Struck stupid, he meekly did as suggested, eyes wide andbrain sending out distress signals he was too gobsmacked to attend to.

“I imagine it was something of a shock to get yourmanuscript back with so many edits.”

Right. Edits. The word rang a dim bell somewhere far away. Thewanker had a tiny, faint mole just at the crease where cheek met mouth. It wasfascinating.

“When Mr. Choi was reassigning his authors, I requestedyou specifically. You’re an amazing author, Mr. Hansen.”

He blinked. It appeared the wanker’s mouth was good for morethan staring at and wishing for.

“But you’re undisciplined. It’s in a way that readswell, thankfully, but I think you could be better. With a little focus, I thinkyou can be one of the best authors currently writing.”

The irritation slowly trickled back, and he remembered hewas here for a reason. And not just to stare at the pretty bloke in hisexpensive, sharp suit who unfortunately had veto power over whether or notChuck ever got published at this house again.

Because couched in the compliments was an implicit insult:Chuck wasn’t good enough.

The trickle became a rush, and he was angry all over again.“Oi, who the fuck do you think you are?”

Instead of answering, the irritatingly beautiful blokereached down, opened one of his desk drawers, and pulled out an old paperbacknovel. Still smiling faintly – but with less of that snapping hostility that,okay, had maybe been earned by Chuck’s unfortunate entrance – he dropped thenovel and scooted it across the desk to Chuck’s side.

The Fall, byRaleigh Becket. The cover was a swirling maelstrom of eye-gouging color leadingdown to the dimension into which the main character fell, screaming andhelpless.

Gaping, Chuck looked up from the book, stared at the R.Becket that had shat all over his masterpiece, and let the pieces connect. “R”for Raleigh. This wanker with the over-eager red pen was the best goddamnscience fiction author he’d ever read.

But five years ago, Raleigh Becket – who had faithfullypublished every year of his brief but glorious four year career – suddenlydropped out of sight. No more books. No more press tours. No more signings.

Half his fans assumed he was dead.

Chuck was one of them.

And yet, here he was. In a swank suit and understated tie ina sober but inviting office in Chuck’s publishing house.

“If you’re wondering, a traumatic brain injury fiveyears ago impaired my ability to write. Car wreck. Bad one.” The prettybloke wasn’t smiling now. “But I still wanted to be in the publishingindustry, so Mr. Pentecost gave me a trial with editing.” The broadshoulders shrugged. “Tendo said I had a natural talent at it, and I’vebeen an editor here ever since.”

Well. That fucking sucked.

Clearing his throat and hoping he could maybe clear the airbetween them, because he very much wanted to hear more about what had happenedto his favorite author who had been such an inspiration for his own writing,Chuck shifted in his seat. He needed to backtrack his terrible firstimpression, and fast.

“Uh.”

Well. That was a promising start.

“Can I get your autograph?”

Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Luckily, the bloke just chuckled and leaned back in hisexpensive office chair. “If you still want it, you can have it. But fromthe look on your face before you got an eyeful, you might not.”

Blushing miserably, he squirmed again and tried to think ofsome way to salvage the situation. Unfortunately, eating crow was not hisspecialty.

“Right. About that.”

Another chuckle, and the urge to deck the wanker came back,if only for a moment.

“Look, mate, you gotta know that seeing all thosechanges was….” Overwhelming? Upsetting? Frustrating? Daunting? “Abit much, yeah?”

Surprisingly, the bloke just nodded. “I understand. Ifelt the same way when my first manuscript came back from Stacker with all thered ink he could find.”

It earned a wry grin that Chuck couldn’t help. While he wasstill raw about the nasty shock of all those edits, he was grateful his editorwasn’t the holy terror known as Stacker Pentecost, who had started this companyback when Herc was still writing and had made celebrities and politicians alikecry with brutal, non-negotiable edits to their vanity pieces.

“But I promise you, Mr. Hansen, if you look at them oneat a time, they aren’t so overwhelming. And while you can veto any change youwant to, I want you to keep an open mind. I really think that if you tighten upyour narrative and really focus on what your pilot wants, you’ll make her amuch stronger character in a clearer story.”

Slowly, grudgingly, he nodded. Raleigh Becket had writtensuch brutally tight stories that universities almost immediately added them to theircurriculum for study. His style was likened to the brevity and clarity ofspeech of Hemingway with the imagery and thematic style of Poe or Lovecraft.There was a sparse poetry in his tales of aliens and drones and the resilienceof the human spirit that readers and scholars alike latched onto and couldn’tget enough of.

If the bloke felt Chuck could come anywhere near thatnarrative brilliance, he’d be a fool to ignore his guidance.

So: “Yeah, alright.” He nodded again with lessreluctance. “I… uh… sorry. About the attitude.”

The pretty sod grinned. “Don’t worry. I waswarned.”

“Oi!”

Waving the protest – more embarrassed than offended –away, Mr. Becket stood from behind his desk and buttoned his suit jacket.Jesus, but the bloke was pretty. Filled out the suit like a hand in a glove.Broad shoulders, narrow waist, handsome face, low and pleasant voice. Perfect,really.

“If you want, we can meet up after you’ve given the editsa look and talk them over. Maybe… dinner?”

He’d started to stand up, as well, but paused because… wasthat…?

Sure enough, the pretty sod smirked. “Do you likeItalian? I can get us a table at Galliano’s.” The smirk sobered. “Butfeel free to say no. I really want to keep you as a client, and I don’t wantanything to distract from that.”

Narrowly avoiding the urge to gape, he snortedincredulously. “Are you taking the piss? Fancy dinner with my favoriteauthor who turned out to be gorgeous as fuck?”

Oh, shit, now the wanker grinned sunnily, and it was just asattractive as the smirk from before. “Your favorite author?”

Blushing again, he grunted and kicked at the plush carpet.“Shut up. It’s a yes, yeah?”

“Good.” Reaching across the desk, his gorgeouseditor offered a hand to shake. “Galliano’s at seven, then. We’ll eatbefore we talk about edits.”

In a weirdly delighted fog, he shook hands, nodded, and leftthe office with the stupidest grin on his face. The ride down on the lift feltlike descending on a cloud, and he exited the huge multi-office building intothe near-noon sunshine feeling like he’d just stepped out of a dream.

His new editor was tough but fair. His new editor believedin him and wanted to help him be a better writer.

And his new editor was fucking hot as hell and had asked himto dinner.

Life… was a fucking dream.

Eschewing a taxi when he felt too goddamn great to sitpassively while the world passed him by, Chuck Hansen walked home toward thedreaded edits with a huge, ridiculous smile. He couldn’t wait to get started.

THE END

[blueyesandleatherjacket]

Regenerate Nine Day: Howling of the wolf

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 9/?.

Pairings: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler.

Synopsis: "Oh, it was his fault without a doubt. Entirely his fault. His curiosity was to blame, and he was cursing himself for being so curious."

A/N: Today is Regenerate Nine Day (9/9) and so I've decided to repost all the one-shots I've written about the Ninth Doctor, whether they are DW verse or not to celebrate this fantastic Doctor. The first shot to be post is a rewriting of Journey's end.

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really cares.” - Debi Mazar.

HOWLING OF THE WOLF:

The words ‘run for your life’ never had such a powerful meaning than right now while he was indeed running for his life through the thick forest he was lost in. He had long lost of sight the trail he was following at first and was now running through the mess of trees so tall it was impossible to see where they were stopping, of bushes, brambles and roots, jumping above the obstacles he was meeting. He was running so fast he had the feeling that he was flying – which was scientifically impossible. Brambles and branches were gripping his leather jacket, jumper and pants, were staying stuck in his short-cropped hair and were scratching his face and hands, but he didn’t stop to take them off or wipe the small drops of blood running down his cheeks and fingers. He kept running, trying to go as fast as he could to escape from the threat that was chasing him down the woods. He was a Time Lord and had a very good physical health. He wasn’t even out of breath while he had been running for a long moment now. He jumped above a small bush and tripped over a root but he never slowed down. He couldn’t. He was fast, but the threat was faster. No matter how fast he was running, he could still hear the steps of it running after him, the feet hitting the ground with an almost dull sound. The threat was fast, but it was also discreet while the Doctor could hear the sound of his own steps resonating loudly in the desert forest and pointing him out as the target to slaughter. But there was nothing around. No animals. No birds, no rabbits, no foxes. Nothing, but a huge deserted and silent forest. Only the howling of a wolf was audible from time to time, a howling as beautiful as frightening that sent shivers down the Doctor’s spine. And that wolf was currently chasing him. Oh, it was his fault without a doubt. Entirely his fault. His curiosity was to blame, and he was cursing himself for being so curious. That was a default that always led him head first into troubles. Now was another demonstration of this statement. He was quietly traveling through the Vortex wondering where to stop and reading a very fascinating book about a wolf named Bad Wolf just hours ago. The book was telling the whole story behind the legend – because the Bad Wolf had never existed, it was just legends based on hearsay from people who’d gotten lost in the forest and heard the cry of a wolf – and the testimonies of some people had been written down to feed the legends. One of them had caught the Doctor’s attention though – the others were just making him laugh – and had gotten him really curious to know if it was real or not. The tale was from a certain Donat, an old French guy who had been hunting the Bad Wolf in that exact same forest around the eighteenth century. He had been walking through that labyrinth of trees, and wild vegetation and had found something quite interesting while he was tracking the wolf: a small wooden house where was living a young woman around twenty years old. His tale was saying that the girl looked scared when he had found her. He had asked her to come with him, to trust him because he wouldn’t hurt her and would just bring her to the real world, but soon as she had grabbed his hand to run away with him, the Wolf had appeared and attacked him. Donat had to run away alone, and pretty badly wounded. His story was ending on words that definitely caught the Doctor’s attention: “I remember the wolf’s golden eyes glowing in the dark, and when I looked back at the girl, she was having that hint of the wolf in her eyes. Her look was piercing through me and I could see the wolf howling in her soul, and the laws of Time itself seemed to flow in the golden river of her veins.” Something definitely interesting for the Time Lord the Doctor was. A drawing had been added next to the page of the story. It was representing the girl of the woods, standing in that wooden house, in a simple nightgown dress from the eighteenth century. Her hands were pressed on her heart, and the silhouette of a wolf was drawn into her eyes. Golden eyes and the dark silhouette of a real wolf was drawn behind her. The Doctor had to see it by himself so he had entered the coordinates of the time and location of that wooden house just like it was said in the tale, but as usual, the TARDIS hadn’t taken him to the right place – it was the right time though – and instead of facing the girl, he had been facing the Wolf. He just had had the time to observe it for a few seconds before his life was threatened. The Wolf was nothing like the drawing. It was much more beautiful, and much more impressive. The Wolf was sat in the middle of a small clearing, illuminated by the light of the moon. Its muzzle was raised to the night sky and it was howling at the moon. Its voice was deep and melodious, and the Doctor had had the feeling that it was speaking straight to his soul. A shiver ran down his spine as he observed the slightly golden fur of the Wolf. It was so beautiful. He had seen a lot of things in his life, but never something as beautiful as that Wolf howling at the moon, howling a song that almost moved him to tears. He had been so amazed by that sight that he hadn’t noticed the Wolf had stopped howling. He hadn’t noticed that it was looking at him. That was the growl who had drawn him out of his amazed condition. As beautiful as the Wolf is, it was also particularly dangerous and it was now threatening him. And that was why the Doctor was running faster than ever, the Wolf on his heels. But suddenly, nothing anymore. No sound, no paws hitting the ground being him. Just the deathly silence of the forest. The only noise coming to the Doctor’s ears were his own heartbeats and breath. He stopped and looked around him. Nothing and no one around. His Time Lords senses were all on alert though. Something was coming, something incredibly strong and dangerous. Something he couldn’t face alone. He better go back to the TARDIS and get the hell out of here. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, using his senses to find his box. It was miles and miles away from his position. He cursed and started walking back in the direction of his hub. He felt observed and looked around to see who was there, but there was no one. He felt a shiver running down his spine when his eyes caught the golden eyes observing him. Right before the Wolf jumped out of the bush he was hiding in. The Doctor took no time to think and started running again to save himself from the terrible fate that was awaiting him if the Wolf managed to catch him, but everything was going wrong. While running, he tripped over a root on the surface and brutally fell to the ground. He tried to catch something to stop his fall but his body was hurtling down a steep slope, causing him to curse even more in his natural language. His fall ended in a small stream of cold water. He got out of it quickly and sat on the muddy bank. “I was expecting you, my Doctor.” The Doctor quickly looked up at the voice speaking to him. The girl from the book was standing there, next to him, in the same outfit shown in the drawing, and the Doctor knew just by looking into her eyes he knew that Donat was right. The laws of Time were flowing in her veins. The girl wasn’t related to Time, she was Time itself. She held a hand out to him but he didn’t take it, too amazed by her sudden appearance, by the beauty of this girl with blonde hair, pink cheeks and a hint of golden in her brown eyes. “So, the legend was true. The Wolf is holding a young girl as a hostage,” he simply said. And in answer to his statement, she just laughed. Just like her voice, her laugh sounded melodious, as melodious as the howling of the Wolf earlier. He realised how much he liked it, and how much he would like to hear it again. As strange as it sounds. “Who says I’m a hostage of the Wolf?” “The book I was reading.” He finally caught her hand and she helped him up. As soon as their skin touched, something awoke in him and his Time Lord senses turned themselves off. There was no threat anymore. “What is that book saying?” “It was telling the legend of a girl living under the threat of a wolf called Bad Wolf in a forest of the eighteenth century. I got pretty curious to see if this was right.” “Is there more to that legend?” “It says that the girl can’t escape. No matter how many times she tried, the Wolf always found her, and brought her back here.” “That’s quite an interesting story, but it’s not exactly true.” She was still holding his hand and was showing no sign of letting it go. He wouldn’t run away though. He couldn’t. It was as if his body had taken root in the muddy ground for him to stay around the girl. Or was she the one forcing him to stay so still? “So, what’s the real story?” “I can see in your mind, my Doctor. You’ve already answered that question. At least, partially.” “You are Time itself.” “True.” “And the Wolf is your keeper.” “Also true.” She smiled at him. A soft smile. A smile a mother would give to a kid she was proud of. In a way, the Doctor was a child of Time, and right now, Time itself was proud of him for a reason he didn’t even know. “The book doesn’t exist. Neither is the story. I created them to draw your attention to me. The Wolf had the mission to bring you to me. This is why your TARDIS landed close to it, instead of me.” “Why?” She smiled at him once again, and her free hand went to cup his cheek. The contact was warm and he leaned on it. He had never realised how much he needed comfort. “You’ve done terrible things to keep me safe from the War, my Doctor, and you’ll keep on protecting me all your life.” She was still calling him ‘my Doctor’ and inside down, he liked it. He belonged to the Time. It was his mother, and for her, he had been fighting in a war that took all his strengths and hopes and people away. A war that let him alone in the universes. Alone with the high responsibility of healing the wounds in Time and Space and keeping everyone’s safe. He had made that promise when he took his name, and he was still respecting that promise. “But now is the time for you to start forgiving yourself for what has happened.” “But I can’t.” “Not on your own, I know.” “I’ve got no one else. I’m on my own. Forever. I’ve killed everyone.” “Time Lords never really cared about you, my Doctor.” “That wasn’t a reason to exterminate them all.” “They would never have helped you if you’ve just exterminated the Daleks.” “I would’ve been a hero.” “But that’s not what you want.” “I don’t know what I want.” “Not yet, but you’ll know soon enough.” She lightly stroked his cheekbone and he closed his eyes, leaning a bit more in her comforting touch. He shouldn’t let himself go into Her touch. He was nothing next to her, and yet, she had chosen him. Among the very large number of people who were living around since the beginning of Time, she had chosen to show herself to him. “Your mind is a full mess of guilt and self-hatred and solitude, my Doctor, but there’s one person, one shining person, who’s gonna help you through this. One loving person who’s gonna change your hearts and mind.” She let go of his hand and placed her over his hearts. “She’s gonna make you better.” “Who?” “You already know who.” Another smile to him. He opened his eyes and looked into her brown golden eyes. A warm look that almost make him forget about all those negative feelings about himself. A ‘she’. The person who was supposed to help him was a woman. And thinking about it, the Time had taken a form vaguely familiar to him. “The War is not over yet, my Doctor, but the path to forgiveness and light is right in front of you now. This is my gift to you. Just give it a chance.” “How can I?” “We will meet again very soon and when that day will come, the weight in your chest will be less heavy.” The Wolf joined them and sat next to the girl, observing them. It didn’t look so threatening now. The Doctor could swear he heard the Wolf laugh lightly in the back of his mind, as if all of this had just been a game. The Wolf had never intended to harm him in any way. Its only mission had been to lead him there, but it had wanted to have some fun. Much to the Doctor’s displeasure. “Now is the time to wake up, my Doctor.” The girl softly kissed his forehead and his eyes fluttered shut. He fell himself fall into a black hole and expected to hit the muddy ground but, instead, he woke up with a sudden start. He looked around him. He was in the TARDIS. He had fallen asleep on the pilot seat and the book he was reading had slid to the ground, but someone had picked it up. He looked up and his eyes fell on the blonde girl who had accepted to come with him just minutes earlier. She had covered him with a blanket and was holding the book against her chest. She realised that he was awake and blushed lightly. “I-I’m sorry. You fell asleep so…” “It’s okay. Happens to the best.” He looked at the book. A Gallifreyan book he didn’t even remember picking him in the library. The girl of the dream was right. The book – Howling of the Wolf – had never existed. It was just a fake thing from his mind. The Doctor rubbed his eyes. The dream was a blur now, but certain details were stuck in his mind, like the disturbing resemblance between the personalisation of Time and Rose Tyler, his new companion. Maybe there was more than a sign to interpret there. “Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me: where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time? What it’s going to be?” “Forwards.” The Doctor grinned at her, got on his feet and left the blanket on the pilot seat. He pressed a few buttons on the console, programming a new trip through time and space. A new adventure was going to start, and this time, he wouldn’t be alone to live it. He would have the chance to share it with someone, someone who could change his life forever.

Chronicles of a better man © | 2016 - 2018 | Tous droits réservés.

×××

In the next shot:

Her loss was hurting him much more than any other death that had occurred on that terrible day. One of the reasons was because of his guilt. He had left her on Gallifrey and just left with the Moment. He had destroyed them all, Daleks and Time Lords. He had exterminated his wife, his other half, and her absence was a pain he couldn’t handle. He remembered that, at first, he hadn’t been very happy to be forced to be paired with a Time Lady he barely knew, but as time passed by, he had realised that she was just like him, just as adventurous and crazy as him and they had decided to take another step into their relationship and to complete the ultimate bound, a bound that would forever exist between the two of them, allowing them to always sense each other, to have a full access to their minds without the need of creating a physical connection, to feel each other emotions at any time.

×××

Buy me a coffee?

[genesiselijah-blog1]

The Story Of  The ‘I Ain’t Even Charging Bruv 2′ EP. How Everything Went Wrong. . .

Ok. It's Friday night (Or it was when I originally posted this on facebook) and if you're reading this you're either home and bored out out and bored. I'm gonna tell you a story. A story of when I really realised that the music game is not about talent or quality of music. Ok so you ready? I'll take that as a yes. It all started in 2012. Early 2012. I was at a high point musically. Painkillers & Pilkington (https://genesiselijah.bandcamp.com/a…/painkillers-pilkington) had just dropped and had done really well. Radio 1 play. Psalms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrYMQ0Cf98) was my highest viewed video at the time. Life was good. So now it was time to drop new music. This time I was gonna go all out. Heres what happed. . .

So my idea was to drop an EP so good people would really notice. First I'd have to have it hosted on a big platform. At the time SBTV were killing it and I'd just done a warm up session that summer so Jamal was cool with that idea. . .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYN_JdsLwaM

Track 1: Underground King. My goal was to drop 7 of the best tracks I'd ever done with the biggest artist I could get at the time and really make some lasting music that would push me to that next level. So the first track was a track called 'Underground King'. This track was actually written in Brighton a few weeks before the first Boom Bap Festival. I was up there shooting a video for another artist and all though I was aware that the festival was happening I wasn't really aware who was on the line up. All I knew was I wasn't. As I was going around Brighton I saw one of the flyers and saw the names that were on it. I got pissed. How the fuck can you have a uk hip-hop event like that and not invite me?? I went off on twitter. You know how I do. I think either Dike or Gizmo inboxed and told me to chill but I was too far gone. Then I reached for pad (Yeah I was still writing bars at that time). I had to remind people who I was. So this happened. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-s2BHEeN3Y

Track 2: What I'm On. This was a track I did with Boris Berlin. We had previously done an EP (https://genesiselijah-beezwax.bandcamp.com/.../civil-unrest) together and as far as modern sounding beats in UK hip-hop he was way ahead of his time. I wanted something that would really bang and this beat had that feel. The flow is fire. The hook is big. I love it. We filmed the video at English Frank's Hip-Hop Ain't Dead night and had a bunch of cameos. I loved this vid cos it really gives you the vibe of the night. Unfortunately SBTV but a Mic Righteous Xmas advert before it which is just fucking annoying (Sorry Mic I still love you bro haha) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g3W-zmjoJM

Track 3: Alive. Ok so now we're getting serious. So I had this beat from the amazing Anton Nutty P Flanders. First of all I have so much love for Nutty P. Not just because he's top 3 producers in the country but for some reason he's always been up for giving me beats that he could have sold for thousands to bigger artist. I'm so grateful to even be one that guys radar. Anyway so yeah I have this beat. It's fucking hard as fuck. Now a little while before I'd built up a really good relationship with an MC called Context. I'd jumped on a bunch of his tracks and then he'd got signed and whatever and was doing really well. I asked him to drop a verse and his brother Well Read to jump on the hook. I wrote the hook with his brother voice in mind. I really wanted a crossover record. Like a pop/dubstep/grime rap track. Once it was done I knew it was gonna be a smash. It just sounded so radio ready. Anyway all it needed was a video. I hollered at Context to do the vid but he wanted to rewrite his verse. . .WAIT WHAT??? Bro. . .the track is done. It's out. It's on the SBTV Bandcamp page! I have a camera NOT A FUCKING TIME MACHINE!!! FFS. . .I was gutted. I still love Context but I was so pissed off at the time. I felt like my chance to have a hit was dead before it even had a chance. . .But hey. Life goes on. https://genesiselijah.bandcamp.com/.../alive-feat-context...

Track 4: What We Do. Fuuuuuucking hell!!!! Ok this track is fire. First of all some how I managed to get a beat off Teeza Musič. That in itself had me so gassed! I asked Polly Yatesto jump on the hook and she came through and smashed it. The beat was just so next level and her voice on it just gave it a different feel. I loved it. Then it gets mad. So hollered at Loudmouth. he came through with fire. I mean some of the funniest punchlines. Man had me cracking up! But I also got a verse from Swiss. He is one of my idols. A So Solid legend. We all know he's nice but when e sent me the verse I was in shock. Yeah me and Loud did our thing but he killed us and every MC within a 10,000 mile radius. Fucking hell. Fucking hell. Listen to this. . .https://genesiselijah.bandcamp.com/.../what-we-do-feat...

Track 5: Coming Up. Damn. Even I forgot how sick this is. Hiram O'Connell is a PHENOMENAL producer. Like world class. He's one of the only producers I would ever do a full project. he's incredible. So hollered at 2 of my favourite MC's for this one. Pyro Rapper Barz to me is a flawless lyricist. Go check his music. Every verse. Flawless. He's one of the only rappers I would ever do a full joint project with even though he'd kill me on every verse hhahaa. But yeah he came through and killed it. So at the time Dream Mclean was about to go clear. He was signed to chase n status and as there's no way the label would have cleared the verse we had to keep it hush. That meant no video. No radio push. Again I was gutted. But this is the game. he killed that verse too. Pure flames all round. . . https://genesiselijah.bandcamp.com/.../coming-up-feat..

Track 6. Army. This was another mad one. Ok so this was produced by Sibling who is Little Donatella's (Love & Hip-Hop Hollywood) brother. For some reason they have always shown me love. He was another producer that has worked with some massive artist but chooses to work with me and always goes out of his way to tailor make beats for me. It's not like "yo I got these beats" it like "Yo I've made this track with you in mind and think you should come at it like this". I got so much love for him. Any way he hits me up with a concept. I love it. He then gives me a hook! He smashed it. I was blown away. I remember Emmy Williamson telling how much this song meant to her. It made this song mean so much more to me and one of the reasons I had to put her on my album 2 years later. But yeah I went hard on this one. . .https://genesiselijah.bandcamp.com/.../army-feat-sibling...

Track 7: Yuck. There was no way I was gonna put out an EP without a Dead Man Walkn beat. These might be two of my best verses. I went hard. I went over hard. I went so hard that one time I performed this in a club full of metal heads and they went so crazy we couldn't even finish the song. The beat is. . .Yuck. It's just nasty. The bars. . .Nasty. I don't even know what more I can say. As for the video. I was so much fun making it. It's very disturbing also. . .You'll love it. Well actually that's not true. No one really did love it. Today it has only 6652 views. And what makes that sadder is that the video dropped almost a year before the EP hahaa. Fucking brutal. Again. That's life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9y8AvyqbyA

So there you have it. A project that I put so much blood sweat and tears into that pretty much just got ignored but everyone apart from the SBTV staff and my core supporters. Someone tweeted me yesterday and said "Your bars have got so much harder" If we had been face to face I would have laughed straight in to his. My verses on this project and all the ones before it were so fucking hard. I dropped so much knowledge and insight and did it with so many patterns, multis and punchlines it would give your average baggy jean backpacker a chubby just in the first 2 bars. But it was never really appreciated. To date it has only been downloaded from my band came 344 times. I'm not sure what it did on the SBTV Bandcamp but I'm guessing way less. To put that in to perspective How To Loose Friends And Alienate Listeners is on 857 and has only been out for 3 months. I'm sure there's a moral to this story but for the life of me I can't find it. But yeah. Support the music you love and the person who makes it will make more of it. . .Have a great weekend. 5AM In Wakanda is out now. . .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x16oAp8-WF4

GE

[arthur36domingo]

11 Tips to Clean Up Your Dirty, Wordy Writing

Get out the pruning shears: a big part of good writing is good editing. And a surefire way to give your writing a confidence boost is to eliminate words that weigh down your writing and make you sound uncertain.

We call these weasel words. Like weasels, they’re not necessarily bad on their own. In fact, they’re kind of cute. But weasels are known for escaping situations (ever heard of someone “weaseling out” of something?). Plus, if you’re a rabbit, they’re deadly.

Weasel words won’t kill you (or rabbits). But you’ll still be safer if you avoid them. So give your writing a confidence boost with these tips for cleaning up your writing.

Get rid of these dirty habits

1 Weasel words Specifically, weasel words are qualifiers that might make you sound sort of like you’re not sure of yourself. Or maybe like you’re trying to create a little wiggle room. For example:

Like

Sort of, kind of

Maybe, perhaps

Might, can

Let’s try that again. Weasel words are qualifiers that make you sound unsure of yourself, like you’re trying to create wiggle room.

Don’t get us wrong: in some cases, you need these words. But if you want to convey an idea or make an argument, remove words that make your readers think of slimy politicians trying to avoid stating something directly. Maybe it can make a difference.

No, really: it makes a difference.

2 Adverbs Like weasel words, adverbs aren’t evil on their own. They’re like seasoning: a little goes a long way. Who wants pasta with more pepper on it than cheese?

Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

We’re not going to bring devils and brimstone into the picture, but we do strongly recommend that you seriously think about taking out the adverbs, unless you actually need to significantly modify an idea.

Oh look, it happened again. Here’s that sentence without the padding: we recommend taking out the adverbs unless you need to modify an idea. Stronger, right?

Here are some of the most common do-nothings in the adverb world:

Actually

Basically

Currently

Presently

Really

Suddenly

Very

Seriously

When you catch yourself using one of those words, read the sentence to yourself without it. If it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence in a significant way, axe it.

3 “There is” and “there are”

There is nothing more boring than a sentence that starts with “there is.” In other words, sentences that start with “there is” are boring. In other words, write interesting sentences. Constructions that start with words like “it,” “here,” or “there,” followed by a form of the verb “to be” fall into the category of empty filler words.

Instead, try to start with yourself or a subject—or better yet, a verb—to focus on the action and the idea. After all, there are so many interesting writing styles out there. Er, that is, emulate interesting writing styles to keep your prose powerful.

Replace these signs of weakness

1 Excessive Punctuation

Sure: sometimes a colon, semicolon, or other fancy punctuation—dashes, for example—can help you get a point across; it’s elegant and convincing.

But often, shorter sentences are better. If your writing feels weighed down by long sentences crammed with lots of punctuation, try taking out some of the extras in favor of sentences that are short and sweet.

2 Too many negatives

Yes, that goes for your mood, but it also goes for your writing. If you’re finding lots of instances of “shouldn’t,” “can’t,” “don’t,” and other variations of “not” in your writing, try to diversify by picking a verb that doesn’t require the word “not.”

For example:

You shouldn’t use negatives in your writing.

Vs.

Use positive words in your writing.

Now there’s a boost to your writing style and your mood.

3 Excessively fancy words

Fancy words are fun. They make us feel smart. They remind us that we took the SAT, and despite the tribulations of the egregious experience, passed with equanimity and aplomb.

It’s a bit much. Sure, a 50-cent word here and there can help you convey ideas precisely—for example, “with equanimity” is a lot more specific than “doing a good job and staying calm.” But don’t just toss in the big guys to make yourself sound smart. Your writing will be clearer and more powerful if you use them sparingly. After all, you can have too much of a good thing.

4 The word “thing”

Really, just destroy that thing.

Pretty much every time you use the word “thing,” you could pick another word that is more specific and precise.

Take these examples:

I’m trying to strengthen my writing with things that sound better to an audience.

Vs.

I’m trying to strengthen my writing by gearing my style toward a target audience.

See? Rewriting can be a powerful thing.

Follow these key rules

1 Make verbs stronger

In other words, strengthen your verbs. That just about covers it.

2 Think about icebergs

You know, the tip of the iceberg. It’s an idiom that means a small or visible part of a much bigger issue, and it’s how Ernest Hemingway thought about writing as a whole. Here’s the idea in his words:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg [sic] is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

The metaphor: the dignity of writing is also due to slashing what you want to say down to what you need to say. Maybe one-eighth sounds extreme, but even if you have a different fraction, the rule stands: show, don’t tell, and if you’re showing, show it in a shorter way. Whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, or something that defies definition, it’s a good rule of thumb.

3 Listen to George Orwell

In an essay called “Politics and the English Language,” he defined six rules of writing. If they worked for the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, they may just work for you. Here they are now:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

There you have it: keep your writing simple, brief, active, free of clichés, and to the point.

But Orwell gives you a little bit of leeway: if something sounds “outright barbarous” (in simpler terms more in line with his own rules: brutal, uncivilized, or bad), you might just have permission to break these rules. Which leads us to our final guideline:

4 Use your own best judgment

These rules will help you maintain clean, clear prose that argues, convinces, or portrays efficiently and powerfully. But there are always exceptions: sometimes a grandiloquent word best serves your purposes, or the word “thing” really comes in handy. You don’t have to treat these rules like a religion, but if you keep them in mind when you’re polishing your writing, you’re likely to have a more powerful product. Even the weasels can’t argue with that.

The post 11 Tips to Clean Up Your Dirty, Wordy Writing appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/clean-up-your-writing/

[ber39james]

11 Tips to Clean Up Your Dirty, Wordy Writing

Get out the pruning shears: a big part of good writing is good editing. And a surefire way to give your writing a confidence boost is to eliminate words that weigh down your writing and make you sound uncertain.

We call these weasel words. Like weasels, they’re not necessarily bad on their own. In fact, they’re kind of cute. But weasels are known for escaping situations (ever heard of someone “weaseling out” of something?). Plus, if you’re a rabbit, they’re deadly.

Weasel words won’t kill you (or rabbits). But you’ll still be safer if you avoid them. So give your writing a confidence boost with these tips for cleaning up your writing.

Get rid of these dirty habits

1 Weasel words Specifically, weasel words are qualifiers that might make you sound sort of like you’re not sure of yourself. Or maybe like you’re trying to create a little wiggle room. For example:

Like

Sort of, kind of

Maybe, perhaps

Might, can

Let’s try that again. Weasel words are qualifiers that make you sound unsure of yourself, like you’re trying to create wiggle room.

Don’t get us wrong: in some cases, you need these words. But if you want to convey an idea or make an argument, remove words that make your readers think of slimy politicians trying to avoid stating something directly. Maybe it can make a difference.

No, really: it makes a difference.

2 Adverbs Like weasel words, adverbs aren’t evil on their own. They’re like seasoning: a little goes a long way. Who wants pasta with more pepper on it than cheese?

Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

We’re not going to bring devils and brimstone into the picture, but we do strongly recommend that you seriously think about taking out the adverbs, unless you actually need to significantly modify an idea.

Oh look, it happened again. Here’s that sentence without the padding: we recommend taking out the adverbs unless you need to modify an idea. Stronger, right?

Here are some of the most common do-nothings in the adverb world:

Actually

Basically

Currently

Presently

Really

Suddenly

Very

Seriously

When you catch yourself using one of those words, read the sentence to yourself without it. If it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence in a significant way, axe it.

3 “There is” and “there are”

There is nothing more boring than a sentence that starts with “there is.” In other words, sentences that start with “there is” are boring. In other words, write interesting sentences. Constructions that start with words like “it,” “here,” or “there,” followed by a form of the verb “to be” fall into the category of empty filler words.

Instead, try to start with yourself or a subject—or better yet, a verb—to focus on the action and the idea. After all, there are so many interesting writing styles out there. Er, that is, emulate interesting writing styles to keep your prose powerful.

Replace these signs of weakness

1 Excessive Punctuation

Sure: sometimes a colon, semicolon, or other fancy punctuation—dashes, for example—can help you get a point across; it’s elegant and convincing.

But often, shorter sentences are better. If your writing feels weighed down by long sentences crammed with lots of punctuation, try taking out some of the extras in favor of sentences that are short and sweet.

2 Too many negatives

Yes, that goes for your mood, but it also goes for your writing. If you’re finding lots of instances of “shouldn’t,” “can’t,” “don’t,” and other variations of “not” in your writing, try to diversify by picking a verb that doesn’t require the word “not.”

For example:

You shouldn’t use negatives in your writing.

Vs.

Use positive words in your writing.

Now there’s a boost to your writing style and your mood.

3 Excessively fancy words

Fancy words are fun. They make us feel smart. They remind us that we took the SAT, and despite the tribulations of the egregious experience, passed with equanimity and aplomb.

It’s a bit much. Sure, a 50-cent word here and there can help you convey ideas precisely—for example, “with equanimity” is a lot more specific than “doing a good job and staying calm.” But don’t just toss in the big guys to make yourself sound smart. Your writing will be clearer and more powerful if you use them sparingly. After all, you can have too much of a good thing.

4 The word “thing”

Really, just destroy that thing.

Pretty much every time you use the word “thing,” you could pick another word that is more specific and precise.

Take these examples:

I’m trying to strengthen my writing with things that sound better to an audience.

Vs.

I’m trying to strengthen my writing by gearing my style toward a target audience.

See? Rewriting can be a powerful thing.

Follow these key rules

1 Make verbs stronger

In other words, strengthen your verbs. That just about covers it.

2 Think about icebergs

You know, the tip of the iceberg. It’s an idiom that means a small or visible part of a much bigger issue, and it’s how Ernest Hemingway thought about writing as a whole. Here’s the idea in his words:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg [sic] is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

The metaphor: the dignity of writing is also due to slashing what you want to say down to what you need to say. Maybe one-eighth sounds extreme, but even if you have a different fraction, the rule stands: show, don’t tell, and if you’re showing, show it in a shorter way. Whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, or something that defies definition, it’s a good rule of thumb.

3 Listen to George Orwell

In an essay called “Politics and the English Language,” he defined six rules of writing. If they worked for the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, they may just work for you. Here they are now:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

There you have it: keep your writing simple, brief, active, free of clichés, and to the point.

But Orwell gives you a little bit of leeway: if something sounds “outright barbarous” (in simpler terms more in line with his own rules: brutal, uncivilized, or bad), you might just have permission to break these rules. Which leads us to our final guideline:

4 Use your own best judgment

These rules will help you maintain clean, clear prose that argues, convinces, or portrays efficiently and powerfully. But there are always exceptions: sometimes a grandiloquent word best serves your purposes, or the word “thing” really comes in handy. You don’t have to treat these rules like a religion, but if you keep them in mind when you’re polishing your writing, you’re likely to have a more powerful product. Even the weasels can’t argue with that.

The post 11 Tips to Clean Up Your Dirty, Wordy Writing appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/clean-up-your-writing/