Kittens and Murder

Hi everyone!! Here’s an excerpt from a new WIP that I’m working on called the Clock Creatures (TCC). I’m not going to tell you anything about it just yet, as I want this passage to speak for itself — but I really hope you enjoy it!!

(Also thank you so so much to @jess—writes, @mizzyplatinum, and @aurikhai for proofreading this for me! <33)

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“You get used to it.” The dark-haired boy crouches down next to me, speaking in a way that suggests he has to do this a lot.

He’s a liar. I’ll never get used to it — he knows that. But he’s telling me I will, like it’s clear he’s told so many people. I can tell by his expression: it’s stale. His smile is a little too sincere. His words hit me just like it does, though not, perhaps, as loud.

The noise I can deal with. But the constant rattling of the room, the shaking of my soul — that’s something different. I can’t quite remember pain, but I am certain that this hurts.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

It’s like my pulse has left my body. It roars in my ears as if it’s grown stronger, escaped me. As if it’s seeking its revenge. Every second, the world convulses. Every second, I can hear it scream. I’ve never experienced an earthquake, but I imagine that it feels like this.

My knuckles try to grip the floor, but they fail and scrape against it. My ears try to focus on that, instead — to the tearing of skin. To the flow of blood. No chance. There’s only the pounding of my heart that now surrounds me: the repugnant shaking of my world that will not cease. Every second, without fail, I fall.

I’m sat on the floor with my head bowed and my knees drawn to my chest. I think — at the very least — that some centuries have passed. I have no shoes. My feet are cold, so I sit on them, curled up against the chilly, wooden floor.

I would shiver, I think, if I could remember how.

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Thank you so much for reading!! Please consider reblogging or leaving a comment if you enjoyed it :))

TAG LISTS UNDER THE CUT

1. You are responsible for your own media experience. 

2. There is such a thing as a healthy level of avoidance towards topics that make you feel unwell or even (in a real-life clinical definition of the term) trigger you - but you are the one to actively take care of what you view.

3. Avoiding does not mean policing others.

4. You have no right to tell artists to censor themselves - you may criticize what others do, you may dislike it, that’s fine - but actively asking for censorship when you could easily unfollow or block a person just makes you look incompetent in your use of the internet.

Honestly, I think about this a lot sometimes. But does anyone else have a repetitive notion throughout their writings?

For me, I feel like I go the absent/dead/abusive father route fairly often. Like you, it likely stems from real life experience. My own father was not a good person and I haven’t seen him in nearly two decades (and don’t plan to see him ever again.) I’m trying to break out of that and create better and more likeable dads.

This is a given after my last habit, but nearly every family I’ve ever written has been matriarchal, with a badass mother and grandmother. (And yes, my mom and grandma are/were pretty damn epic if I do say so myself. #Mama’s Girl )

I’d like to see what habits other writers tend to fall back on, so Ima tag all of you.

@silver-wields-a-pen, @illthdar, @authorified, @cadewrites, @mvcreates, @newdivinities, @angelolytle, @clawhee-writes, @pens-swords-stuff, @lefoxwriting, @lamppostdiaries AND ANYONE ELSE WHO SEES THIS

Looking back at my earliest works, there was a focus on family dynamics. There was a certain amount of self-insertion, not gonna lie. There was a power struggle in my head in my teens; a lot of resentment, anger and feelings of parental abandonment despite having two parents at home. The result was a lot of toxic characters and situations that I’m absolutely not proud of but need to own. They helped me understand the issues and how to cancel my subscription.

The heroes of those early stories were young women, often conned or trapped into their circumstances, resorting to any and all means necessary - not to break out of the cycle, but to succeed in their roles within that social structure. The end was very bleak, no matter how you cut it. Conformity despite rebellion that turned them into monsters in their own right. Still, there was a sense of power there: the women knew what they were doing and took ownership, and accepted their fates with dignity. 

Late teens and young adult years saw the introduction of male heroes, though there was a theme with them as well. Loving and compassionate, they tended to be naive and too forgiving of toxic in their lives. The men and women of this time had the first signs of rebellion against the earlier logic. Gone were the social structures - they were the enemies in these tales - and so were the parents. A study of if characters were truly better without them. The endings were better - at least they were free - but it was a dead end further down the road.

And now? Well, that’s a work in progress. ;)

My earliest works had self-inserts due to my teenager brain and my need to not feel like a looser.That improved thank to my best friend and a giant boost of confidence from her. 

I haven’t written for almost six years before I started again this past November. But before that I did, and still do, RP and looking at my characters, I’ve got: a predominance of male characters, trauma or some sort of mental health issue. 

I am working on the first one, although I still feel like I have better control over my male characters than the female ones. The trauma/mental health stuff, I still do it and frankly, I like using it. I’ve always liked psychology, but did not pursue it in college. Which I still regret in a way. By writing about my characters’ mental health it gives me the opportunity to learn psychology on my own. I am not saying I am an autodidact in the field, but I want to go towards that. The trauma bit helped me realize some of my own fears and understand myself better so I am going to keep exploring that are as well.  

Another pattern is tight friendships which recently evolved to found families. Until high school I didn’t have close friends, or friendships that lasted for more than a couple of years. Then my now best friend appeared and we are tight knit, solid and I love that! 

I scratched the self inserts from my earliest works, though. And I started out writing fanfiction with many, many slow burns. Still do, actually. For me it’s important that whenever I insert a relationship, it needs to be built naturally, no “omg he’s hot” at first sight and then jumping to the conclusion that this must be true love. So yeah, slow burns are always recurring.

Also my cast usually is, whether in fanfic or original work, a Bunch Of Idiots. I’m drawn to a bunch of characters who appear to share one brain cell and nothing more. On that note, I always have some complicated character relationships.

And something else each and every one of my works has is a “home base”. A home which remains still standing, something where the characters can relax, can breathe in between Horrific Plot Points, develop relationships … think Normandy (Mass Effect) or the villa Auditore (Assassin’s Creed). I think that’s because I never really had a place to call home which actually felt like home, so that’s why I’m giving one to my characters. Even if it’s just a glorified cardboard box they share with their friends, they got a home.

Complicated parents, distant siblings, dynamic relationships —all that is bits and pieces from my real life, and I tend to explore it over and over.

Partly to decipher it, partly to encapture it.

But. The themes like: nature, dreams, moral, religion, mortality and the concept of fate, is more my philosopical mind taking a stroll along the pages.

I also like my characters to discover certain hidden shards within themselves, an emotion or a broken memory, and give them that falling feeling of ‘eureka’, that pushes them closer to either doom or retribution.

Lastly, I think it’s always natural for the creator to create the same piece, again and again, with different tools, in different settings.

I find myself reaching for the same words and draw the same lines —almost manically. And I think it’s an artistic quest to make our inner thoughts known in the most precise way. And we have to do it over and over, to get it right.

The journey takes difirent routes, over the mountains or below the ocean, but the final destination never truly change: do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?

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.

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I find that in my stories, I see a lot of: 

Girls who will not be told how to be girls. 

Love is love is love is love, let’s normalize all the love. 

Explorations of unhealthy vs. healthy romantic relationships. 

Many different ways of communicating between people, all of which is imbued with meaning (pace, interruptions, repetitions, body language, posture, motion, etc.) 

Coming to terms with parts of yourself you might not want to deal with, but probably should. Self-actualization is exhausting.  

monstrous/strange women

soft, gentle, kind, big men

non-verbal communication—a lot of sitting next to each other quietly, gentle comforting touches, attentive listening. basically the things i want and value in my relationships

anger! different types of anger displayed in different ways, stemming from different reasons, dealt with differently depending on the character or situation! i was a really angry kid growing up, and some of that anger feels like it never went away and just turned…frenetic, or sad. so i like to explore it. it’s part catharsis, part curiosity, part me just wanting to explore traits that seem inherently negative but don’t have to be. sometimes anger is good and healthy 

jealousy. i dont like being a jealous person but i am, and i like to explore it for the same reasons i like to explore anger. i suppose these are larger themes but they crop up in uh. almost everything i write.

no parents present/mentioned, or if they are, there’s usually only on the child is close with

at least one depressed-on-main-but-working-towards-recovery character

i have a tendency to use death to end a lot of 1st books. At least three 1st books i have planned right now end with the death of a prominent character, I’m trying to change that though haha, mix it up a bit

queer relationships and characters. I don’t see enough of them in mainstream media, and if there’s one thing I know how to write it’s an awkward & bumbling wlw (spoilers: its because I am one) so fuck yeah I’m going to include them in my wips

i also lovemorallyy grey characters, regardless of whether or not they’re considered “good” or “bad”, i love exploring motives and backstories that throw everything people have done into question

Some of the recurring elements in my stories are…

War is Hell. I had it pounded into my head at a very early age by my hippie father that the government was a collective of lying, mass murdering demagogues who stoke the fears of the foreign boogeyman in order to manipulate mostly well meaning men and women into selling their bodies and souls to the state, securing the military industrial complex a slew of pawns in the game of western imperialism. The few times I’ve written about war or battle I’ve always made it clear that war isn’t noble or courageous, but a dirty, soul annihilating ritual that should be avoided at all costs.

Existentialism Vs Nihilism. This can also cross over into Hope Vs Despair, Idealism Vs cynicism, or Empathy Vs Apathy. Not to come off sounding like I’ve got a tin foil hat on here, but I legitimately believe the last round of millennials, I.e. my demographic, for the most part became addicted to apathy and cynicism due to many factors, but seeing how this is a discussion about writing I’ll stick to examining the media me and others grew up on. We’re what you’d call the “South Park Generation,” who grew up on media that taught us that nothing matters, everyone is stupid for caring, and the only logical thing to do is to look out for yourself, which usually meant indulging any dark desire you had, others be damned.

Here’s the thing, I’m a firm believer in life’s inharent meaningless. I personally think the notion that there’s a built in plan for us and this chaotic shit show we call reality to be laughable at best, and it’s because of that I feel we, as thinking, feeling agents, have absolutely NO RIGHT to stand by and be apathetic. We should all give our lives the meaning we personally want them to have, and go out of our way to be kind and love each other BECAUSE the universe isn’t kind to us. Full offense, I see cynicism and apathy as a cowards way out of a bad situation, and it’s this battle that’s a central theme of most of my storytelling. This trope is something I know for certain I can trace back to a lot of dark shit that’s happened in my past.

Female Heroes. As far as I can remember I’ve tended to write predominantly female centric stories. The majority of my main characters I’ve created over the years are women who’s story arcs aren’t linked to men or sexual trauma, who aren’t perfect saints but also aren’t mean spirited automatons who superficially play the progressive game while predominantly acting as thinly veiled male centric fantasies.

Balls to the wall Villains. I absolutely refuse to write villains who won’t make you question your life choices, morality, and in some cases the nature of reality itself. Give me bad guys who said fuck all to the “tragic backstory” thing and are just fundamentally skewed in their thinking and not realize it, Give me a villainous who isn’t a “femme fetale” but a Baroness who likes to cut people in half with a giant claymore she calls “The Fucker.” Give me Demon Kings who aren’t just “Lucifer Expy #234,789,897,” but a complex being who has surprisingly “human” motivations for their actions that isn’t “God’s muh daddy an I hate him 👿”

Erebus brand humor. Over the years I’ve developed a sense of humor that almost always makes its way into my stories in some form no matter how dark it is. The best way I can describe it is “Terry Pratchet meets The Coen Brothers.” My protagonists hardly take themselves seriously, and those who think they’re the antihero in a generic gritty fantasy book ultimately get knocked on their ass until they learn to lighten up.

Strong Woman raises/mentors Kid. Only recently have I realized that I’m fond of recycling the notion of an older, wiser woman either raising or mentoring a younger person or child. Be it a big sister trying to steer her brother in the right direction while dealing with her own faults, an amoral Demon debt collector adopting an orphan as her “pup,” or the conflicted Lawyer of a vampiric art dealer who would kill for her stepson.

The End of the Fucking World. I don’t know if it’s due to playing Majora’s Mask and watching Neon Genesis Evangelion at a very sensitive time in my life, but ever since i started writing over a decade ago one core concept I’ve always come back to eventually was that of the apocalypse. I’m quite fond of having the end of the world or the threat of such an event act as a backdrop for many stories.

God. I’m blaming Evangelion again for this one, but I have some pretty strong opinions about the nature of reality and how a supreme “God” or something comparable too it would logically behave or act. The nature of reality and it’s hypothetical ultimate creator(s) has been a topic I’ve been fascinated in exploring since early on in my writing journey.

Swords & Swordplay. I’ll use any excuse I can get to shoehorn in a bladed weapon of some kind. Not Sorry

[There was a tag game going around a while ago about “How to Tell You’re in A(n) ___ Novel” that was a fun and eye-opening venture, too.]

I actually had to do this as an assignment in one of my workshops. We had to write up a page of questions that we’d hypothetically ask ourselves about our writing. Really made all of us think about what we do and why we do it.

[So I went back and looked this over when I was done and realized it turned into a deep dive into my writing brain, so I’m leaving it as-is because I think it can be kinda interesting to see how a writer’s brain works in relation to other aspects of their life. Enjoy my rambles, y’all.]

I’ve always written about lonely people. Always. Probably because I was a kid whose brain worked too fast for the rest of everything to keep up (thanks anxiety, you’ve been a real pal all these years). Or because I was bullied. Whatever, I’m a bit of a literary formalist, none of this is exactly necessary. But my lonely people never used to be freed from that loneliness. They were brought under the light, examined, explored, and then passed over before they could get their happy ending, if there was one for them. I have since changed my methods and, while I still write about lonely people, I am no longer a young edgelord who thinks that literary fiction needs to be sadness and despair. Now, my lonely people get the endings they deserve and are happy. And I write more fantasy elements because they’re fun.

I hate writing dialogue. No, scratch that, I don’t hate it. I’m afraid of it. The question I asked my hypothetical self for that assignment is as follows: “What is a writer’s greatest fear? Not being believed? Or being believed too much?” This was right after I asked about what’s so scary about dialogue, but I think I hit the nail on the head. I have this thing about dialogue not because it’s hard (because it is), but because I have this irrational fear that my characters won’t be believed as people. 

I do see some patterns in my writing, but not as bold as some of the patterns mentioned before. 

Names are usually a big deal in my stories. I grew up with a unique name (to say the least), and most of my characters seem to have a weird relationship with their names. 

I use first person POV always - I just can’t seem to write something in the second or third person. I guess it’s because I really need to be in control of what my characters and readers know. 

Good relationships with parents are a must. My parents and I (luckily) have an incredible relationship, and it’s a bit difficult for me to write about characters with bad relationships with their parents. 

Usually, some sort of body insecurity, mainly because it’s a thing I struggled with most of my life. 

I don’t think I insert myself, at least not as a whole character. I do sprinkle my personality over my characters in a (hopefully) subtle way. 

Really Flawed Protagonists: Pretty much every story I’ve written has a main character who has a number of traits that veer into the moral grey. My current protagonist is insecure, self-destructive, increasingly desensitized to violence. A prior one was incredibly cowardly. Another was really bitter about her lot in life and lacked sympathy for bad things that happened to other people.

Depression: Probably because I’m depressed, but I often have at least one major character who has a great deal of sadness and melancholy about their life. They sort of veer between being protagonists and villains, depending on the work, though their depression inevitably influences their actions in the story.

Villains Outclassing Heroes: Pretty much everything I’ve written has villains who are way stronger than the heroes they are fighting. Whether it be wealth or intellect, or just sheet unbeatable strength. I like the idea of heroes having to work for their victory, rather than them being on level with their antagonists. Consequently, a lot of fights are won by heroes outsmarting more powerful enemies, or having some furious fight for their life that they barely win by exploiting a weakness (e.g, unbalancing a massive demon enough that it falls onto a spiked fence).

Listed below are a few things I do to make myself write (and enjoy it). this is how I wrote 15k words in a week and a half:

Sprints: sprints are basically a fun way to write a lot in a very short time. You set your timer for a short period of time you’d like to write (I like 10-15 minutes) and just write as much as possible for that amount of time. I also like to see my progress, I sometimes write 500 words, sometimes 100 words, it’s a great way to get to know your writing habits.

Compitition: I like doing the sprints with other people, this way I know how fast other people work. I’m a very competitive person, so if someone wrote more than me, I’ll keep writing until I’ll reach them. You can do that with sprints, or with friends (seeing who will reach a certain goal first)

Hints: this is kinda weird, but I do it constantly. I have little “hints” of my project laid all over my house. Little drawings of my ocs, my own quotes, the name of my novel. For example, my bio on Instagram is a quote from my novel; no one knows but me. It’s a small reminder that of your project everywhere you go. 

Force: force yourself to write for a while. make yourself write, and you’ll be so invested in your own little world to stop. I’ve done this many times, and ended up writing 2,000 words a day. It really reminds you of why you started writing. 

Imagination: I constantly imagine my novel (you know, the product). I can imagine exactly how the front would look, I can imagine my friends and family reading it, I can imagine myself signing it, I can imagine people on Tumblr writing about it. It’s your imagination, be wild, dream about your novel! This is SUPER MOTIVATING.