INHALE

this conversation was initiated for me (madina) personally by giana @syrupbrat and stefan @travelingsalesman. epoch discussed this extensively in our discord chat, and the content of this post is mostly pulled out of that discussion.

When browsing through the usual tags used to promote one’s own writing on Tumblr, such as #inkstay, #spilled ink, #poets on tumblr, etc, we seem to drown in the sameness of everyone’s writing styles that it all is indistinct. It boils down to a haze of blah blah blah stars, blah blah blah yet another comparison to a Greek mythology figure, more love poetry, girl as dangerous, boy as god, alcohol is the only way we’ll survive.

These themes originated in what one might call the heydays of Peak™ tumblr poetry (this is starting to sound like a school essay & smh I can’t let this post go that direction), circa 2013(?)-2015. Most of it was documented in @nosebleedclub‘s “Memories of a Certain Spring: A Workbook” – Nosebleed Club was, in fact, what you would point at if you were asked in 2014 what “Tumblr writing” is (cue the emphasis on was, the evolution of NBC continues until now & I feel like a proud daughter about it). Multiple networks and groups have then spanned from that model, some which are still going until now, some abandoned and left to the dust – just so that you could be part of that “elite cool kids club”, whether the original one or not. the writers in the original collective also had their writing styles copied and/or plagiarized to capitalize off how prevalent and popular this aesthetic is but nvm that’s not my place to extensively rant about

I do love the stars. The sea, mythology, dangerous teenage gods, I love them all and I honestly would die for them (yes, the planets, ocean, and those tragic myths included) – but when people write about them just because they think it’ll be popular, just because it fits into the predefined box of what is proven to be well liked – an aesthetic that has since consumed us – exploration and experimentation dies, and that’s when it becomes dangerous. Everything posted will only be the product of rehashing and emulating what has been written and consumed before – shallow imageries without anything to say, without anything to make it yours. It got over-commercialized fast and crumbled. Let’s not even mention those who made a fake persona to make their poetry feel more “real” and authentic, those who write about drugs and alcohol w/o experiences backing them up and only stereotypes & what other people have written about it.

This phenomenon is further supported by Tumblr itself being a bad site in general bad platform for writing on its own – those notes, those likes and reblogs, really do shape up to define you, whether you’re conscious of it happening or not. We all crave for that feeling of being noticed because that’s just how it is. I myself can’t even say I never wrote something just for those notes, and I’m sure others that started out writing in Tumblr can say the same. If you don’t realize it yourself; if you don’t become self-conscious of the fact that really, Tumblr is a bubble, and do not actively seek out for anything new because you don’t see the need for it – you get stuck in it. Even if you wrote with the aesthetic that we all fell in love with, there’s a chance that you won’t get the recognition you think it deserved – it crushes you, and the cycle repeats again.

(this aesthetic, in turn, bled and drenched almost every tumblr roleplay until they all became the same and unrecognizable individually, whether with the usual tropes of characters: Sad Rich Girl With A Heart Of Gold. Bad Rich Boy With A Heart Of Gold. Gay Guy With A Bad Past So He’s Hypersexual Now – or situational: your edgy Welcome To This Small Suburban Town Where Everyone is a Supernatural Creature, or perhaps your This Is A Simulation of a Real Life Town for People Who Have No Lives)

Personally, I do believe in the existence of Bad Poetry – though “underdeveloped” is the word I prefer to use (maybe it’s just because I’m a softie and I can’t say outright that it’s bad, but let’s be real, bad poetry is bad poetry). No soul and nothing else to offer than just a few pretty words and fleeting concepts. Pseudo-profound bullshittery. u wanna get off it?

internalize the fact that we unconsciously seek for approval

get off tumblr for a while and write in your solitude 

consume more than u write.

explore & experiment upon different themes and structure. get out of your comfort zone in writing

write about your own memories and experiences, whether good or bad or interesting or not interesting, not what is deemed is consumable

turn to your culture and read up those local myths

– Honestly, I don’t know how because it cannot be forced. But recognizing that this exists will in turn make you think even more critically about your writing.

oh, that’s it – be critical. To the words that surround you & the words that come out of you.

1. Kwan Ann 

2. she said & he said / hand stretching out into the fog and feeling around / dancing around the subject in question / too many music references / Let’s See How Many Adjectives I Can Put Into This Sentence™ 

3. Lit: One Thousand Years of Solitude, anything by Fitzgerald/Wharton/Marquez for that matter, The Sea, The Sea, Valente’s Radiance & Myths of Origins, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, TOLSTOY, & every single piece in The Adroit Journal tbh / Films: In the Mood for Love. everything by Wong Kar Wai. not a film but tv shows: penny dreadful, big little lies & war and peace (2016) 

4. Dying butterflies on the windowsill (see: Bright Star), two people sitting opposite each other wordlessly, silently yearning for the other to break the silence, ouroboros, boy wading out into the sea and disappearing, smoke filled settings

5. cultures of others (e.g Native American culture or indigenous culture, I would not be able to do it justice, and I feel like it’s not my place to write about that without a heck ton of research & guidance), mental illness 

6. just go for it! practice practice practice, read (of course!) keep an open mind and evolve. 

7. a piece published in The Vignette Review,  this piece right here,  and my latest piece forthcoming in Half Mystic’s third issue. 

8. the memory of a child who loved stories so much that you could find her awake before anyone in the house, reading in the light of the rising sun, glasses perched peculiarly on her small face. 

WINTER TANGERINE: DIGITAL VOLUME GIVEWAY

Winter Tangerine is doing a giveaway of our first four digital volumes! Currently, these volumes cost $10 on our website, but you could win access to them for free!

All you have to do is reblog or like this post from now until Friday, June 3rd for a chance to win. Feel free to reblog/like as many times as you’d like! We’re hosting this giveaway across multiple platforms (instagram, facebook, twitter) so feel free to saunter over to increase your chances of winning!

Hello brave writers!

We present you the Dare to Write Challenge, a challenge for every writer, poet and dreamer out there.

How it works Below the cut you’ll find a list of 500 different prompts to creatively use in either way you prefare; write a drabble, a short story, a collection, poems, art poems or whatever you like and feel inspired for. You don’t need to write all 500 of them. We’ll include a couple of steps that will allow you less than the maximum of 500 prompts. No maximum words for a prompts and there’s no due date so you all can take as long as you need. Don’t stress yourself over it, think of it as some kind of practise and little achievement for yourself.

Steps Each time you complete a step you get a colored achievement badge with your name on it. You don’t have to finish all 500, you can also just chose to write 25 for example.

black - 25 prompts

violet - 50 prompts

navy - 100 prompte

green - 150 prompts

rose - 200 prompts

red - 250 prompts

yellow - 300 prompts

rainbow - 365 prompts

silver - 400 prompts

gold - 500 prompts

Rules

one prompt per story/poem/etc.

everything needs to be your own creation

any way to express yourself (original fiction, poetr, fanfiction, drabbles etc.)

any length that you prefer

any fandoms, genres, pairings, ratings, crossovers, collaborations etc. are allowed

reblog this post to spread the word

if you want to enter send an email to [email protected] - we will add you to the list here and update your stories/poetry once you post something new; like this everyone can find your works faster

post your prompt works with the #daretowrite tag 

you don’t have to be a member of inkstay to do this and you neither have to be a tumblr user - everyone can enter this challenge with us

you don’t have to do the prompts in order, just take whatever prompt inspires you

500 Prompts List

Hi guys! We’re happy to announce the release of ORIGINS, the first volume of the Diluvial Series. 

This work is a collection of 8 poems from the members of Ocean-Blind, and will be available here for free. 

Reblog to spread the word! Thank you for your support, and we hope you enjoy reading it!

A Darker Shade of Magic, V. E. Schwab

Arlen: When the adventurous pickpocket Lila unwittingly steals a powerful talisman from Kell, a magician who travels between parallel Londons, the two must work together to fix the balance of magic and save all the universes.

In the Country, Mia Alvar

Kristin: A sweeping, aching collection of short stories FEAT. white ghosts, shadow families, flesh-and-blood skies, midnight brownouts, brown girls living their bodies - so often when we talk/write about Asia we center ethnic East Asians and their stories, bodies, myths, families - but Mia Alvar’s layered sagas of the Filipino diaspora and imagination aren’t just beautiful, they’re liberating.

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

Yiwei: A tragedy.

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Jupiter: A modern take on the Iliad by Homer, a spellbinding romance and heart wrenching tragedy that leaves the reader in a puddle of their own tears, hits right where the heart is, and takes you back to the emerald fields and cerulean skies of the ancient Greeks.

White Oleander, Janet Fitch

Camillea: If we are truly to believe that God’s hands only create - only gamble on beauty, then can we not call death a miracle? (Or is it the other way around?)

Wolf By Wolf, Ryan Graudin