WritingJunk

Have you ever felt as if you just can’t write?

Have a look at this infographic filled with helpful tips to get you back on track.

“I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.” — Clarice Lispector

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” — Virginia Woolf

“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” — James Joyce

“The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

“Always be a poet, even in prose.” — Charles Baudelaire

“Literature — creative literature — unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable.” — Gertrude Stein

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” — Anaïs Nin

“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.” — Henry Miller

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.” — Alain Robbe-Grillet

“James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can.” — Samuel Beckett

“Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more.” — Michel Houellebecq

“Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that?” — Kurt Vonnegut

“Skill alone cannot teach or produce a great short story, which condenses the obsession of the creature; it is a hallucinatory presence manifest from the first sentence to fascinate the reader, to make him lose contact with the dull reality that surrounds him, submerging him in another that is more intense and compelling.” — Julio Cortázar

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” — Franz Kafka

“Reading is more important than writing.” — Roberto Bolaño

“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” — Ezra Pound

“The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.” — David Foster Wallace

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.” — Vladimir Nabokov

“…Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. — And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.” — Walt Whitman

“All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.” — Samuel Beckett

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. Never. I’m a little overexcited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won’t be asked. You won’t be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won’t be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won’t be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won’t even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished—I think only poor Soren K. will get asked that. I’m so sure you’ll only get asked two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. ” — J.D. Salinger

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou, born 4 April 1928

12 Remarkable Maya Angelou Quotes

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.

Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

Life loves the liver of it.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

When you learn, teach, when you get, give.

Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

Angelou is an American author and poet. She has published six autobiographies, five books of essays, and several books of poetry. Her career has spanned more than 50 years. She has received many awards and more than 30 honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, brought her international recognition and acclaim.

Source for Image

Sakura and I tried to come up with a list of questions that we didn’t see around very often, and we wanted to share! So, here it is, yet another character-building question meme.

Leave one of my characters and a number (or more) in my ask, and I will answer:

What foods do they love, and what foods do they refuse to eat?

What is their weapon of choice, and what weapon do they dislike using the most?

What is their preferred method of transportation?

Who did they look up to the most as a child? Who do they look up to as an adult?

What kind of weather makes them happy, and what kind makes them sad?

What languages do they speak? Do they have any idiosyncrasies or identifiable patterns of speech, word usages, etc?

What clothing do they like to wear, and what do they wear most often?

Do they eat a healthy diet? A varied one?

As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up? Did they realize their dream?

What makes them feel safe or secure? What makes them feel insecure or unsafe?

What do they do when they need comfort? Do they seek out a person, a food, an activity, etc?

Do they sing or play any musical instruments, even if just for fun? How well?

What decision in their past did they most analyze and fret over after the fact?

What are they like when they are drunk?

Where in their body do they keep stress or tension? 

What do they think about where they currently live? If they could move elsewhere, would they?

Do they have any pet peeves or petty dislikes, and how do they react to encountering them?

What foods do they eat most often? Do they enjoy it?

What is their favorite texture?

Do they like to travel? How do they pack and prepare?

How well do they take criticism? How do they react to others noticing their flaws?

What are they like when they get sick? Do they have a particular system (ears, lungs, etc) that illness gravitates to?

What is their favorite drink?

How do they react to being physically injured or undergoing medical treatment?

What do their hands look and feel like?

How much do they eat, and how often? Do they drink appetite suppressants (tea, coffee, etc)?

Do they have children? Do they want children? What names would they choose?

What is a gift that they have received that was especially touching or significant?

How do they arrange or decorate their living space? 

Dialogue Formatting Tutorial: Star Wars Version

Two Tips for Punctuating Interrupted Dialogue

Punctuation: The Quotation Mark

Punctuation and Italics

Writer’s Relief Blog: “Halt! How To Punctuate A…Dramatic Pause”

WriteWorld’s Punctuation Tag

WriteWorld’s Dialogue Tag

KNOWLEDGE BOMB! 

Thank you for your question! If you have further questions or a comment to add, hit us up!

List of Smut Writing Guides

Below is a list of guides that have been written on how to write smut. Credit goes to their original writers. This list will be updated each time I find a new smut guide. [Each link below is titled as the topic it covers]

Accurately Write Gay Sex

Bare Bones [Step by Step/Stages]

Boners

Casual Sex

Erotic Horror

Gay Sex

Guide to Bottoming

In General [and details]

Kisses

Kissing

Language in Smut

Lesbian Smut

Making Love

Planned Sex [Girl POV]

Sex Between Virgins

Sex Scene

Sex Scenes

Sex Scene References

Terms [Vocabulary]

The Basics

The First Time

Words for Sex

Writing a Sex Scene

Writing from a Male’s Perspective

Writing Tips

12-Step Program [How to Write Sex]

Yes, some of these may not relate directly to smut or cover the topic, but they can be helpful when writing smut.

Admin Note: This post is a rebloggable copy of our page on fight scenes. The page is being phased out, so from now on all updates will be made on this post and not on the page. 

Among the typically difficult scenes writers face in their stories, the fight scene definitely ranks high on the list. Below you will find several resources with tips for writing a good fight scene.

Action with a Side of Zombies: One of our articles focused specifically on writing action scenes. Bonus:  the examples all include zombies.

ArchetypesAndAllusions: An article on the three main types of fighters and their various approaches to kickin’ ass (or not).

TheCreativePenn.com: Alan Baxter, speculative fiction author, gives some great advice on characterization, setting, martial style, and cliches. 

StoryHack.com: A PDF that takes you through writing a fight scene step by step by Randy Ingermanson, compiled by Bryce Beattie.

MarilynnByerly.com: An extremely good guide to writing fight scenes. This guide includes tips on character viewpoint, mapping the fight, and tricks for writing each type of fight. 

Shelfari.com: This site is an interview with famed fantasy author R.A. Salvatore on how to write great fight scenes.

TheBusinessOfWriting: C. Patrick Schulze gives some good, solid advice on identifying and writing your fight scene.

EzineArticles.com: Marq McAlister explains how to make a fight scene pack some serious punch. This article is good for fine-tuning.

Martin Turner: Focusing specifically on sword-fighting scenes, Martin Turner writes in great detail on every conceivable detail of this type of time-honored fight scene. 

SeriousPixie.com: Susan tells you about the three types of fight scene writers and explains how to fix the problems that arise for each type.

David Alan Lucus: This multi-part guide gives advice in exhaustive detail on how to write an awesome fight scene.

NightFoot: This Tumblr post offers some great tips for writing fight scenes.

These links provide advice specifically for writing battle scenes:

Gerri Blanc: eHow’s article on battle scenes is a basic step-by-step list for you. It’s a good introduction to writing battle scenes.

StormTheCastle.com: This article takes you through an in-depth guide on how to write battle scenes for fantasy stories.

Rhonda Leigh Jones: Jones lists some dos and don’ts of writing battle scenes.

Other resources:

List of Martial Arts: Looking for a fighting style? Find it here!

List of Weapons: Every type of weapon you can think of is listed here.

List of Military Tactics: From troop movements to siege warfare, this list has got you covered.

Asylum.com: A few examples of awesome battle tactics from history.

BadassOfTheWeek.com: Get some inspiration for awesome fight scenes and fighting characters from this compendium of badassitude.