#creativity writing

Hi Kayak!! Hope you're well, I'll try to make my thoughts make sense here for you. Honestly I should make a powerpoint about some of my personal writing processes to see if it helps any of yall as baby authors.

Reminder that I am not a professional! Some of this advice might not work for you, I'm just sharing what I do <3

okay! How do I start a long fic?

For me, I've found that long fics happen by accident mostly. Margin of Error was ball parked to be 25-30 chapters but only because I was aiming for shorter chapters. We've learned now that MoE ranchers like to YAP and that I can cover a lot more plot in less chapters, so now she's 20 chapters :) She's one of those fics where I know what I want to happen, but figuring out the inbetween is something I tackle by chapter.

Last night I was talking about how I want Despair to be about 10-11 chapters, limiting the story so I can stretch it into a possible trilogy. The thing with Despair though, is that I've had plans for that to be big from the start. I had a little idea and ran away with it with the hopes of being like, the best thing I've ever written...

compared to sticks, a story with a start and end point that doesn't require me to tell every aspect of it, because it's told in oneshots. I can skip over a ton of time to get to a plot point and if I want to add to it later, then I can go back and add another one shot. This is a perk of doing a series of works compared to one long term fic.

okay, so you have an idea! Here's what I do:

Rotate the idea. Gather ideas about people and places. WRITE THEM DOWN. make a silly outline (it's okay for this outline to change)

Figure out what you want to happen! this is the main conflict or even just scenes you think you might want.

A good example of this, for me, was Margin of Error. Before it had a name, the first 14K written in my doc under "rancher college au" , back when Tango was a biker and it was a totally different story--I wrote all the good scenes first. I bascially had a few ideas of scenes I liked, and then I wrote them. so this is like the chapter 4 porch scene, and a kiss scene in what was orginally chpater 3, and another kiss scene that's now (I think?) chapter 9. I started by throwing out ideas, writing what made me the most excited and then letting the scene die when I wasn't having fun anymore.

This is a thing I do A LOT with MoE. I write till it stops and I figure out the rest later. There's no pressure to know everything right at the start. In fact, figuring it out as you go will help you come up with ideas/transitions that fit the story better. Compared to forcing them into a box that hasnt been built yet.

Take your scenes and start to build a time line.

For MoE, I picked a difficult conflict--emotions. There is no physical villian in MoE that I can plan around. if I were writing a super hero au, lets say, I would have a bad guy that I could plan a weakness that my characters would use to take him down. With emotional conflicts everything is internal and relies on the charaters thoughts and actions to be overcome. With most emotional conflicts, there might not be a satisfying ending. For MoE it's going to finish with a very big "it's not over, but we're working through it" feeling. It won't be as resolute as a physical conflict that will have a total ending.

having said this! pick a general conflict and then pad your scenes around it. As you write all those disconnected scenes you'll find the world will start to build itself. you'll notice things carrying through them, you'll write three or four of them, then realize theres an order in your head. maybe scenes two comes after three, then four followed by one. Use that and tack them down.

I'll use sticks as a visual example here. I have a string of ideas about sticks, one of them was Unsportsmanlike Conduct. I knew Countercurrent would come immediately after it and that sticks 3 (I really gotta name that) would come about a week after. I know that I want Tango to come see Jimmy play a game, I also know that I want that to be before Tango gets a concussion and can't play for a bit. I don't know the time between them, but I know I want it at some point.

You now have a timeline! Start figuring out how to fluff up the bits around each event.

I want my ranchers to kiss! they are gonna kiss after their first coffee date (in this example), how do we get to the coffee date? what happens on the date? what happens after the kiss? the questions you ask to build a scene are a lot more simple than you think they'll be.

one of these charts is helpful! you can use a chart like this for EVERYTHING. The whole story, a chapter, a scene. Keep in mind that the falling action happens much quicker than the rising action. Prepare for the climax to hit, and then the resolution to come tumbling quickly after. (The climax for MoE is chapter 17 of 20, as an example)

you have all the bits for an outline! how do you write it now?

My biggest advice when writing a long form story is to write it out of order. I'm so serious, don't fall into the that BS of having to start at the begining and build it up. Write whatever makes you happy, jump around when you get stuck, if the flow stops take a break and do something else.

MoE chapters take me forever, yeah, but that's because I don't force a scene. I move on to a different one and keep thinking about what caused the other to stop. Taking over three months to write chapter five has given me a ton of time to think about transitions and to make sure the characters and their motivations feel right.

Follow your train of thought, write things down before you lose them, let inspiration guide you. I cannot tell you how many times I've been writing a scene and just gone,

Flowery sentence about how the character feels and lifting a hand to do-- insert action--. the character then says "line of dialog"

like guys, it doesn't have to be perfect on the first draft! Not everything will present itself right away. If you have the middle and end of a scene but now start, that's okay! write the middle and end, then come back to it.

I also recomend rubber ducking your friends. If you don't know what rubber ducking it, it's a thing computer coders do! When they have a problem they can't solve, they talk about it outloud to a rubber duck. Often, when you explain a problem and lay it out for someone else to understand, you'll solve it yourself. I've done this to stuffed animals, to pets, my dad (who had no clue what I was talking about). It's a lot better if you have friends who can toss some ideas at you, but physically talk it out. If you cant do that, type a string of thoughts. as if talking out loud, start to lay out the problem and talk yourself through it. I have the perfect example for this and its a massive spoiler so I cant share it >:( ug.

either way!!! That's like all the advice I can offer??? I hope this helps?

UH, when it comes to gathering inspiration I turn to music. I make playlists and spin the idea around and talk about it. then I just write what my fingers want to.

Just write it! write it bad, write it scared. Bad writing is still writing. Put it on paper and fix it later.

This chapter was a doozy and involved a lot of research wormholes. Let's get cracking.

Language

Trying to depict a different language using italics or valyrian for every foreign language Helaena might encounter was driving me crazy. Also Helaena may or may not be going to other places in Essos and I was having a difficult time conceptualizing how easy it would be for Helaena to understand the languages so I got my anthropologist sister to assign languages to the different places of Essos, on the basis High Valyrian would be latin. Behold her wonderful language map:

(in case you can't read it:

Braavos – Quebecois

Lorath – Dutch

Norvos – German

Pentos – swiss german  

Myr – Italian

Tyrosh – Spanish

Lys – Portugeuse  

Volantis – French

Qohor – Polish

Sarnor – Czech

Mantarys – Hungarian

Dothraki – Russian

Lhazar – Monogolian

Meereen – Slovaki

Yunkai – Yemeni

Omber – Ukrainian

Rhoynish - Gaul

Common/Westeros - English

First Men Language - Welsh

So the Lyseni will be written in Portuguese, if you see Latin that's high Valyrian. I plan to still use High Valyrian words, but this method was helpful with writing. Plus I get to use different languages :)

Mendigo Inspiration

One of Mendigo's inspiration (can't reveal the other due to potential spoilers ;) ) was the character Mary Faber from the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer. Another is the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist.

Her name was originally going to be Urchin but after Portuguese became the language of Lys I changed it to the translation "mendigo"

Helaena’s Hair

Reference for Helaena's new hair cut

Pearl Diving

I cannot begin to describe the amount of time I spent researching pearl diving and free diving. Details like the fact that only certain families were allowed to pearl dive where inspired from this article. Along with the tools pearl divers would use.

I also learned about a terrifying thing called "surface blackout" where your blood becomes too hypoxic and you can pass out at the surface and potentially die. I used this article to write about the proper recovery breath holds that help prevent surface blackout.

Also I learned there are different types of pearls based on the location you harvest them from.

Festival of Love

This is a piece of world building I made up. The Festival of Love is a seven day festival that is dedicated to the different types of love based off of the Greek forms of loves. These are the seven different types celebrated in Lys:

Eros (sexy time)

Philia (friendship)

Agape (god worship and charity)

Storage (family)

Philautia (self love)

Ludus (playful love)

Sacrificing goats, making a goat-date marinade dish, and the practice of men running around naked and whipping women with goat hides is all inspired off of the real life Ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. This video provided the recipe and interesting facts about the ancient festival.

Pillowhouse Wine

"It was a tart, almost bitter flavor, it lacked sweetness like other wines Mendigo had stolen before. Mendigo tried another swig, it did not improve, only making her face feel warm."

This sentence is a little personal easter egg inspired from a different fanfic. Alicent Reverses the Hourglass by Reddish on AO3. If you my blog you probably know I'm obsessed with it as I've made a ton of memes about it. Non spoiler. One chapter mentions a wine called Lover's Lips.

“This wine was known for one thing. Men in Lys would drink a copious amount of it the night before they were to spend with their paramour as it would keep a man ‘at his peak’ for longer during the act.

One would only need about half a cup before being able to sustain himself for at least a few hours. Any more than that and the man would experience a fever-pitch of ravenous desire that would confound the senses completely. Too much of Lover’s Lips could make a man impossible to satiate for sometimes an entire day long.” - Alicent Reverses the Hourglass

It's basically Viagra wine, which is basically vasodilator (opens up your blood vessels) which is why it makes Mendigo's face feel warm, because her blood vessels are dilating.

Oyster Bake

This was the recipe that inspired Mendigo and Helaena's oyster bake:

Ironically I spent a lot of time researching seafood recipes despite not being the biggest fan of seafood.

Mendigo's Fracture

The "crushing syndrome" complication Mendigo experienced is called Acute Compartment Syndrome in the medical field. It is when there is increased pressure within a muscle compartment and is a medical emergency. The pressure will deprive muscles and nerves of blood flow and will cause permanent muscle damage, paralysis or death if not treated.

Symptoms include:

Pain - unrelieved by pain medicine (which is why Mendigo complains the milk of poppy does nothing)

Pallor

Paralysis - early sign that starts with numbness and tingling

Pulseness (late sign)

Poikilothermia

Edema

Treatment is a fasciotomy, where they cut through strong connective tissue to relieve pressure.

I had to study fractures and their complications for one of my nursing finals and it's 100% the reason why it was included in the chapter.

This was the video of a fasciotomy I watched to write the scene (don’t watch if you’re squeamish)

Mendigo's Illness

Mendigo contracted mono. Her description of her condition is based off of my mom's quote when she caught mono: "it feels like you got hit by a mac truck, it backed up, hit you again, and then the driver got out and beat you up."

I wanted a disease that would make you feel awful but not kill you because antibiotics don't exist.

Menina uses Kudzu root - a plant from Asia - to treat her fever and mallow root for sore throat.

Philia Bond

I already knew I would have the philia bond, but there is some similarities between it and matelotage. A type of civil union used between European sailors, particularly pirates. There is debate about whether it was platonic or romantic. In Mendigo and Helaena's case it is platonic.

Painting Inspo of Mendigo & Helaena

Watching you from a distance. When I began to breathe in your frequency. Your eyes, charm slowly vacuuming me in your soul. I am the eclipsed moon, lingering in a self-made shadow. The day that I felt the winter in my veins, yet a fever on my skin. Is the most precious moment in my entire life. We drifted into impact, two strangers forced into focus. I saw a universe in the iris, a depth I…

Thank you for taking the time to read this article! Writing consistently can be a transformative journey, aiding in self-discovery, boosting creativity, and enhancing productivity. Whether you're looking to break bad habits or increase your financial

Written by David R. Sawin, 5/20/24 (Beautiful Spring Morning) Learn To Break Those Bad Habits, Become More Aligned With Your True Self And Success Hey there, fellow word nerd. You know that feeling, right? The one where you sit down at your desk, a universe of stories swirling in your head, but the second your fingers touch the keyboard… crickets. Or maybe you’re the opposite, a word-producing…

How can they be so insensitive to the needs of us? How can they not realize that we have had enough with the spinning?

It just keeps going and going. I just want it to stop already. I want answers, resolutions, endings all wrapped up in a keepsake box with a little bow on top.

“Here you go, me! This is what you have been looking for. You can stop bitching now.”

Earlier today I tweeted about how watching some piece of creative endeavour that thrills you is energising; how it sends you away restless and wanting to create something of your own. I had a reply from someone saying that they felt the opposite; that seeing something great by someone else made them realise they would never reach those standards and thus they found it demoralising.

I know exactly how he feels. So I thought I might blog this. This is my theory about that feeling and what we need to recognise when we feel it. I hope that some of you might find it helpful:

Much of the unhappiness we feel in the creative process stems from the fact that we started as fanboys and fangirls of the thing we’re now involved in. You go into novel-writing because you’ve always loved novels. Your whole life nothing made you happier than sitting in a corner with a book, absorbing the stories, living with the characters, luxuriating in the beautifully-turned words, the well-phrased observations about life and how it is lived, the worlds created before your very brain and now you, too, want to create those worlds, turn those words. You want to become a playwright because you’ve loved the theatre since you discovered it. You’ve seen everything there is to see, you’ve read plays, spent your money and spare time standing at the back with the cheap tickets so you could see everything you possibly can and now you, too, want to create those scenes that beguile and provoke. You go into comedy because you’ve never been happier than sitting in those rooms, watching those women and men with the audience in the palm of their hands, pouring out these brilliant and hilarious thoughts. You’ve got a point of view, you know what’s funny and now you too want to make strangers rock forwards in unison and delight as your ideas hit them. Every single person starts as a fan of the thing they end up doing.  And it makes us very unhappy when we come to do it ourselves. Because we end up judging our work by impossible standards.  I don’t mean judging it against that of people whose work is superior to ours, I mean judging our own work in a way we can never be equipped to judge it.  You can never truly judge your own work. Not really.

Here’s a really good thing to remember. There are two ways into a theatre:

You can walk with the excited crowds along the street, warm with the glass of wine you just had in the bar down the road. You go in past the polished glass and the gleaming brass, past the liveried doorpeople tearing your tickets, up the marble staircase with the sculpted handrail. You walk into the plush, red auditorium with the sprung velvet seats and the gilded alabaster cherubs staring at you from the proscenium, glowing in the light of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling rose. You get yourself seated, open your bag of Maltesers, look at the program you bought. The whole room is rich with anticipation. The hairs on the back of your neck go up as the lights dim and the curtain is raised and there before you is a set designed by a genius, wrought by craftsmen and then through a door in the back of that set comes the person you’ve come there to see: that figure from film, from television that you’ve always wanted to be in the same room as, and they begin to speak finely wrought words, teased out of the language by a master... 

That’s one way in. The other way is: You schlep round the back to a side-street, go through the entrance opposite a strip joint where a woman with a sour expression who smells of stale cigarettes and tea grumpily shoves some keys in your hand. You make your way down the thin, rat-run corridors with their peeling paint to your musty dressing room. You put on the your costume, still damp with the sweat of last-night’s performance, and you make your way back along the corridors to the stage. You go through the sprung doors that always smack back at your head as you pass through, into the backstage area, covered in struts and weights holding up the flats of that set, plastered with arrows and instructions and lists. And there in front of you is a table with all the props everyone is going to need over the next two hours, each in its own space, delineated by masking tape, and you take the prop you need for your first entrance, you wait by a door for the exact moment, the exact word and then you go through it. You’re met by a haze of light and beyond and in it a vague, organic mass whose mood and intention you can’t divine and then you say the words that you’ve been paid to come there and say…

There are two ways into a theatre.  When you’re reading someone else’s work, or standing in front of it, or listening to it, or watching it, you get to come in the front of the theatre. You get to see it as the finished product. That’s how you meet it and that’s how you judge it. When you’re looking at your own work, you can’t get in the front. You don’t have a ticket. You have to go round the back. The only way you can look at your work is from the side that shows how it’s put together, because that’s all you can think of when you see your own stuff – how you put it together. What the process was, what you added, what you cut, what you always intended, what arrived in the moment as you were creating it that feels like it’s not even yours to claim, it was the subject of such a bolt of inspiration. It can look ugly – the struts, the spars, the sandbags holding it all up, the gaffer tape sticking it together in an ungainly way. And because you can only see your work that way, it’s not really reasonable to judge it against stuff you’ve only seen by coming in the front. In fact, not only is it not reasonable, it’s simply not possible. They are two entirely different experiences making you miserable by pretending to be the same thing.

And by the same token, you should always remember when you come in the front of a theatre and look at what is happening on the stage that behind the set there are stage weights and pulleys and people dressed in black with headsets, wandering around looking hassled. Even if you can’t see exactly what those things are it’s good to remind yourself they’re there. It’s good to remind yourself that no matter how brilliant someone else’s piece of work that you’re marveling at might be, they’ve gone through the same process as you do: They’ve rewritten and restructured and redrafted. They’ve stood back from what they’ve just done and thrown the whole thing across the room in disgust and self-loathing. They’ve had to lose bits they’ve loved, they’ve added bits they weren’t meaning to that you think were genius bits of craft and that just plonked themselves down on the page or the canvas or the score.

We all always imagine it’s easier for other people. My image of other writers is that they sit down at their old school typewriters, with a box of cigarettes, a visor, those weird armband things and just go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr ping brrrrrrrrrrrrr ping brrrrrrrrrrrr ping! Done. “Now to spend my advance on sweets and prostitutes.” Of course they don’t do that. I mean obviously we all spend that money on sweets and prostitutes in the end, but not straightaway. There’s a lot more work to be done first.

For a long time I would write a new stand-up show every year and take it up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And it took months and it was painful. I can remember sitting in other comedians’ shows and thinking, “You bastards. You’ve just turned up and done this.” Of course I ought to have been able to have seen that was untrue with a second’s thought – I’d seen them out and about doing work-in-progress gigs, same as me, after all – but the image of someone else’s work just coming easily, fully-formed and God-given is irresistible and every creative person beats themselves up with it. 

But it’s not true. Stop it. Remember which way into the theatre you’re going.

(Since you ask, this is an extract from a lecture I gave a few years ago at Birmingham University on ‘Unhappiness In The Creative Life And What To Do With It’)