Aspey

While it’s really nice to eat a fancy five course meal once every so often, comfortable and delicious homemade meals, greasy fast food, some takeout from your favorite casual restaurant, some really good frozen meals… Those are all important too.

Your WIP might be the equivalent of eating a frozen pizza at 2AM, and you know what? That’s important! The pizza that I eat at 2AM is not only the most delicious pizza ever, it’s also exactly what I need. I love that pizza. I want to eat that pizza at 2AM.

Sometimes we need something familiar, comforting and indulgent. Sometimes we need something fancy and intricate. Sometimes we need something healthy and easy to digest.

bike rides, especially when listening to music. the wind in your hair, the songs in your ears, every sound being quiet and living in your own bubble of lyrics. (edit: in some countries this is illegal and it can be dangerous - i had not thought of that and i apologise)

sitting in a bus. you’re going back home, maybe you’re reading a book or just looking outside of the foggy glass.

making tea. warming up the water, bringing it to a simmer and closing the gas, pouring it into a ceramic mug, the perfume of tea leaves: it’s a ritual.

buying a new book. walking in a book store, reading the first page of a book that sounds interesting, choosing a book because of its cover, never having heard of that book.

reading the last page of a book. that one doctor who episode where the doctor says he rips the last page of each book he reads, reading the last line and feeling like all the air in your lungs is gone.

that one specific moment when you are coming back from a party and you’re walking the few last steps before getting home. 

writing your name on a new notebook. scribbling messy letters or trying hard to make it look pretty.

tying shoe laces. where are you even going?

picking a flower. getting off the road and into a patch of grass just to pick a yellow wild flower, pressing it in a book, or putting it in a glass of water.

finally getting to bed. the cold bedsheets, closing your burning eyes, the small sounds of the city.

If you feel like you’ve seen this alread, that’s normal. This list of recommendation has been previously posted on my first account @praestantias which has been deleted for some reasons. So here I am, reposting it. 

Hating how elitist and eurocentric the dark academia community became, I would truly appreciate that you leave some recommendation of book written by people of color, for I noticed that I am guilty of the eurocentric part, but I am really want to educate myself and read more non-white books. 

Me: “Okay.”

Every time you start a wip, or even if you’re halfway through one, keep a notebook or a doc where you write all of your ideas. And I mean all.

Whether it’s a writing prompt that you want to use, character ideas, dialogue prompts, moodboards that remind you of your wip, songs that remind you of your wip, a doodle you draw of a character idea, or a random plot twist that you think of while you are in the grocery store.

WRITE. IT. DOWN.

I cannot stress this enough. Keep a record of everything related to your wip and note every thought you have down in that notebook. Take it everywhere with you.

Notice the way a stranger talks and the way their lips move, see how it reminds you of your oc and jot it down.

See that flower? That looks like something that could exist in your fantasy world. Sketch it or photograph it, then print it and stick it in the journal.

Watch the way that the old man at the corner gets crinkles around his eyes when he smiles, and remember that you want your ocs to do the same. Write that down.

Hear a snippet of a conversation that could be a prompt for a scene you were stuck on? Scribble it on the corner of one of your pages.

Take pictures of places that remind of places in your story, and try to think of what colours in the world around you would exist in your fictional world.

See the half-finished cup of coffee on the table next to you - that half-finished cup of coffee could have a story. Maybe someone was kidnapped while drinking it, or maybe they had to go somewhere in a hurry - maybe they didn’t like the drink and left it. What could happen because of that? Does something similar happen in your story?

Write. It. Down.

Notice things Observe them. And keep a journal full of observances from your daily life and how they remind you of your wip. Go back to it whenever you get writer’s block, and go back to it when you’re unmotivated to write. Remind yourself why you love your story and your characters and make them more real by connecting them to your life. Keep track of every idea you have so that when you sit at your keyboard, you’re never once lost.

‘You can never get a cup of tea large enough

or a book long enough to suit me. ‘  C.S. Lewis