With sparkles in your eyes

You have to make stuff up before you can write about it, and that mostly involves inhabiting the spaces and minds of the places and people you’re writing about. Most of that won’t ever appear on the page. Tolkien’s case is different in a couple of ways. Firstly, the sheer extent of the world he’s imagining. (Of course the book takes years to write! He’s making up the history of Númenor and Gondor from thin air!) Secondly, we have unusual access to his world-building materials in the Appendices, which makes the book feel even more fully formed and authoritative. We also have unusual access to his creative process in HoMe. It’s fucking incredible watching Númenor get invented. People joke that Tolkien didn’t finish things, and use his Númenorean time travel story as an example (Lewis publishes the reciprocal three book space travel stories). But that material IS published in a deeply meaningful way. It’s the whole texture that supplies the unique depth and believability of The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes people joke, “Oh, Tolkien barely published!” Yes, but he published The Lord of the fucking Rings. And an essay that revolutionised the study of Beowulf. I’d take that.

This quote also by necessity downplays the rewriting process of LotR which of course was years of painstaking craft and revision, and is its own story. But, yes, of course these things didn’t exist! He had to make them up! So if in doubt, go away and lie in the hammock or on the bed and gaze into nothing and really think about what the world of your story is like and how it feels and what it must be like to be inside the minds of the made-up people whose lives, for some bizarre reason, you want to make up. This actually is part of the work and it’s not frenetic. And there’s no real shortcut. But what is nicer? Why rush this?

"Oh I don't normally use AI, I just wanted it to plan my trip"

You lived on this planet for decades, you know what you like, there are hundreds of websites where you can type into any search engine " things to do in [area]" and have at least a hundred different options.

"Oh I only use it so I can figure out what to make during the week with what I have"

The most popular website as you type in "recipes" into google have sections where you click dinner- quick and easy and those usually rely on staples + 1 or 2 items. I found 30 recipes on chicken alone.

"I had a writing idea, so I typed a few sentences into Chat GPT and I was able to write 20 pages with it."

Remember this is a live ask event!

What that means is I will be active for the hour, hopping into ask boxes with followup questions as I am able, while encouraging you to do the same.

Answering the questions tells me you are cool with this.

You may answer all questions via reblog, reply, hopping in my askbox or even reposting. Just remember the #writeblr and #writeblr live tags if reblogging/reposting so we can find ya.

Well, the characters do try to fight it! Or at least find the cause... which is basically a god, being the Author and all (theres me. Then theres the Author, jn World, and everything that goes on in ethereality is basically the Author). The entire story is pretty much an end of the world scenario, but multiversal, because the Author was working on multiple projects that they abandoned (this is also why the different worlds have wildly different features, they're not supposed to be connected in any sense).

Remember this is a live ask event!

What that means is I will be active for the hour, hopping into ask boxes with followup questions as I am able, while encouraging you to do the same.

Answering the questions tells me you are cool with this.

You may answer all questions via reblog, reply, hopping in my askbox or even reposting. Just remember the #writeblr and #writeblr live tags if reblogging/reposting so we can find ya.

No comp titles, but if anyone has any suggestions i would love to hear it!

Favourite tropes... i am a huge sucker for trauma/injury reveals and recovery. Or anything that could stem from neglect, of others or of self. Also the specific insanity that comes from extreme social isolation/scorn/"everyone hates you" that makes the character cling to the one/few people who were kind to them like a lifeline, all while being dead scared that they'll be abandoned again. Also fighting gods/creatures much more powerful than you.

Remember this is a live ask event!

What that means is I will be active for the hour, hopping into ask boxes with followup questions as I am able, while encouraging you to do the same.

Answering the questions tells me you are cool with this.

You may answer all questions via reblog, reply, hopping in my askbox or even reposting. Just remember the #writeblr and #writeblr live tags if reblogging/reposting so we can find ya.

(for some context, griffia is a cs/arpg, so you can create, own, and/or trade characters)

The funny thing is, my griffians keep ending up disabled. I don't really plan for it, but I think about them a bit too hard and suddenly oops! You're disabled now. Ive got four gods and all four of them are blind, and one of them you could argue has ADHD or another such hyperactivity disorder but im not entirely sure if it counts considering he's literally the god of energy. Then we've got a teenage girl with chronic pain owing to having been quite literally forcefully shapeshifted in her bid to escape death, a narcoleptic young adult who's also a cryptid hunter, a mute kid, whatever the hell's going on with Abimeleech, and I'm 90% sure if I think about Ezhil for too long it will also end up with a disability of some sort. Its in my head but I can't put a word to it yet, but its arms/hands are messed up

Remember this is a live ask event!

What that means is I will be active for the hour, hopping into ask boxes with followup questions as I am able, while encouraging you to do the same.

Answering the questions tells me you are cool with this.

You may answer all questions via reblog, reply, hopping in my askbox or even reposting. Just remember the #writeblr and #writeblr live tags if reblogging/reposting so we can find ya.

We’re here to help rebuild interaction in the community, so get in there and have fun with it!

Hi! Im Duck (or Star, or Stel, or Lunix, or whatever else your imagination desires), and i enjoy slice of life, scifi, fantasy, and whump/recovery stuff (usually, slice of life whump IN a scifi-fantasy world,,,, hell yeah). I write when i have the time and energy, although I've been on a character designing kick lately...

Whumpee shaking, unable to speak clearly, curled into Caretaker's lap.

Caretaker looking around, waiting for Whumper to come back, because they know that they have to be nearby.

Whumpee trying to explain what happened, but they can't, for whatever reason that may be.

Whumpee apologizing. "I know I'm meant to be stronger than this, I know I'm meant to be better, I don't know why I can't stop crying, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"I don't want to, I don't want to, I'll be good, I'm sorry."

Whumpee not being able to move... nearly completely immobile, completely in Caretaker's hands, forced to trust that they'll be kind.

"Shh, shh... it's alright, it's just me. You're safe now."