Indigo Scribes

Hey everyone! Thank you for the ongoing support of all the branches (Indigo Scribes, Indigo School, Indigo Poets). I just wanted to brush everyone up on some news and updates, since I’m sure you all have noticed the changes. 

1. Indigo Poets launched! If you write poetry, please join @indigopoets! There are a lot of fun activities within the group, including sharing your poetry, sharing videos of you performing your poetry, interacting with other poets, and more! Go over to their blog if you have any questions.

2. Indigo School’s meetups have, unfortunately, been postponed. They were supposed to be happening at around this time of the month, but a little more organizing needs to happen before we can do it. The year is not over and we can still do some any time, but as for right now we are making no promises. 

3. We are no longer using the name “The Indigo Branch”! As you’ve noticed, we are now called On the Indigo Tree, Indigo Tree for short, OTIT for an acronym. The name-change took place for several reasons; because of those reasons, it just works better. Each group is now called a Branch. You can find us on Twitter with this name, @ontheindigotree. (Note: this organization is in its very early stages, so don’t be surprised if/when more changes occur.)

4. There is a new branch coming! I won’t give too many details about it, but all I can say is that it is the brainchild of Indigo School’s members. It won’t function exactly like the other branches will, but more like a partner of Indigo School itself. 

5. This is something that will be happening further in the future, but: we will be launching an online publication! I could say online magazine or newspaper, but I don’t want to limit your expectations of it too much. The idea is still in development stages and I don’t want to give everything away. For now, all I’ll say is that each branch and things relating to that branch will have their own section in it, plus things that won’t be featured on that branch’s Tumblr/website. It’ll be fun :)

6. Each branch is STILL looking for administrators/helpers! If you want more information about that, just go to our ask page and tell us you’re interested. 

Resource: Writing a Character with Magical Powers

So you want to write a magical character, but you can’t decide on a power, or you’re not sure of the “laws of magic” and how they apply to your specific story. There are many different magical realms in literature, each with a few different qualifications and “rules,” but when it comes to writing your own, here are some basic guides and outlines to forming your magical world, your magical character, and their powerful capabilities; 

General Advice:

Writing Realistically About Magic

How to Create a Unique Magic System For Your Book

How to Write a Character Using Supernatural Powers

Creative Uses of Magic In Your Fantasy Story

Writing Magical Powers

How to Include Magic In Your Story

About Magical and Mythical Creatures

So You Want to Write a Magical Girl Series

The Definite Rules For Writing Magic 

Sanderson’s Laws of Magic

Monsters and Magic: A Sample Character

A Guide to Writing Magic

How to Write Magic

Choosing a Power:

Tips and Ideas to Make Better More Interesting Powers

The Top 5 Magical Powers in Fantasy Fiction

Magic and Powers

List of Supernatural Powers and Magic

The 30 Coolest Superhero Powers

What Magical Ability Should My Character Have?

Today is the day that critique group requests are supposed to be open. However, I thought we’d do something different this month. We’ve been doing critique groups for the past few months,and they have been remarkably successful, but it doesn’t hurt to switch things up. 

So this month, we will be doing the book clubs!

Critique groups and book clubs are supposed to happen simultaneously, but this is our first time doing the book clubs so I thought we’d pause the groups to make sure things go smoothly. If you’re confused about what the book clubs are, go here.

The general gist: you join the book club (unlike critique groups, once you join you’re permanently part of it), you submit your book/short novel, I choose the best or my favorite book, and that book gets read by all the book club members for a month! During the month, book club members can use our Celly group chat or any other medium to converse about the book. At the end of the month, their final commentary gets posted (their commentary is not a critique, but instead an overview of how much they liked the book, their favorite parts, what they enjoyed, etc.). 

To join the book club: just let us know you want to join the book club via our ask page!

To submit your book/short novel: send the file to us via email ([email protected])!

If your book is long: we will all read as much of it as we can during the month of October. If we can’t, we will still comment & review what we read so far. Plus, book club members can always continue to read your book with your permission after the month is over.

  If you have any questions, feel free to ask! So get to joining the club and submitting your book. 

Okay so you may remember me from this post, where I announced that I’d be starting a magazine geared toward people of color. Now that I’ve organized things, my friend Cynthia and I are ready to showcase the talent of all POC youth!

The magazine, called Jaded Magazine, will have an entire column dedicated to highlighting all the creative things POC do. If you aren’t sure whether to submit: POC means a person who is not white, or not of full European descent. If that applies, submit to us!

Send your submissions to [email protected]. Please only send your email ONCE. You can only submit for at most two different sections, and you must include in the subject line of your email that you’re applying for two (i.e. Art - Illustration and Writing - Poetry). Please note that you’re submitting for our consideration, this does not mean you will be automatically featured in the magazine.

Every submission should:

Tell us a little about yourself (name, pronouns, race/ethnicity, where you live, etc.)

Tell us your experience with whatever section you’re submitting for, and your motivation or explanation for the specific submission

art (illustration/animation/drawing/painting)

When sending your email, in the subject line, write Art - [whichever kind of art you do]. For example, the subject line could be Art - Painting if you’re a painter!

Please include working links to your art or attach clear images of your art.

writing (poetry/stories/prose)

When sending your email, in the subject line, write Writing - [whichever kind of writing you do]. For example, the subject line should be Writing - Stories if you write stories!

Please include working links to your writing or attach documents of your writing.

photography/videography/audio

When sending your email, in the subject line, please indicate which one you do. If you’re a photographer the subject line can be Photography, and if you submit audio, it should be Music.

Please include working links to your photos/videos/music or attach your photos/videos/music.

HOW TO EASILY GET CHOSEN TO BE FEATURED:

You have a HIGHER CHANCE of your work being put in the magazine if:

You follow Jaded Mag on twitter (@thejadedmag)

You follow Cynthia and/or me on social media (me: khiye on tumblr, ajahnidhana on twitter. Cynthia: cynthiabgentry on both)

QUESTIONS:

Where will the work be shown? On our website, jaded-mag.com!

When will it be published? When the magazine launches in November!

Question From: Skiler Johns

Scribes, do you love your writing? No? Well read on as I advise you and one of our lovely Scribes who asked for my help. 

Okay, we’re about to get personal here. At one point in my life, I wasn’t really confident in the way I looked. I didn’t feel like talking to people and being social because I didn’t even want people looking at me. So, I went on YouTube and watched self-confidence videos, and everyone kept talking about how much you have to love yourself and accept yourself for who you are and blah, blah, blah. A few months later, when I was really confident in my looks, I thought back to that period of my life and said “Those videos would have been so much more helpful if those people just said ‘Don’t like how you look now? Well, change it.’”

I’m not saying that self-love advice doesn’t help. (Trust me, it does, and we’ll talk about that later.)

However, the way I look now that I’m confident is very different from how I looked when I had low self-esteem. I didn’t just miraculously start to like my reflection in the mirror. The reflection gradually began to change, and it was the change that I liked. It’s the same with your writing. You cannot write the same kind of story in the same kind of way and expect someone to give you a set of tips that will help you like it. I mean, someone can give you such motivational tips to love your writing that it makes you think you’re the best author in the world, but that won’t really help you because at some point, you will realize that only your perspective on your work changed, not your work itself. Then you will be bumped off of your high horse and back to square one.

Here’s how I can help.

Start by surrounding yourself with like minds. I heard about this writing group called the Indigo Scribes, so joining that will probably help you (I’m so silly, lmao). No, but seriously, get in a place where there are others like you. Of course I’m the founder of the group so I’m going to tell you that this is a place that can help you, and it is, but there are others. Wattpad, or even other groups on Tumblr, can be very beneficial. You learn a lot from eavesdropping on writers’ conversations. Look at tips. Look at questions that they ask each other and look at their answers. That’s how I learned. Then you have to start asking questions yourself.

Read a lot. A woman once told me “The writer’s always reading and the reader’s always writing”. I don’t think the latter half of that statement is necessarily true, but the first half definitely is. As a writer, you really don’t know anything about how to use your passion if you don’t witness other people do it. Read all different kinds of books. Get accustomed to how fiction writers use words and literary devices. Learn their patterns and techniques.

I’m going to make a masterpost at a later date filled with writing tips, but for now: ask for help, look at help that others have given, read books, keep a journal, go outside, travel, watch lots of movies, etc.

But now, back to what I was saying about self-love advice. It isn’t worth it if you don’t change the thing that you don’t love. However, the people who say that to love yourself you can’t compare yourself to others are right. Don’t read other people’s work and say “man, my writing is trash compared to theirs”. Read it and pin-point the things you like about it. Mark down the things that the writer has done right and learn from those things. Look at things she did wrong and learn from those, too. Accept that you have your own writing style and others have theirs. Also, identify your writing style in the first place. You have to define your style so well that people know you’re the author of something without you telling them you are. Also, go back and dig up your oldest work and compare it to something you wrote today. See how much you’ve grown? Be proud of yourself. Take note of what you’re doing better.

What helps me is to know what I’m writing about and why. An easier way to love what you’re writing is if you have a personal connection to the story line. For example, if you are writing a story just to test your writing skills, it will feel like a job to you. You’ll try to do it really well just to impress yourself (and others). However, if your grandparents just had their 60th anniversary and you are writing a love story, it will be easier for you. You will like what you are writing because you have a connection to it.

Last but not least: we all know that compliments make us feel good. Go somewhere that you can get some feedback on your writing, and as much as you need to take note of the negative feedback (it can be helpful), pay attention to the compliments! They can make us feel good.

Hello all!

Today is September 8th. Tomorrow, Wednesday, I go back to school. Things are going to be a little bit different now, given that my days aren’t free like they were during my summer vacation. I have to actually attend school, and then after school I’ll have to do homework/studying. 

For Indigo Poets, Indigo School, and Indigo Scribes: anyone who sent in any questions, applications and emails, I apologize for the delay in response. I usually keep a 24-hour reply policy, but in preparation for school I wasn’t able to keep up with it. I’m actually going to adjust it to 48 hours (with a 12 hour grace period), so that way you all understand that my responsibilities prevent me from being as prompt as I used to. 

Now that school is starting I’ve been working out how I’m going to manage my time. Indigo Branch was born in the summer so this will be my first time having to balance it and my academic career. Things can go two ways: one, having so many responsibilities will force me to manage my time better and make a precise and detailed plan as to how I’m going to go about this, thus having everything flow smoothly. Or two, it could all collapse on me. 

We all don’t want the latter to happen, so please send me positive energy and love! Thank you, and I’ll be sure to keep you all updated. :)