Completed The Thanatos Romance. Completely Inconsolable

#180: Will It Work?

Writers face this question at every stage of their creative journey. Whether you’ve been writing for two weeks or 20 years, the challenge remains the same. Will the time that I put into this project pay off? Will it do what I need it to do?

When you’re just starting out, most of the uncertainty centres around if you can even finish the story, and if yes, will it be any good? Later on, as a published author, you may wish for your book to hit the bestseller lists. As a best-selling author, you might want to be shortlisted for various awards. And when you’ve won everything there is to win, you will worry about your work being at least as good as what came before. The struggle never really ends.

Writing books is particularly uncertain. When starting a novel, you’re months, perhaps even years away from the finish line — more than enough time to question everything about the project. The more words you write, the stronger the voice in your head becomes. Is this the right thing to work on? Is it going anywhere? The majority of would-be authors quit at this stage.

Other writers struggle before they start. They keep analysing and researching, trying to convince themselves that this is going to work. But no matter how good your idea is and how many notebooks you fill with notes, the uncertainty will never go away. How do you deal with that?

The only way to figure out whether a project will work is to start writing. For smaller projects like short stories and novellas, just power through the first draft. The first draft will tell you more about whether the story has legs than any amount of advance research ever can.

Thinking about writing a novel? There are ways to do this too. Take what you expect to be the most dramatic scene of the book and write that first. Get a feel of the characters, the setting. If you’re a pantser, try writing a short story with the same characters. See how you feel about it. Any red flags?

Thinking about writing something and actually writing the thing are two very different things. If you never start or never finish, the question will remain unanswered forever.

Will it work? Writing it is the only way to find out.

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Past Editions

#179: Throwaway Stories, January 2021

#178: Progress Over Perfection, January 2021

#177: Change Is Good, January 2021

#176: Start Before You’re Ready, January 2021

#175: Writing Without Expectations, December 2020

Aizawa tells Eri fantastical stories about how he lost his leg.

“A dragon bit it off,” He tells her with a nod at the cane that’s already decorated with Eri’s stickers. “I barely felt it.”

He isn’t sure if she believes him but at least she doesn’t know the truth.

He can’t bring himself to ever tell her- that the real reason it’s gone is because he had to cut it off himself to stop the spread of the quirk erasing bullet, a bullet made from Eri’s own body.

He’d much rather her think that a dragon bit it off, as illogical as it sounds.

No one else is allowed to tell her.

“What kind of dragon was it?” Eri presses him one morning when Aizawa’s still in the rehab hospital. “What color?”

“Red,” Aizawa immediately answers. “It was a big one. It didn’t breathe fire but it had the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen.”

“It didn’t breathe fire?“ Eri is incredulous. For a six year old, she’s smart. She’s probably never heard of a dragon that doesn’t breathe fire.

So Aizawa tells Mic to get her a book on dragons and he brings back a huge, thick hardcover book that Eri immediately delves into.

The girl can barely read and she’s got her nose in this huge 500-page book filled with pictures and stories about dragons. Aizawa has to help her with words every few seconds and eventually she curls up with him on the hospital bed so they can read together.

At one point, Aizawa sees a picture of a giant red dragon with huge teeth.

"That one,” He says, pointing at it. Next to him, Eri startles, turns her wide red eyes to the drawing. “That’s the one that bit my leg off. But I won.”

“Woah,” Eri cooes, staring at the picture as she holds the giant book in her tiny little hands. “Those teeth are big. Did you kill it?”

“No,” Aizawa says, thinking of Shigaraki. “But he won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

At least, that’s what he hopes.

Aizawa can hope, can’t he? He can as long as Eri’s here, curled up at his side, her mind full of ideas and images of dragons. She’s probably picturing the battle right now, of Aizawa fighting a giant red dragon.

It doesn’t hurt her to let her believe this.

But it would hurt her if she knew the truth.

So Aizawa lets her believe that some fantasy creature bit his leg off- because he doesn’t want her to know that it was a bullet made from her own body that made him cut it off.

As long as Aizawa has a say in it, she’ll never find out.

Whenever she becomes skeptical…

…He’ll just make up another story for her.

forbidden fruit | chapter 2

here’s chapter two! this is dedicated to @stardustsroses , happy (late) birthday my love!! <3

masterlist | ao3 | part 1

tags: @staticpetrichor @stardustsroses @nalgenewhore​ @illyrianbeauty @mariamuses @nomattertheoceans @vivorsomething @b00kworm @maastrash @lost-in-fictionn @acourtofabsandillyrians @ladywitchling 

***

Cassia.

Her named suited her. Soft. Ethereal.

Awkwardly, Manon extended her hand in an offer to help her up from her cowered position. Cassia’s stare immediately glued to the razor sharp nails curving wickedly from her pale fingers.

“I won’t hurt you,” she repeated again, cursing the touch of shame that sent a pang down to her very core. Since when did she feel bad about her terrifying exterior?

Cassia visibly swallowed, nodding hesitantly before accepting Manon’s hand, her body so light Manon barely had to exert any energy pulling her up.

“Um, I-” she stammered, timidly meeting her gaze. “Thank you for not killing me.”

Keep reading

do you think adult fantasy/fiction has to have sex scenes in it? Like if a work is adult in tone/style/other content but sex scenes are more like...fade to black, do you think that's more YA?

hi anon! so no, Adult books don’t need to have sex scenes. they can, of course, have explicit sex scenes (though, depending on how explicit, this runs the risk of the book shifting from Adult to erotica, since there’s a line that differentiates them; in fanfic terminology, and to really simplify it, “mature” is Adult while “explicit” is erotica), or sex scenes that are mature but not with anatomical terms (Red, White, & Royal Blue is a good example of this), but they can also have fade to black scenes, or no sex scenes at all. it’s all up to the author and what they want to write, and the rules and expectations of the genre they’re writing. my books fall under either category fantasy romance or (in the case of my current WIP) category romantic comedy, and the sex scenes i write have importance to the characters’ arcs (both as characters and as a romantic pair), so i include them, but that’s my personal choice as an author (plus, i’m tired of authors being afraid of using the word “cock” in their romance novels, y’know? @bittenwrath has talked about this before, too). if you want to include fade to black scenes in your manuscript, go for it! your book can still be Adult with the tone/style/other content if it has fade to black scenes :) 

some studies of my cat

POC Transman in danger

Please help us move out of our abusive situation.

It did not start this bad, but our land lady is making threats against us, but most namely my partner, Indigo.

I'm white. She treats me with kindness and embraces me.

He's brown. She shuns him and attacks him any chance she gets. For any menial thing.

He is not safe in this house and we cannot stay here. We need to move as soon as possible.

I aim for us to move by the end of the month, but it may get ugly before that happens.

Please help us safely move.

Paypal: https://paypal.me/Saturnxora?locale.x=en_US

Venmo: @ Saturn-Xora-Velour

Edit:

Current date 2/1/2021

@anarcblr @mutual-first-aid @mutualaidreblogs @mutualaidnetworking

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ive never seen anyone capture the feeling of meeting older dykes as well as this