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bsaka7 · 2 years

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G, K and R for the ask game please 🥰

THANK U ❤️❤️ ENJOY THIS LITERAL ESSAY

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Start to finish... Always straight through (unless of course the order is intentionally nonlinear. But then straight through from the outline anyway)... Sometimes I'll skip part of a scene if it's like... Travel or something I'm having trouble with (I like to use tags like [GET TO RESTURAUNT]) and then I'll go back later and either flesh that bit out or decide its unnecessary. but usually that's not more than one or two paragraphs. I do worry sometimes that I "run out of steam" at the end of fics bc of this strategy but also idk. I don't think any other way would work for me.

K: What's the angstiest idea you've ever come up with?

I don't know..... I'm not very good at knowing what other people will consider angsty or not (truly I have next to no sense of what fics will emotionally resonate lmao)... anything with infidelity where it like... ends bad for both people...I love falling short of your own destiny/ordained by fate in some terrible way.... I love "it could have been right but it wasn't".... idk. I guess I don't really think of my own ideas like this?? I think i like angstier stuff than I actually think up LOL?? also i don't usually have a ton of ideas im not actually working on I guess

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

in fic.... marthe @wdcseb and milo who has a new blog but I can't remember what it is... bc they are the ones I talk fic the most with and read their stuff and get to know their process!! and because of that sometimes they are who i write for.... also like anyone I'm friends with is an influence lol.

everything else under the cut this is long. I can talk about books forever

I'm not USUALLY trying to emulate other fic writers (though there certainly have been some deeply notable fics for me who have impacted my writing)... I am often taking bits and pieces from published authors. Here is a SHORT list:

Brandon Sanderson. This embarrasses me because I've read a lot of him. He's not a great writer! His stuff reads different when you think about how Mormon he is! But in terms of structure (esp for fantasy), and the idea that you can just sit down and write it. Just pound it out. Has been VERY influential for me (esp for star wars au)

Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich. I very much enjoy people who write about the natural environment in both a scientific and experimental and sometimes narrative and/or religious way. Generally isn't something I'm trying to imitate, but does occasionally come out.

Cormac Mccarthy. Sorry to be a bro. Milo got me into him and I love how he cuts out so much chaff in his writing. Have my critiques, yes. Influential, also yes.

John Steinbeck...East of Eden is one of my fav books), I like how he puts together characters and families. I like the biblical allusions. I like how he writes the landscape. I think reading helps me think about how to put things together. And I think Steinbeck strikes a balance between aspirational and readable and like.... arid and present in a way that works so well for me.

Probably a lot more than I'm not even THINKING about rn. I read. Kind of a lot. Some. Of. It is good some of it is not.

I'll also write a lot of fic that is a response (either an imitation of or how I felt whole reading it) to a book or an author...the two most DIRECT ones are:

hymn of -> Cormac Mccarthy, Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

to what will come ahead -> all the kings men by Robert Penn Warren

Okay this is so long. By now you know I can be SO wordy. but there are some thoughts.

#This is literally 1 million words. Tetrapod WHAT #Ask game #Ask

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nagichi-boop · 3 years

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hey there! i have a few questions i'm confused about related to ocd. i'm not diagnosed with ocd but i do have anxiety (health and general anxiety) and when i asked my therapist regarding this, she said it didn't point towards ocd. so here i am bcs i wanna learn where to draw the line.

i've been having a anxious period for the last two weeks. so mostly what if intrusive thoughts like "what if my anxiety never recovers?" keep coming a few times but i can deal with them.

however, last week i read a post and after that, a certain word started popping up in my mind. it was bothersome at first but then i eventually got over it. but then a random person told me it sounds like ocd and i got anxious about that.

now the word barely pops up but when it does, it doesn't bother me. however, what makes me anxious is the "what if its ocd?" thought. i know it sounds weird but rather than actually having other intrusive thoughts, the thought that's making me anxious the most is "since i have/had a word in my mind, it indicates ocd."

my therapist says it could've been ocd in case it was the word (and other words/thoughts) that bothered you but instead what's causing you distress is the what if its ocd thought as in i've self diagnosed myself and my anxiety brain is making me believe it. she said that it points more towards anxiety.

but now i find myself questioning every one of my habits. like does me choosing/preferring certain colors over others, buying/using only light colored cloth hangers bcs they look more positive, finding one side of bed better than other, praying everyday bcs i don't like skipping it, sitting at the end of the table or just me wanting to stick to my schedule, are these compulsions? or are these just habits and preferences? these choices don't impact my life in any way nor do they make me anxious and i can change those up easily but now, i find myself questioning them.

i'm sorry if you find this bothering you. that was not my intention. i just had some questions as to where do we draw the line between daily habits and ocd compulsions? or even between anxiety what ifs (like what if i have xyz disease?) and ocd obsessions/compulsions?

thank you and sending lots of love ❤

Hey, thanks for the ask! And dw you’re not bothering me. <3

I’m gonna start off by saying I’m not a professional - heck, I am not even diagnosed with ocd and I still on and off doubt that I have it - so I’m by no means the authority on what is and isn’t ocd, but I can try offer my opinion?

I’m not entirely sure how much research you’ve done into ocd and I still myself struggle to know what is and isn’t a sign of ocd. The constant wondering if the thing is ocd could be rumination, which is I believe a type of compulsion, but I can’t say for certain whether that’s directly a result of ocd.

The things you listed in that one paragraph I suppose could be ocd, but since you said it doesn’t cause you anxiety it’s possible it’s also not. To my knowledge, compulsions are usually done out of a state of anxiety. For example, someone who has a hand washing compulsion will find it deeply uncomfortable and anxiety inducing to not wash their hands when the desire pops up. I don’t really think that if it’s related to ocd that you can easily just change them, but again I’m not an expert. It’s an uncontrollable intrusive thought that leads to the action rather than a matter of preference. I guess it kinda depends why you do them. Do you pray every day because that’s your routine or because you’re worried that if you don’t something bad will happen?

Ocd is marked by obsessions, compulsions and intrusive thoughts. So someone might have something like “if I don’t flick the light switch 7 times, my whole family will die”, and so they have to do the compulsion of flicking the light switch to relieve that anxiety. There’s also a subtype of ocd called Pure O (or Pure Obsessional), who do has a misleading name because you still get compulsions, they’re just more internal. For example, you might worry “what if I have cancer” and then you think about it a lot, research the symptoms online, ask people if they’ve noticed anything, etc.

The only thing I can suggest is perhaps doing more research? I mean for me personally researching is part of my problem - I crave certainty and so I research different mental health disorders for hours a day in hopes it’ll give me an answer (which it doesn’t besides maybe some temporary relief). Try looking up different types of ocd, see examples of different obsessions and compulsions, maybe check tags on Tumblr or even reach out to ocd specific accounts if they have asks or smth open. I’ve learned a lot from just sending people messages asking about it and hearing other people’s experiences with it. Maybe you could even write down things that you think could be symptoms, then maybe bring them up with your therapist? Say that it’s been worrying you and you’d like to talk through it? I don’t have a therapist so idk how it works, sorry

I’m sorry if this answer isn’t helpful. Again, I’m not a professional or even diagnosed with ocd, so most of my knowledge is based on researching the symptoms I personally seem to have. You’re welcome to dm me if you like, but I think there are probably people who would be way more helpful to talk to. ^^;;

Perhaps if anyone who has ocd sees this they can offer some input? Maybe comment, reblog or leave an ask? (Again, I’m rly sorry for not being able to provide a better answer.)

#sorry if this isn’t helpful or what you wanted #I’m still learning myself #ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder #pure o ocd #mental illness #mentally ill #neurodiverse #neurodivergency #neurodiversity #long post #nagichi asks

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lady-plantagenet · 3 years

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Ship bingo: Anne Boleyn & Henry VIII (I know, I'm not the most original person in this site); and Eleanor Cobham & Humphrey of Gloucester

Hey hey sorry for answering this shipbingo so late hh. Hope you’ll still be interested in my odd and headcanon-y analyses. Since you requested 2 I will write shorter comments if ur ok with that :) x

Anne Boleyn & Henry VIII

‘I broke England from the Church yeah I really am that secksy’ or something along the lines is said by Anne’s character in Six: The Musical. I sorta resent that. I’m not very passionate about this ship nor do I take any ‘sides’, but I must admit I’m more partial to Catherine of Aragon and consider her to be Henry’s true love. The odd thing is, this is also cause a part of my feels like Anne was in some ways to good/evolved for him?? We all know the whole seductress Anne trope or poor set-up pawn Anne, we don’t know which are true but one thing we know for sure is that there was ‘pious outspoken religious reformer Anne’ and that’s what I am more interested in. My admiration grew 1000x when I realised she was heavily critical with where the desolution of the monastery funds were going - how they enriched ministers and lackeys of Henry as opposed to going towards schools. I say all this because my mental Anne Boleyn might be a bit different from most people’s and that will influence how I also see this ship.

I guess the above paragraph explains the ‘I’m picky about it part’, I hate anything that is major baby drama. Delicious and intrigued are oddly left out because I don’t really feel that myself though I understand why others would. It is perhaps because it’s such an overportrayed relationship and because by the time it became a thing Henry was already kind of obese I believe. Sue me, I like both my ship parties to be attractive XD. I would read fic for it just like I would read anything provided it is well written enough. I’m currently reading ‘Chained in War and Love’ by Lady Perserverence on AO3 (you know that one really famous fic in the Tudor fandom) which I suppose counts but since it’s a Francois I of France/Anne Boleyn AU I guess it doesn’t count (and I much prefer this pairing). This ship is one of those historical pairings where it’s hard to deny it was not romantic and sexual, one must remember that there must have been something about Anne in particular that attracted Henry and her educational background was unusually worldly for a woman of minor English nobility, given the fact that she could very well have been 32 (and age which is considered old for motherhood even by our times) by the time she married Henry simply put there must have been a romantic/sexual attraction beyond just her being fertile. She, herself, may have also had reason to feel attracted to him (despite his fatness) because he appears to have exuded the character of a Renaissance Prince which I feel she could have been drawn towards.

To be honest the ‘it’s complicated and unhealthily’ kind of speak for themselves. I feel like a part of the breakdown went beyond her not being able to hear a son because he does not seem to have properly tried like he did with Catherine of Aragon - the marriage was only three years long. I also feel like he was a bit too set in the past for her and she may have felt disillusioned with how he carried out the reformation. I also feel like Henry thought he would find a woman with Catherine’s brand of strength but with an ability to bear children, but despite both women having education in common Anne’s Protestant beliefs made her someone entirely different. Their feelings were strong but they clearly were not made for each other. With that said, theology fasincates me so to an extent I am more interested in the consequences (the reformation and how it changed the fabric of England) then even the ship itself - that is not to say the ship doesn’t interest me. And yes. I could/want to be convinced that this ship is interesting but if anyone wants me to get on board you will have to first throw off ‘seductress Anne’ or ‘poor maligned pawn Anne’. Only mercurial Henry and reformer Anne will do for me. With that said, I really wouldn’t mind the unrequited love trope thrown in there but with Anne accepting him only because Cromwell and co convince her that this is the only way England’s religion can change. I also liked the ‘Anne of One Thousand Days’ spin where it’s unrequited on her side and then turns unrequited on Henry’s side. Now that’s super tragic and would grab my attention. Overall, I like Anne Boleyn but I don’t ship them because I don’t think they were compatible, I don’t like Henry and I hate how the reformation was carried out and how the knock-on effect was the death of the Tudor figures I care the most about: Cardinal Fisher, Thomas More and Margaret Pole.

Eleanor Cobham & Humphrey of Gloucester

I love ships where both figures were described as intelligent by their contemporaries because there’s also a meeting of minds there. It also gives this partners in crime vibes which I really like. This connects to my whole ’delicious’, ‘romantic’, ‘best friends’ and ‘I’m intrigued’. A lot of fun things could be done with this ship and so I would read fic for it but I remain unpicky (except for , you know, prose as per usual). As it happens I also already read fic for this pairing and unless you are her, I would recommend @nuingiliath who writes loads for this couple and is the resident shipper - I believe this is her OTP. On Ao3 she is ‘heartofstanding’ she has plenty of stuff both on her tumblr and on that site so just follow the tags. Also all I know about these guys is from her pretty much.

The thing is, Eleanor Cobham is like Jane Shore for me, she brings out very weird feelings because I am very traditionalist and boring and hate my infidelities and tend to have an aversion towards mistresses. However, like Jane Shore, Eleanor Cobham appears to have had some virtues and was more than a pretty face (apparently Jacobia herself was quite dull and that’s one of the things that turned Humphrey off her but I’m not sure if that’s hearsay). So just like that, I don’t get an ‘ugh’ feeling like I would with people interested in the Bourbon mistresses in the 18th century or such because I much feel like it wasn’t that physical. This is where ‘softly’ comes, the age difference makes me imagine Humphrey as having that dad-aura Idk (and btw no I’m not pleading daddy issues at all - I feel like it quite undermines this couple), his incredible level of learning further feading into this wise persona but obviously his skirmishes with the administration give me an impression of this grand daring man as well. He seemed the picture of true aristocracy and in all the way he falters from those expectations (eg lack of martial talent) I also like to see. As I said, Eleanor also being described as intelligent makes me feel that she was at his level and while I am satisfied that the necromancy charges were shams it does indicate that she was considered bright enough by her contemporaries in order for such charges to be levelled in the first place. While it is true that the whole affair was targeting Humphrey, I really feel like Eleanor herself possessed (or at least was perceived by others as possessing) a certain dangerousness and this course of action was pursued by their rivals in order to kill two birds with one stone. After all, we have seen how easy treason charges can be conjured against magnates who though not technically speaking guilty have acted against the wrong faction eg Clarence’s case. With that I also put ‘best friends’ because I feel like like all those traits derived from the facts I’ve been privy to point to the fact that the two were friends as well as in love and attracted to each other. They really give me a partners-in-crime vibe and I’m always all for that. Not to mention I’m also a sucker of one part of the ship dying (preferably the woman) with the other following not late after or at least never living a fulfilled life as a widow-widower. It’s cruel but I love my doomed couples. So yeah, I ship it, I really do. I also have a great admiration for Humphrey as I have a soft-heart for scholarly people, I also admire how he was not blindly loyal and quite brazen. It’s a personality that intrigues me.

#🍷❤️#ship bingo #don’t be shy anon #humphrey duke of gloucester #eleanor cobham #humphrey of gloucester #henry viii #anne boleyn x henry viii #anne boleyn

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copperbadge · 6 years

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Hi Sam, I decided to take my 1st stab at writing fic. Its going great so far but Id love some advice from someone of your experience. I'm having trouble with tenses - Past tense feels the most natural for me to write in, but I hate how clunky it feels when I do action scenes (which I have many of). I LOVE how present tense feels more dynamic and snappy, real stream of consciousness effect...but I wind up having lots of weird phrasing. Idk, is mixing & matching tenses every few paras a bad idea?

Sorry to ramble, I guess my question is how do you tell if your writing is getting in the way of readability?

I think really there are multiple questions here – questions about judging the appropriateness of a style, about one style in particular, and about gauging a style’s readability. All are tough but let’s dive in!

In terms of the appropriateness of a style, especially as a beginning writer, I tend to recommend going to books you really love, or writers you really admire, and looking at how their books are structured. Read not for pleasure (just this once!) but to see how they construct their paragraphs, how they use tenses and tense shifts, and how they convey information. This is a skill, so you have to practice at it! Look for passages that are mostly information, look for how dialogue is designed (are there a lot of dialogue tags? Are there none?) and pay attention to tense-indicating words like has, had, do, did, etcetera.

In terms of tenses in specific, you will find that almost no story has shifts between tenses in the way you’re describing, in part because it does confuse the reader – is the story happening now in the moment, or did it already happen? People really like linearity in their stories, and tense shifts disrupt that linearity. HOWEVER, lots of stories do have covert tense shifts – for instance, a story told in present tense may shift to past tense if someone in the story is telling a story, or if the narrator in the present tense has skipped something and is now backtracking to explain it. There are ways to make tense shifts work, though they may make life more difficult for you.

Lots of people will tell you that present tense is inherently not as good as past tense, and they are wrong; they just mean they don’t like it as much. For every person who says to me “First person present, Sam? Really?” there are fifteen people who don’t even notice because they’re just enjoying the story.

This does make studying how to write present tense more difficult because you will encounter a lot of haters. However, because we use present tense more often in conversation than we do in literature, it can be awkward, as you’re finding out, to tell a story with it. The best way, again, to learn how to write less awkwardly in the present tense is to read in the present tense – find books that use the present tense voice and read them, studying how they handle wording that you’ve found awkward in the past. You may even find that what you think is awkward isn’t even that noticeable when you’re reading someone else say it.

I am a big fan of knowing the rules so you know how to break them BUT ULTIMATELY if you want to write a story shifting between tenses, do it and the hell with what anyone says. You are experimenting with style, and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but while you can write for others to read, in order to satisfy the creative urge really you need to write for yourself first. Write the story you want to write, the story you want to read, and you will learn as you go. If other people don’t like it at first, who cares? You told the story you wanted to tell.

I ran into this when I was learning the ukulele – I realized that the reason I didn’t like playing music as a child was that my teacher was teaching me as if I was possibly going to be a concert pianist or play in a jam band. She had me learning a lot of musical theory and playing a lot of music that would give me technical skills – but they were not skills or lessons that were any fun for me, they weren’t music I liked or the skills I’d need to play the music I liked. And so I didn’t practice much and when I did it was without passion.

Learning the ukulele, I got proficient really fast because I started out playing songs I liked and learned the chords I needed for them because I wanted to play them so badly. I was enjoying what I did and because of that I learned faster. Did I learn every skill I will ever need for the ukulele? Of course not. Some of those missing skills, like reading sheet music, may one day be important. But those harder, more boring skills can come in time, when I already have my passion for playing cemented and I myself am willing to take the next step. And without ever doing anything I didn’t want to do, I learned how to compose songs of my own, because I learned how the chords from songs I liked fitted together.

Basically, a lot of times, we teach art of all kinds to children as if it’s going to be a marketable job skill. It’s a very capitalist way we have. Very rarely do we let children find the parts of art they most enjoy without forcing them through the parts they don’t, I think because it scares us that they might make something that doesn’t fulfill some idealized potential. Art, in any form, is meant to be an expression of self, but even when we say “The outcome doesn’t matter” we treat it like it’s an assembly line. You can make anything you want to make as long as you make it in one of these three proscribed ways.

So to your final question, how to determine when style is getting in the way of readability – that’s a really tough one because we are never objective about our own work; we know what we’re trying to say and we think we’re conveying it, but because we have backstage knowledge, we can never truly be sure. One way, of course, is to have someone else read it and tell us what they think; “I understood this, I didn’t understand that.”

It’s a painful process, being told what we “did wrong”. It does help us learn; knowing how other people see your work will help you a great deal in terms of self-knowledge. But it’s also a process that’s only necessary once you’re already in love with what you’re doing, because at that point you WANT that self-knowledge that only comes from critique. So this leads back into what I said first: you have to love what you’re doing and do it from love first, and only care about other peoples’ opinions afterwards. There is no tried and tested way to know how other people observe our work, but if we love to make things for ourselves first, then we feel strong enough to ask and internalize the answer.

Basically, write what you want to write, and if you find that you love doing it, keep doing it; soon enough you’ll get bored of doing the same thing and want to expand, and that’s where skills acquisition will come in – where reading, listening to readers, and self-reflection will be helpful, instead of just tedious. At that point you can explore the nature of tenses and how to write in a single tense with more skill -- or maybe you’ll write a crazy fun experimental novel with tense shifts and change the literary landscape. WHO KNOWS.

Good luck!

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#Anonymous #writing #learning

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