Prompts & Pointers

Like “cool cool we’ve got this perfect hero now to just sprinkle on some Irritability and Trust Issues then microwave for 6 minutes on high until Done”

But I’ve personally found it feels a lot more useful to just… think of the flaws as the Good Traits except bad this time

The protagonist is loyal? Maybe that means they have a hard time recognizing toxic relationships and are easily manipulated by those they want to trust

The hero is compassionate? Maybe they work too hard and overextend themselves trying to help people and then they refuse to ask for help when they need it themselves for fear of burdening others

They’re dedicated to their ideals? Maybe they’re also too stubborn to know when to quit and they have trouble apologizing for their mistakes

If they’re creative, they can also be flighty. If they’re confident, they can be arrogant. If they’re brave, they might be reckless. If they’re smart, they could be condescending. Protective can become controlling, and someone who’s carefree could very well also be emotionally distant

Vulgar is a conlang (constructed/fictional language) generator created to help literally generate a language for you. No, really. No tricks, and it’s super simple to use. It’s my favourite tool right now for writing fantasy, even as someone who loves creating his own languages, it’s an amazing starting point.

Want a random conlang, straight away, with no prep or fuss? Just visit http://vulgarlang.com/index.html and click “Generate New Conlang”… and that’s it. Scroll down and through your brand new, generated, completely original conlang. 

If you’re a little more advanced in terms of conlanging and want to specify IP phonemes to be used, you can add them too, but even with no knowledge of linguistics you can create a language at the click of your fingers.

This version of Vulgar is completely free, sure…. but! the guy who created it has not only made an amazing thing (which I repeat, is absolutely free at it’s most basic point), but is also planning on updating it more and more!

Under the “Buy” tab on the Vulgar website, he links to his email, where you can offer to pay for the full version of Vulgar, which is a total steal right now at a sale price of only nineteen dollars. Considering professional conlangers and linguists could charge you, like, a metric fuck ton of money for the same data you’re getting here for just nineteen, that’s a major steal.

Not to mention, buying the alpha build now gives you free access to all of it’s updated versions, which I can guarantee are just going to get better and better! I’ve already bought it and I adore it, and this is a tool the likes of which we in the conlang community have never seen in such an awesome way.

Being a writer is hard.  Being a writer who wants to get published is really hard.  It takes a lot of work, a lot of dedication, and more research than anyone ever wants to believe.  Not only are you doing research to write your stories, but once you’re done, you’re suddenly faced with the need to do research on how to get published.

That’s a rabbit hole that’s easy to fall into.

The first step?  Find an editor.  And I don’t mean an editor who works in a publishing house—we’re still a long way from that bit.  No, the first kind of editor you need to find is a freelancer.

A freelance editor is going to take your manuscript and help you get it to the point where you can send it where it needs to be—whether that’s a self-publishing platform, a literary agent, or the unsolicited manuscript pile at a publishing house.

You can’t send an unpolished manuscript to any of these places.  That’s where the freelancer comes in.

But how do things work when you’re working with a freelance editor?  Let’s face it: there’s only so much time you can invest in researching how this all works.  And you don’t want to put money into something when you’re not entirely sure how the process goes.

So here’s a little crash course on how editing tends to work with freelancers—and with publishing houses.

Never feel bad or apologize for not doing as much art as your peers. 

You are very lucky to have a source of income you can count on.

Work can be tiring, if you are too tired to draw, then don’t draw.

You’ve worked a long shift, you come home and feel worn out. You want to draw, but you just can’t do it. DO NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT THAT. You’ve earned some rest, you can always draw another time.

Never apologize for taking longer to finish things because of your schedule.

If someone tells you “ I’m not gonna support/follow you because you don’t post as much as this artist”, ignore them. They obviously don’t support you in the first place.