For Imanol, Who Wants To Leave, But Only In Theory 

Me [falling off the stairs in public]: performance art 

how to stay motivated as a writer

Reread your old writing, especially those scenes you’re most proud of

Write something silly. It doesn’t need to be logical, consistent or included in your story. Write something dumb

Compare your old writing to your new writing. Seeing how much you’ve improved can be very motivating

Explore different storylines, those type of storylines that would never make it into your story, but you’d still like to play around with. Create AUs!

Choose one of your least favorite scenes and rewrite it

Act out your scenes

Read old comments from people praising your work

Create a playlist that reminds you of your wip

Team up with a friend, write AUs for each other's characters

Create playlists for your characters

Draw your ocs/make memes of your ocs

Draw/make memes of your friend's ocs

Don’t push yourself to get back into writing the thing that made you stop writing in the first place, try writing something else!

Write what you wanna write, no matter how cliché it might be. If you want to write it, write it

Take a break, focus on another hobby of yours. Consume other pieces of media, take a walk to clear your head

You don’t have to write in chronological order if it isn’t working for you! Sometimes a scene you aren’t interested in writing can become interesting after you’ve explored other scenes in the story

Read bad reviews of books or TV-shows. You’ll unlock appreciation and motivation for your own writing

Create a new storyline, or a new character! Anything that helps bring something fresh into your story. Could even be a completely new wip!

Not writing every day doesn’t make you a bad writer. Take a break if you feel like you need one

Remind yourself to have fun. Start writing and don’t focus all your attention on following “the rules.” You can get into the nitty-gritty when you’ve familiarized yourself with writing as an art. Or don’t. It’s fiction, you make your own rules

Go to sleep, or take a nap. Sleep deprivation and writing does not go hand in hand

Listen to music that reminds you of your characters/wip

Remember why you started. Know that you deserve to tell the story you want to tell regardless of the skill you possess

You know what? Maybe the iceberg on top is how much words there are on the paper. But you wrote that entire chunk of rock. Because a word is not just a word. With every sentence you weave, you are conveying a multitude of meanings, you are juggling different characters with different agenda’s, you have pages of background info rolling around in your head.  After writing, the iceberg may just be two characters having dinner together and talking about their spaghetti for a full paragraph. Yet beneath the surface you have written two characters carefully scanning each other’s reactions for any sign their dinner-date is in love, too.  The iceberg might be a stiffening of character A’s stance, a look, the balling of fists. But you know the trauma that happened when A was sixteen and you have been digging and groping for the most subtle and yet most right way to convey that.  For every action you write, you have written thoughts, discussions, motivations in your head. For every scenery you have plannend a country. Even if you only write a hundred words per hour, you are writing half a life. And your readers might not see the entirety of your work. But as they admire the iceberg, part of their awe will come from sensing something vast and enourmous underneath the water.  

working on my Sheith fantasy au and it’s… going. slowly

My whole WIP is about this! Set during the idustrial revolution, magic has become a tool, something to be used or maybe even ignored, forgotten and discarded. But then the Romantics rise and magic gets an impulse. It is intertwined with art: art as a spiritual power, something connected to feeling and expression and just a little out of reach, always at the edge of incomprehensible. My OC thinks about it like this: ‘Once, when religion had still been tangible and water could change in wine in front of your eyes, magic had been spiritual, an amazing, supernatural power. Later, miracles became stories. Churches rose, priests preached their psalms and every spire pulled mankind further from her faith. Magic was sacrilege, then utensil. Now philosophers and scientists held truth in their fingers, and magic, God and the occult should all be sweeped into a dark corner. Tungsten did not believe in God – at least, he didn't think he did. But magic was different. It was human and more than human, like love, or art‘.

I have always felt art is the closest we can get to magic!

I have a lot of feelings about how witchcraft and art are similar and intertwined, but I can’t exactly articulate them

hello I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The anonymity of tumblr means that I associate my idea/image of you with your icon and sometimes I look at people’s icons and I’m like ‘hmmm….what is that and why?’ 

so pls reblog this and comment in the tags the meaning behind your icon and why you chose it. this is a social experiment. do it for science pls.

Aaaaaahhh I know I'm really really late but is it okay for me to send in an OC fact swap? My character Elijah, from my WIP that doesn't have a name yet, sells pride-flag themed sweaters that he and his partner, Erin, knit in their spare time. Not a very impressive fact but still lol, I'm so sorry if I'm too late!

You’re not too late! Facts are always welcome. Thanks for this lovely piece of information. Elijah and Erin sound absolutely adorable. I’d buy a sweater, for sure. My OC Adam, who lives in 1800, frequents Mollyhouses (the gaybars of London in this timeperiod) and talks to new/young visiters, giving them tips on which men to avoid and how to find save partners. (Also, your aesthetics are on their way!)

Hey, this is probably a bit late, but I saw you commented on an ask that I sent in. (To a different blog) So... about writing cis/straight characters? I really don't know. I'm not lying... I've never made a good straight/cis character they all suck, cliche stupid and aaa (NOT CALLING CIS/STRAIGHT PEOPLE ANY OF THOSE) Help?

Hey, friend. Don’t worry - writing means getting into characters that are different from you and for accurate portrayel, asking is the best course! I think a good way to write a straight/cis character, is to consider what you like about your queer characters. Surely, there is a lot more to them than their sexuality or gender. They have backgrounds, goals, dreams and fears,  family and hobbies and favorite music. Their sexuality/gender might be a part of them, but it’s definitly not all of them. If you want to make up a straight/cis character, do not focus on straight/cis. Just make a character. Did they grow up in a farm? Where they popular in high school? What was their dreamjob when they were six? Do they like vintage clothing? Do they understand social media and have they ever bought  merchandise? Do they have any big regrets? What happened to them, that you are writting this story in the first place? Did they get in prison? Or out of it? There are so many things that make a character interesting or relatable, and sexuality and gender are only a small part of that. I have some more ideas about this, but I am not sure how to word them at the moment. If you are interested or have any questions, feel free to message me (I suppose I am not straight, by the way, but I am cis).

what is the most unique aesthetic you've either created for a character, or someone has sent into you?

That's a difficult question! I've read such awesome character descriptions and I hope I created something nice for each of them. I am still very happy with the Instagram-aesthetics I did for @futureauthor-mabye, that felt like a unique little project!

I am also satisfied with all my Waterwegen aesthetics, especially the one I made for Paco and the one I created for the full story. It's a story with a very distinct feel to it and I like to think I captured it pretty well.

A soft aesthetic for the soft Scarlette Fraiser, by @funwithadorabletasticmurder.I hope you like it! Requests for OC moodboards are open. 

(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, and art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Stockvault.net - stock photos

freepngimg - icons, pictures and clipart

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Kissclipart and kissPNG - more vectors and clipart (often transparent!)

Getdrawings - simplistic images and drawing tutorials

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more sites for free images <3