❛ the lazy writers ❜ V2

[mooney]

I haven't been on in quite a bit lol
Mainly had to catch up with a few essays.
Today in writing class, we were given a few materials and we had to do a freewrite based on the materials.
What I received: rose perfume, a photo, a cracker, a device (so we could listen to a song of our choice)

What came out of it:

Smell
The distinct blue and silver I’ve seen in a past life. I’m sure of it. Sapphire sprouts and cerulean skies. The strength of its aroma stands out to me as that was all my nose touched when i was ten years old. Little Amelia Masdurett with her cobalt dress, hand in hand with her younger sister who she couldn’t dare to love more in fear of overloading the world with this sibling kind of fondness.

Taste
Twenty dollars for a mushroom soup was worth it. Cheesy, chunky, infused with truffle oil. This soup was the best I’ve ever tasted. It was essentially God’s vomit served on a pristine porcelain platter. With each spoonful, I could feel an oncoming addiction. I felt full but I couldn’t help but continue to stuff my maw. “You’re eating so violently,” my brother noted, taking the bowl brom my grasp before placing a chunk of iceberg lettuce in my empty, waiting hands.

See
I turned to her, absorbing the details with my eyes. Her fingers brushed against the feathers of the dreamcatcher I had suggested for her to hang up above her head. She had no siblings, but the black-framed bunk bed still remained in the corner of her room, you see. Dirty blonde spilling over featherdown and memories— her seaglass eyes cast on her shattered phone screen now. She was so happy. She was so happy with her worn down futon and dusty floorboards, the cold seeping in from a cracked window. She snapped the picture when I wasn’t looking. It wasn’t a pleasant photo of me with my crooked smile and split lips, but the wrinkles under her eyes and the white of her teeth covered up my imperfections. She was my makeup— The sun that rose each morning. My soul.

Sound song: first love - min yoongi (BTS)
He flashes in my memory— An image that appears and disappears with the beat of the drum. His glasses which were too tight for his face, his hazel eyes and hair like the Sahara desert at night. I remember him as my first. My only. The only one I could see with a body. For him, I slaved over the piano because with his emotions, his body language, I saw cosmos. And when he left, he stole my motivation to write, to move, to even live. I continued to live because I couldn’t die. For years after he took that plane into the unknown, I was drunk on isolation. Every time I took the pencil in my hand I would feel sick. I couldn’t place my mind on anything that wasn’t him. Every word I spilled with blood, sweat and tears was for him. The ink was as crimson as my heart— Every beat, every emotion, every second I continued to live and suffer— It was for him.

I love all of these, I adore your writing style! and I so envy you for having writing class - we don't have such subjects at my school. we were writing stuff at my previous school but it wasn't a priority - now even less so.

[FuryBotWimzie]

I had six characters developed for roleplaying. Xia, Amelia, Mallius, Vaxas, Bellaluna, and Wisteria. Initially, that was it, but as I roleplayed I developed more and more characters, all revolving around the same world and timeline. I eventually got inspiration and plotted out a book series which I'm calling "Lost Children". I finished writing Children of the Slain (the fourth in the series since i'm jumping around a lot) for the most part and I'm currently writing Children of the Sun which is the third part.

Truth be told, this is making me feel more confident about the fanfiction side of my works atm. It's a series involving three separate stories, but in order of release begins in the middle. There's a sequel to it as well as a prequel, but the sequel has a little more development going for it right now. I've written tidbits of stuff for the sequel and prequel, but I've wondered if maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself writing so far... well... ahead. I've even drawn cover art for each story, which I thought may have been my way of procrastinating actually writing, but I think they all look really good so I'm giving it a pass. XD

I also get what you mean about the narrator "becoming breathless." I concur, run-on sentences are good effects for the story at times! c:

You have a beautiful writing style, incidentally; I didn't mention that in my last post. ;u; As I said, flow is something I strive for in my writing, but boy does it take work. It seems to me you have definitely put in the work!

[~Teya~]

Do you have any coding advice that you use to make your story look more "pretty" / "nice to look at" kinda thing?:
Small text is nice. Usually between sizes 82 and 90 works best. It makes things look sophisticated. Indentations using the color=transparent code gives the structure a nice touch and it's always good to colour code your dialogue. Some people have a difficult time telling who's saying what sometimes and the colour coding definitely helps.

When in a writing competition, how do you stay optimistic about your competitors which seem much better than you?:
I think about them as people I can learn from. Obviously, in every competition, there will be people better than you. The best way to remain optimistic is to think about future opportunities in other competitions and to write what you believe is best— Not what will get you in a higher place. I find that the further you strive to be the best, the harder it is to become inspired.

When you have to make a story a certain word count, (my limit is 14k words) how do you balance trying to stretch the story out but it's NOT boring filler and is actually interesting and adds to the story?:
I had this problem with Nanowrimo. I jotted down all of the important plot points and then added subplots under them. I didn't write all these points in order and I ended up writing past the word limit, actually, with certain chapters with 7k words and others with hardly 1.5k. The most important part, in my opinion, is to get down all of your potential ideas on paper first. Then expand. Better to have too much than not enough— cutting the clutter isn't too difficult of a task

Any other advice to help me not get murdered in this competition?:
Believe in yourself. Take breaks when necessary. Don't be on your computer or slaving over a sheet of paper all day. Your will to write will dwindle down into nothing if you don't clear your mind once in a while. Take care of yourself.

I used to use color for certain characters speech; I may try that again, but usually I just bolden what characters say

I always try to keep an open mind about my competitors. We'll just have to see. xD I think I'm doing what I want for this story, like you said I should. I'm not positive if the judge will like the world I've made, but, I'd rather them not be happy with it than me feel as if I've cheated myself. ;u;

Thanks for the advice. I think I might try just going for writing the real story now since I did a story outline, plot points I need to hit, & both chars back stories. I usually do a chapter outline, buut, I feel like I might've done enough already to dive into the real thing C:

I've basically been slaving over my computer ever since the comp opened. I totally agree with you, if I keep doing this everyday for a month (when the comp ends) I will be utterly dead inside by the end x'D I guess I can't help myself :p But I'll try to stop myself when I start to get burned out.

Thanks for everyone elses responses, as well!

[Marastia]

Could people please read my work? I'd like feedback....
(I removed this link due to NSFW)
Thanks in advance!

Most of the problems I noticed were simple ones.
You should learn how to make dialogue stand out from the rest. It’s a minor issue but I feel like it would help improve the readability of your work. Here’s and example of proper dialogue positioning.
————————————————-
Bla bla bla description paragraph! Ooh look here’s some details about some stuff. That wall over there is really nice, don’t you think? I like all the detailing the bricks and the moss.
“Boo! My name is dialogue and I’m gonna scare you! Spooky spooky spooky spoo!” Said the scary dialogue ghost. How could the narrator ever defend themselves against something so scary?!
But the narrator retaliated verbally — and valiantly, “GO AWAY YOU SPOOPY GHOST!” They screamed at the top of their lungs. And the ghost scurried away!
Oh wow another description paragraph! That ghost is very translucent. Ooh look a random dust particle!
————————————————-
The little indents are all 5 spaces, which is the standard for indenting in literature as far as I’m aware. Please don’t just push tab to do it because it’s not five spaces.
Your chapters also seem a little short, but that’s up to you honestly. Shorter chapters are WAY better than long chapters, since you can read one quickly then head off to work.
You could also spend a bit more time describing the actual appearance of people, are they tall? Lanky? Average? Eye colour? Hair colour? Etc.
More scenery description would be nice to, you want to create a vivid image in the readers mind. Your dialogue and dialogue descriptions are very nice. I think you need to just focus on world building and clarity. I also found a few typos, so make sure you edit your chapters. I like to read them aloud to myself when editing since it helps to catch any mistakes (trust me, it works wonders).

Most of these are opinion based, I read a lot but I’m no professional. You don’t have to take all this to heart, and improve at your own pace.

[LonelyForestFae]

I just found this thread and yup. I belong here. I've been working on a story for months. I'm finally developing the characters in a way I find easier. I have most of the main characters of the first story(Its going to be roughly like a book series but made of shorter and sometimes never ending stories). Sometimes I get really into writing, but after a day I just forget about it. Any tips on be consistent with my writing schedule? I will be writng in here by the way.

[jolteon!]

I just found this thread and yup. I belong here. I've been working on a story for months. I'm finally developing the characters in a way I find easier. I have most of the main characters of the first story(Its going to be roughly like a book series but made of shorter and sometimes never ending stories). Sometimes I get really into writing, but after a day I just forget about it. Any tips on be consistent with my writing schedule? I will be writng in here by the way.

ah same
i came up with my novel idea about last month and i loved it a lot
so i decided to do some world building to it, ive hardly started just because i keep
forgetting to or im just 'busy' doing stuff like playing on chicken smoothie
i think one way to be a bit more consistent is to set a time, like perhaps set a timer for lets say 6 pm and write until
6:30, take a 30 min break and begin working again at 7

[KawaiiPanda58]

Once again, I am still here, I have been keeping up with posts, just not finding anything to post about. So I will give you a question:

Code: Select all

[b]What is something that you are often inspired by when writing? How does it inspire you?[/b]

I'm not generally inspired by anything, most of the time an idea just pops into my head. Sometimes I'm inspired by something I'm learning in school, history most of the time, but sometimes just because of the way something else has been taught to us. I have a teacher that loves making up stories, so he doesn't stop when he's teaching science.

[FuryBotWimzie]

I just found this thread and yup. I belong here. I've been working on a story for months. I'm finally developing the characters in a way I find easier. I have most of the main characters of the first story(Its going to be roughly like a book series but made of shorter and sometimes never ending stories). Sometimes I get really into writing, but after a day I just forget about it. Any tips on be consistent with my writing schedule? I will be writng in here by the way.

Hi there! I've only been posting here for a short time myself! Unfortunately I have no tips for you on schedule; I'm not so great with that. c:' I merely try to get a fair amount of writing in every day, if I can.

What is something that you are often inspired by when writing? How does it inspire you?
During the action of writing, I find that being surrounded by pleasant smells spurs my thoughts a little more than usual, even if I never include smells like it in the story. That's the biggest contributor. I think, in a way, it makes the world I'm writing about seem more appealing, like I'm looking in at it through a window and I'm associating the nice smell with it (even if the given world at the time is gritty and dark and doesn't smell nearly as nice.) I get the motivation to write more eloquently from that.

[LonelyForestFae]

Thanks for the tips guys!


What is something that you are often inspired by when writing? How does it inspire you?

Actually, the fictional world where my story will be taking place is completely from lucid-like dreams that I have every so often. The last one I had was this morning. I could fully hear what my family was doing in the background, but I could also almost fully see a world unfold in front of me. I one it was a dream and it was like a choose your path story. I chose what the character would do. It was actually really fun.... until my mom woke me up.

[DeMaizu]

What is something that you are often inspired by when writing? How does it inspire you?
Just . . . life. Dreams, experiences that are entirely different from my normality, different points of view . . . just stuff going through my life. *shrugs*