The Typewrite Dragon

writing isn’t hard it’s just emotionally devastating and time-consuming and requires full body possession by an idea

A treasure! Especially the Notable Omissions sections.

What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.

if you're sitting on a fanfic idea because you think it's "too weird" or "too niche" I need you to understand something: the internet is VAST and FULL of people with your exact brand of weird. that crackship that makes sense only to you? there are at least 50 people who will read it and go "oh my god FINALLY." but even if there were ZERO? you still deserve to write the thing that makes your brain light up.

I love when you’re reading multiple fics by the same author and you start to spot all the phrases and adjectives they like to use

that one hit me where i live

Doing the behind the scenes notes of my own fics really drove this home. PICK ANOTHER METPAPHOR FOR THE LOVE OF LANGUAGE

I feel like some people need to relearn Genre Expectations... "Man, this tragedy sucks!!! Why didn't they just do XYZ, then everything could have ended happily!!" well, then it wouldn't be a tragedy, would it. "Man, this lighthearted teen romcom is terrible, it's so sappy and unrealistic!!" Well, yeah. If it had been gritty and dark, it wouldn't have been a lighthearted romcom, would it. Is the writing actually bad or are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot

it is honestly amazing how much of writing and editing is just. logistics. like... do i use a name here or a pronoun? if i move this dialogue tag to the middle of this line and break it in half, does the end of the line hit harder that way? what if i move the tag to the front? what if i remove it entirely? ...wait, whose point of view am i in; can i reasonably say this character is appalled, or must i say they look or seem or sound appalled? is this a deliberate action or a step-removed one; is her hand closing on his shoulder, or is she closing her hand on his shoulder? environment environment environment, we need to break all this dialogue up with some narration, the scene is coming untethered. what! are! they doing! with! the rest of their bodies that are not hands! fuck fuck fuck FUCK i forgot we covered this two chapters ago and now i either need to cut this whole chunk or find a reason to reprise the conversation from earlier. name or pronoun? name or pronoun? name or pronoun? move this clause around in this sentence? oh i'll add this phrase-- nope, never mind, past!me added the same phrase two lines down. okay, if i add too much environmental narration it's going to take away from this bit, but not enough and it won't feel grounded. what if i move this to its own line? where the FUCK are their hands?

Especially the last one!

God sometimes I'm writing smut and I'll like, delete a sentence because I'm like, no, I can't write that. It's too indulgent. And then it's like. Girl, what the fuck are you even going to the candy store for if you're just going to buy raisins. Get real.

"what the fuck are you even going to the candy store for if you're just going to buy raisins" is honestly the thing I needed to hear today

how write book?

like that but more

oh noooooo