#thanks so much 4thewords

[eli-writes-sometimes]

my writing software is trying to show me its new april event but there's so much confetti it's crashing the website :((

#thanks so much 4thewords #eli doesnt write sometimes #eli does camp nano 2024

[tippenfunkaport]

Inspired by a recent poll, could you tell us a bit more about the software you use for writing and the advantages with it?

Thanks so much!

Can I keep this short is the question...

So, for anyone who didn’t see the post this is referring to, I mentioned on another post that the writing software I use is...

4TheWords for drafting (brainstorming, first draft, etc)

Scrivener for all subsequent stages (editing, formatting, etc)

ProWritingAid for a final look before I submit / post

Longer version (and, like, I could talk about this all day so feel free to ask follow ups but I will try to contain myself)

4TheWords is a fantasy RPG-ish writing game where the words you write defeat monsters, earn loot, complete quests, etc. I have been playing it for five years ish and the game-ification just works really well for my brain. Earning silly little prizes and moving the game plot along keeps me motivated to keep writing when otherwise I would be a useless slug so I do most of my early stage writing on there like drafting, brainstorming, journaling, etc. It is silly but I love it and it basically saved my writing life when I was in a huge slump so they have my undying devotion. The company is also the kind you feel very good about supporting and they are HUGELY queer friendly with a big yearly Pride event with many of the main in-game characters being queer and/or trans. (The closest the game has to main characters are a lesbian couple that just got married as part of the Valentine's Day event last month!)

It costs money but a) there is a 30 day free trial of you want to check it out and b) there is a community pool if you cannot afford the fee as well as frequent sales/deals. (If anyone wants to try it out, feel free to use my referral code when you sign up because then you’ll get some extra crystals and I can send you a welcome present of some loot! If the image link above is annoying, dm me and I will give you it via text for copy and paste.)

Scrivener is very robust writing software that I use for fiction, non-fiction and scriptwriting. I only rarely use it for first drafts (bc I use 4TW for that) but I do almost all my editing / rewriting / formatting / publishing in it. I have been using it for probably about a decade and am still finding new tools and features I didn’t realize it had. I absolutely swear by it. The learning curve can be steep but luckily it’s one of the most popular writing programs in the world so there are a TON of great tutorials out there. (My advice? Just watch a video of something like the top 5-10 features and then play around and look up stuff as you have questions instead of trying to do the whole long tutorial it comes with.)

Disclaimer that I only own the desktop version. There are mobile versions that are a separate purchase from the desktop version but I don't use them.

Biggest selling points of Scrivener to me are:

while many writing services have a monthly fee, Scrivener is purchased exactly once and you can use it for life on your laptop and desktop AND you can get 50% off that one time price with a NaNoWriMo winner code (this alone is enough to buy my loyalty for life)

it’s incredibly versatile for both plotting and publishing and works really for my writing process (which is, admittedly, chaotic and weird) and has near infinite customization. It's esp great for making story bibles, organizing research, and plotting out larger works with lots of cross references and chapters you need to rearrange

as a script writer, Scrivener only cost me a one time fee of $35 and includes all updates and bug fixes until the next major version (which happens like once a decade). FinalDraft is $250 and that only includes the current version (which changes about once a year) to do the same thing. That’s a no brainer to me.

ProWritingAid is editing software. Like Grammarly but MUCH more robust with a lot more reports you can run. It’s not replacement for a human editor (AI editing can only do so much) but I like it as a second pair of eyes before I post or submit something because it does catch a lot of the basics and makes me feel a little better about sending something out. There is a limited free version and the full version can be pricey if you pay the monthly fee but I bided my time until the lifetime subscription went on sale for 50% off and paid once and now I have it to use for life.

There. That was almost short, right?

#writing #writer #scrivener #4thewords #prowritingaid #writerscommunity #writblr #writbr #writers on tumblr #nanowrimo #asks #writing software

[retirement-home-rumble]

What do you think is the most obscure/least known source you've got a submission from, and who was submitted?

This is hard to judge and I have shared a few already, but I shall try my best

Miles Tuck from Tuck Everlasting

Jacks from Snapdragon

Nocturne and Mortullace from Somewhere Other

Karla from Saga

Myron Van Buren from Poptropica (okay I know the source isn't obscure, but it's definitely not the first one you think of)

Ms O from Odd Squad

Jim Thanit Iaosiri from Moonlight Chicken

Robinton from Dragon Riders of Pern (I actually love this series so much so thank you submitter for reminding me of him)

Velts from 4thewords

And so many more, but these will do for now 💕

#retirement responses

[detrasystem]

hey! this is chance & here’s this week’s prompt. what websites or resources do you use while you write or develop a character/story? what do you think of them and would you recommend them?

hi chance!! tysm for the ask, this is such a kind and fun thing for you to be doing 💕

i have a LOT of resources to talk about with regard to this prompt. i'm actually planning in-depth posts for almost all of these, but for now i'll list out the things i absolutely cannot live without when developing a story.

websites

Random Generators. i have literally been to hundreds of random generator sites over the years, and they have become an absolutely invaluable resource for generating ideas, whether it's for a character name or a complete adventure. one of my all-time favorites, Chaotic Shiny, introduced me to the concept of NaNoWriMo and thus the writing community at large! i'd also recommend Seventh Sanctum and, as i'm sure everyone's already familiar, FantasyNameGenerators.com. each website is completely independent, some are still being updated to this day, and they each have a different Vibe to them so all three can be used depending on what kind of ideas you want to spark at the moment. HIGHLY recommend this unrestrained summer fun.

Springhole.net. this is kind of an expansion on the above, because there are some fantastic random generators on this site, but there's so much more here, too. in-depth advice for character development, worldbuilding, writing in general...it's great. and criminally underrated!

Susan Dennard's newsletter. Susan Dennard is the author of the Witchland series, among other things, and she's been keeping a long-running advice newsletter for writers for a LONG time. she's traditionally published and often has some great insight into the publishing world as well as just generally really good tips for writers of any stage. i'm not personally a fan of her books, but i am a fan of her advice. <3

YouTube. ok. hear me out. this could be for a few different things. i find it kind of fun to see how other writers tackle the writing process, so i'll watch writing vlogs every now and then--Kate Cavanaugh Writes is by far THEE best channel out there for this. her videos are excellently edited, her joy of writing is contagious, and she does a lot of fun and inspiring writing challenges! i often get bored watching people just stare at a camera and talk for 30 minutes straight, but her videos are Absolutely not like that so they're really easy to watch.

but even if you're not into vlogs, did you know that there's a whole subset of (mostly Japanese) YouTubers who make royalty free music and just like...post it? and it's GOOD? like genuinely?? go check out PeriTune right now and thank me later. i'm one of those writers that NEEDS music to write and develop characters so PeriTune (and the others that will eventually get recommended to you the more you watch their videos GHNGDFHG) makes the perfect background music for scenes, locations, characters, etc. and did i mention it's insanely good for being 100% free?

this isn't a resource for development, per se, but i can't recommend 4thewords enough. it's an online word processor that turns writing into an RPG: battle monsters by writing words during a certain time limit, and then complete quests with the loot you earn from your battles! there's a free 30 day trial for new users, and if you're participating in NaNoWriMo, the devs usually put coupons for free writing time during those months, so if you're not constantly in need of drafting several words at once, you really don't have to spend a cent. though 4thewords IS independently owned and developed by a wonderful team of writers who are very inclusive, so i do recommend supporting them if you can. :-) one month starts at $4, and if you use my referral code IRZVE23798 you and i both get free "crystals" that count toward subscription time <3

books/publications

there are two writing craft books i need EVERYONE to read, regardless of medium. Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig, and 27 Essential Principles of Story by Daniel Joshua Rubin. this is not the writing advice you've heard before. this is not elitist, prescribed advice. these are two books that will change the way you THINK about story, no matter how experienced you are. i am ALWAYS consulting these books. they live on my desk permanently.

Writer's Digest. i will admit to being subscribed to this magazine (and Poets & Writers), and for good reason! each bi-monthly issue is full of insider information about the publishing industry, creative writing prompts, and great food for thought about the craft. even if you can't/don't want to subscribe to the magazine, their website is full of great articles to get the inspiration flowing.

Publishers Weekly. i just check their website out periodically, to get a pulse on what's getting published these days, and by whom. if you want to be traditionally published, it's ALWAYS a good idea to understand the trends of the industry; plus, reading reviews on PW is a great way to find books to read that you might not have found otherwise.

and finally, of course, if you want to write, you have to read. like. i cannot stress this enough. find books that speak to you. reading others' work is essential to finding out what kind of techniques, tropes, characterizations, etc you LIKE as well as DON'T like. some people don't like reading in their genre for fear of accidentally plagiarizing, but i'm in the camp that NEEDS to read in my genre to get the right words into my brain so i can spit them all back later. no matter how or why you read, though, you gotta do it. even if it's just one novel that you read over and over again to keep getting inspired. GO TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY. thank you.

#beneath the ask #digital-chance #writing #writing advice #writing resources

[coffeebanana]

3 and 9 for the writer asks?

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Current favourite is Say Something. I just crammed a lot of my favourite tropes into it and I love the balance of hurt/comfort. Plus it's definitely the fic I've put the most effort into writing so far!

9. Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written!

So, I write most days. And currently I'm on a 31-day streak!! But I've learned it's important to listen to how I'm feeling and if I really don't want to write then I don't try to force it. And what often ends up happening is that after I've told myself I don't have to write today, I'll end up. Sometimes it's just a few hundred words of absolute word vomit on my phone right before I fall asleep at night--why do the ideas always hit right when I'm trying to sleep?! 😭--but hey, it's still something!

I've been using this website called 4thewords and to maintain your "streak" there you're supposed to write 444 words a day (you also "defeatmonsters" as you write. Different monsters come with different word counts/time limits and it gives you a nice little dopamine rush 😂. And I think part of why it works for me is that it actually counts the words even if I delete them after. Because yes, drafts don't need to be perfect. But sometimes I'm just really not satisfied with something and I CAN'T get past a certain part of a fic until I figure out something that DOES work.

Part of the fun in writing for me personally is having that moment where everything just clicks and I feel like I've made magic with words--that's why I like editing, I think. So, when the deleted words count, I don't feel bad if I delete things. I don't feel like I've done less writing. I tried things, and if they didn't work, they didn't work! But I still tried. It makes me feel better about spitting out nonesense, actually, which means I can work my way to the stuff that DOES work quicker. And on editing days I'll just post lorem-ipsum into it so it counts as a writing day to keep the streak going or whatever.

I think another part of why I've been writing so regularly lately is because prior this I did take a little over a week off (well, okay, a week and then i wrote one day and then a few more days until i was really motivated again). Sometimes I just need a break! And learning to be okay with break days has sort of been a struggle? But I actually think I'm at the most healthy place I've been with my writing in a while. I'm learning how to write what I'm feeling when I'm feeling it and to not worry so much about how much actually gets done. (which ironically means I'm probably getting more done 😂)

As for something I've written today...

The dish Marinette had been scrubbing half to death clattered into the sink, and she had to resist the urge to scream at the reality of one more thing slipping from her fingers.

Thanks for the ask!! 💜

Fic Writer Asks

#ask response #rosie-b #4thewords should hire me as a spokesperson actually i am lowkey obsessed 😂

[ofstormsandfire]

hey there pal, hows the weather-

i’ll cut to the chase: how do you get writing done, and how do you stay focused on your writing and not get so distracted?

Weather's pretty decent right now! Sunny and hot, which is why I don't plan on going outside for several hours, but I'll take that over thunderstorms that knock out my power for a few seconds and my wifi for longer. My dad calls it "florida flash and flicker" which is as amusing a name as it is way too accurate.

Anyway, uh. Well, I do get pretty distracted, I won't lie. I'm on here right now instead of writing. But there's a particular site I use called 4thewords that, for lack of a better description, it translates writing words into fighting monsters. With time limits. And while it really isn't a big deal if I "lose" the battle by running out of time, it's a big deal to me and it helps me stay on task.

It's a bit of a tradeoff; I've noticed that while I write significantly more on 4tw I also generally have to edit more after the fact too. But you can't edit what's not there at all.

It's also absolutely not the sort of thing that would work for everyone, but it works really well for me. I started using 4tw after I got a free extra month's subscription (it does cost money, but it's not very much, and if it's not feasible in your budget there is a community pool that you can put yourself into for other users to donate subscriptions to) thanks to beating Camp Nanowrimo in... July of 2021? I have written so much more since I got it and I genuinely cannot recommend it more.

More generally, though: it helps to set deadlines for myself, artificial or otherwise. I'm one of those people who will put off important school assignments until the last minute and then dash out a 10-20 page essay the day before it's due and somehow do okay on it, because adrenaline kicked in.

It also helps that I'm generally very passionate about the things I'm writing? Most of the people I know irl have heard about whatever gay fanfic I'm actively working on the most. I'm meeting up with my nana for lunch tomorrow and she is going to hear about the gay people whether she likes it or not. (She is also going to get this story read out loud to her dramatically because she called me when I was reading it out loud to my dad dramatically and was vaguely curious, and I like reading funny things out loud to people I like dramatically.)

...I think it also helps to focus on One Thing at a time. Which, you have presumably seen my AO3, I'm not good at doing that. But it's much easier to keep your thoughts in order if you mainly work on one longer fic at a time.

It's also much easier to keep your thoughts in order if you write things down. I didn't use to outline my writing, I started cowriting a funky crossover between Warframe and RWBY with a friend who was far more of a planner and who did drag me somewhat kicking and screaming into doing that. Taking notes is important, otherwise you run the risk of forgetting important details like which trainer has which Pokémon or if the gay dumbass you're currently writing has had any sort of revelations about that fact lately. They don't have to be organized (though it helps if they are) and they don't have to make sense to anyone but you, but if you write things down you're much less likely to forget important/cool things you came up with like two separate projects ago.

I hope this makes some sense, anon! If you'd like clarification on anything by all means send another ask, I'll do my best to explain in more depth. Thanks for the ask!

#askbox #anonymous #writing things #fanfic things #4thewords

[chaoslynx]

Hey, I absolutely adore your writing, and I was wondering if it was okay to send you a prompt. Absolutely no pressure to fill it! If it interests you, go ahead and write it to your heart’s content :) If not, I appreciate you and your writing regardless <3 Thank you!

Anyway, here’s the prompt:

CW: eating disorders

Components: Ash/Eiji, Post-Canon, Ash Lynx Lives, Parental Max and Jessica, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, typical BF themes like past rape/non-con

Ash gets hospitalized due to complications from his anorexia nervosa. Even though Ash is finally free from Dino’s control and the events of Banana Fish, sometimes healing can be more difficult to cope with than undergoing the trauma itself. When one is just trying to survive everything, it’s easier to avoid processing things. Now that everything is over, all Ash is left with is his unhealthy coping mechanisms. Fortunately, he has a support system now—he doesn’t know how to feel about that, though.

Feel free to include other characters too like Cain, Sing, Alex, Bones, Kong, etc.

You can absolutely send me a prompt! I make no promises about being able to write said prompts, but y'all are always welcome to send them my way :)

You wrote out the tags and everything omg?? Thank you so much. I love working with vague prompts or single lines too, but more info is helpful so I can try to capture the vision you have and the vibe you want.

Here's the fic!! I'll post a proper link in a second. Hopefully this works -- it doesn't focus on parental MaxJess quite as much as I was originally planning, so if it doesn't scratch the itch like you were hoping, let me know and I'll see if I can at least do a drabble or something more to your tastes.

Also I procrastinated this for days while 4thewords was down and then wrote it all in one sitting once the site was back???

#answers #anon #cw disordered eating

[ursafootprints]

6, 7, 10, 15 c;

Thank you for playing, these questions were super fun to think on and answer 💖💖💖

6. what’s the hardest part of the writing process for you?

Transitions/flow! Historically I have mostly written one-shots or fics like Naturally where yes, it's multichap, but it revolves around only a few scenes where the chapter breaks themselves double as scene breaks, so for YNYD and some of my lengthier WIPs it's been difficult to translate my bulletpoints-in-an-outline into something that feels cohesive and organic. This was my major struggle with the most recent chapter of YNYD, because the main thing that chapter was For was exploring the development of Tony and Peter's intimate life, and I had a hard time beating it into a shape that felt cohesive instead of like a collection of random gently-escalating makeout/smut scenes.

For one-shots, though, it's just Doing The Damn Thing, since one-shots are usually pretty fully-formed in my head and I don't have to worry about actual ideas or flow. I've gotten much better at giving myself permission to just write a sloppy rough draft and clean it up in the aftermath since I started using 4thewords (SUPER fun, but it is a subscription,) but getting stuck on not being able to immediately come up with The Exact Wording I'm Going To Use In The Final Draft was my biggest struggle prior to that. (Genuinely, until I started using 4thewords my "editing" for my chapters was 95% just fixing typos, because I just straight-up wouldn't write a line down until I had it absolutely perfect in my head, haha. Now I have to edit a lot more, but it's still more efficient than THAT!)

7. how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

Hmm! This is a really interesting question– on the scale of “writing for engagement” to “writing for myself” I’m definitely much moreso on the “writing for myself” side of things and I’m influenced very little by “is this what other people in fandom want to read” when it comes to deciding what fic ideas I’m actually going to pick up and follow through on. I have noooo idea if this is something common for writers or if this is an ADHD thing or if this is a just-me thing, but for me, the urge to write something is driven by “I have this idea and I just have to see what it looks like fully-formed,” and if I don’t write out those ideas then I’ll sit there and imagine and reimagine and reimagine the same scenes over and over and over again until I finally actually write them and get them out of my head. (This has been a great motivation for YNYD, because there are still scenes to come that are in this stage for me, so I’m stuck in imagine-reimagine mode with them until I actually get there!) So even if something is unlikely to get engagement, I’ll still write it, because I’ve got to get it out of my head For Me.

But! Of course I LOVE engagement, I love my readers, I find comments incredibly motivating and particularly when people get into genuine analysis of what the characters are going through or relationship dynamics or what the themes of the work are– that really excites me and often inspires me to go and make new notes on my outlines/behind the scenes documents or open up my docs to finally make myself edit That Bitch Of A Scene etc. etc. And then… as much as I am more of a write-for-myself type, it is hard to say, like… idk, would I have written 100k+ words of YNYD if I was getting zero engagement? I don’t know! I’ve never been put in that position– Starker fandom is by far the most active fandom I’ve ever written for, but I’ve always gotten at least some engagement on my writing even for smaller fandoms where a Highly Successful fic means that you get 4 comments instead of, like, 40. I do think I still would have written it due to the aforementioned “gotta get these scenes out of my head” thing, but maybe more slowly/not making it as much of a priority, idk.

I will say that because Starker fandom is so much more active/enthusiastic than other fandoms I’ve been in, the initial reception to my fics was a little overwhelming (though wonderful, obviously!!) to where I did backslide a little bit into like, “oh no, what if people don’t like that I did [XYZ] in this chapter” and was feeling more pressure about my writing, until eventually things evened out and I was able to get back in my zen place of focusing on how I felt about the fic/chapter/whatever instead of thinking about audience reception. (And to be clear, I’m DELIGHTED to be a part of such a wonderful, supportive community– it was just a big adjustment coming from fandoms where having a runaway smash-hit fic meant getting a fourth of the engagement, haha.)

10. how has writing positively impacted your mental health or overall mood?

It’s been soooo nice. I wrote consistently as a preteen/early teen, which I loved and was wonderful and I had so many positive experiences in fandom back then, but then for about a decade starting in my midteens my primary fandom outlet became text-based RP and I stopped reading/writing much fic at the time! And that was also wonderful and I made so many long-term friendships during that time, but eventually my energy for RP kind of dwindled, I found myself coming back to writing, and it’s been a blast. Having a source of regular creative engagement (that doesn’t rely on others the way RP does) has been so lovely and has given me so much energy during times that were otherwise pretty stressful.

15. how do you think your writing has improved over time?

Oooh, this is such a tough question. Both because the tone in my recent works and my only-semi-recent works are so different– like, I don’t know if I’ve actually gotten better at conveying mood and depth of emotion, or if I just didn’t have as much opportunity to do that for my fluffier, more romcomesque fandoms– and because I don’t… ffffocus on the technical skills of writing, much?

Obviously I have improved at writing since I wrote my first fic at the tender age of 8, but I don’t really edit with an eye towards overuse of words, avoiding “””bad””” words like ‘very’ or whatever, efficiency/redundancy, balance of sensory vs environmental vs emotional detail, varying sentence length to improve rhythm, blah blah all that stuff you’re “supposed” to do if improving your writing skill is your goal, because for me it’s really not!

I want to tell my stories how I want to tell them, with the exact amount of effort that I want to expend towards that, and not a single drop more, haha. My goal when I’m writing is to convey the emotion/dynamic I’m trying to express as thoroughly and accurately as possible, so all of my editing is geared towards that vs the more technical aspects of writing– so yes, obviously achieving that goal often means modifying for awkward phrasing or changing up the pacing or varying sentence structure, but I’m not approaching every scene with the Goal of having perfect phrasing and perfect pacing and perfect sentence structure, if that makes sense? I don’t hunt for things that are off; I just highlight the spots that immediately feel iffy as I’m writing them, and I come back to them later to tidy up. And honestly, I feel like a major trademark of my style is the deliberate use of run-ons and embedded clauses and sentences that are Way Too Fucking Long in a way that I’m sure any editor-minded readers would LOVE to get their hands on and tear apart and shuffle around and rearrange and make more cohesive/coherent, but I like writing that way!

To be clear, I think it’s awesome and incredible when people approach fic-writing with the intention to actually improve their writing itself, but that’s just really not how I approach it. I don’t have a goal of being professionally published someday, and I don’t want to dig into the guts of my fics to think about what flaws they have and how I could have made them better by honing XYZ skill– that’s not fun to me, and to me fic is for fun! It’s about making myself sad or happy or angry or horny over my blorbos, so when I edit or I’m happy/unhappy with a scene it’s alllll about how well I feel like I’ve accomplished that goal, so it’s really hard for me to judge improvement in my writing based on any other metric. Sometimes I nail it, sometimes it feels off, and that has been the case for as long as I have been writing, haha.

#ask games #ynyd

[wild-daffodils]

Nano Update!!

Thanks to being able to use Sarah and I's stranger things roleplay towards my word count, I am at 16,382 words

Last night, I was introduced to 4thewords, and started my first Quest (it is sooo fun!) I was able to write a fun imagine based on a gif that was sent to me. It was a fun challenge, and I'm glad I was able to think of something on the spot.

For funsies, I have included the gif

I am enjoying nano so much, and this is my first year doing it! I love doing writerly things!

Tonight I plan to work on the roleplay, and finish the timeline for Sarah's wip! I WANT TO FIND OUT WHO THE LIAR IS

-Rebecca

#nano #writery #writingblog #update #stranger things #steve harrington

[martintheland-lockedmartian]

I just opened my e-mail to find a barrage of notifications from you - HOW did you manage to write so much?? What a present!!! I'm suuuuper stoked to read ALL of them IMMEDIATELY

MASSIVE THANK YOU AND MERRY CHRISTMAS HECK YEAH

I had a great NaNoMo 🤣 (and I am so close to getting my writing dragon on 4thewords, so I have to write a lot)

I'm not quite don't yet though!

[mirrorthoughts]

16, 18, and 25!

Yay! More questions!! Thanks! 💕💕💕💕 (questions from this post)

16. Already answered here! <3

18. What was the hardest fic to title? I think it was actually Dead on Time ... I don't normaly have problems to give fics a title - I just use random phrases that kinda sound good and 'fit' and don't think much about it? - but for some reason that one took me a bit xD But I like the multiple meanings of it!

25. What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.) I actually mostly use Scrivener to write! Though this year I also got back into writing per hand into a notebook (because I finally found the perfect notebook to do so!) and I also started writing on 4thewords! Which actually is the reason that my Secret Santa Story grew into a 30+k monstrosity instead of being maybe 10k long 😂 That website really makes me write a lot per day!! though it can be quite exhausting. On slow days I actually use it to write notes or RPG posts, too, because that's still creative writing after all!

#dear-massacre #ask game answered #thank you 💕💕💕

[ladyazulina]

July 14th

So... today had been a blast.

I wasn't in the mood this morning, so I was doubting what the day was going to be like.

I'm participating in a few (only two, unless I forgot any other) events on two different Discord servers, and both of them have bingos running through the month (we make our own bingos), but I was feeling bad because my month started... without a bang. I'm better now, even hopeful! (I want a prize for finishing first my bingo card in one of those events, so I'm also kind of motivated, though, at the same time, I'm eyeing the few slots that can be a bother later on)

I started writing thanks to a Word Wars (a sprint) in the server that will be giving prizes, had only twenty minutes to focus myself, and kind of did, didn't think it was enough time. But I participated (and crossed out one slot of the bingo), and even won the second war! For very little, but won anyway.

I don't like doing sprints because I feel pressured easily, and also get aggressive and competitive and don't like to lose, and that's only work against myself, but that was pretty fun!

In fact! I think it was the thing that helped me with my word count today.

So, I was writing in 4thewords even during the word war, and started with the three of those I had left

Then I went with six of those in the follow-up quest (if you remember seeing me fighting them a few days ago)

And finished with five of those

I wrote quite a lot, uh?

4thewords says I wrote 1.506 words, the final word count was 1.402- and I finished Part 1 of the 3rd Scene of Chapter 4 with a total of 1.923 words!! 🎉🎉🎉👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

My girl is suffering, though. It was kind of a hard scene...

But I'm SO happy! I didn't expect to progress this much in this short time! I should be reaping my rewards (playing a lot of Iron Valley) but I kind of feel powered up! I need to take advantage of the feeling as much as I can.

I'm crying.

This writing was a blast.

#writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writing community #writing #writers of tumblr #writerscommunity #4thewords #accountability #someone hold me accountable #hold people accountable #keep me accountable #writing buddies #writing buddy #writing log

[misssugarpinkshome]

Author Update!

Hey folks, SugarPink here! Nice to see you all again so soon!

Yes, I updated a lot faster, because of a little something called 4thewords. Hooooly shit guys. It’s so good. I’m gonna make a big huge post about it, but it’s basically Fighter’s Block, but MORE. I’ve written so much these past few days, and I can’t seem to stop. Only, I have to, cause father’s day and all that.

Shout out to all those out there with rough times on Father’s Day. Trust me -- I relate. Just had a remarkably weird and dissociative weekend because of how messy Father’s Day is for me. So instead, I wrote Valentines’ Day stuff! Much better lol.

Thanks for sticking with me, folks. Really, I’m doing better than I have been in months. I’m finally not sick (knock on wood) and feel like I have energy. I’m hoping to actually finish this book of WKYH (which, since I finally outlined it all properly, I believe will be happening on Chapter 58) this summer. Don’t get your hopes up, you know how hard writing is for me, but... We’ll see. I’m optimistic, for once.

SugarPink signing off! Mwah! Love you all!

#Mod Gazi #<3

[4thewords]

Old School Legacy Gift with Free Subscription Time, a Timeline for the Months Ahead & the Dragon Clan’s Invitation!

October 14, 2022

Dust Warriors,

We hope you’ve been having a great week so far! There are incredibly exciting weeks up ahead with the launch of our redesigned site and the beginning of three special events at the end of this month, culminating in our main special event of the year: The Dragon Clan!

As we prepare for the months ahead, we wanted to share a timeline of important dates as well as give a gift commemorating Dust Warriors who are “old school” enough to have been a part of the community before the redesigned site was revealed. We also have an invitation from the Dragon Clan!

It’s an important moment for our community and we want to thank you for being on this journey with us.

Timeline

The next few weeks will be filled with new events, monsters, challenges, and adventures to embark on as we write more words than ever before! Here is a timeline that might help you plan ahead and keep track of important dates:

As always we’ll have news updates and global events happening for these special events!

Old School Gift

In a few weeks we’ll be releasing our redesign and thus mark another stage in our evolution. We’ve grown so much as a community and this next step is one more on our journey together.

As a thank you for being with us on this adventure, and to commemorate those who were Dust Warriors before this big milestone was reached, we have a gift pack that includes some legacy items, a badge and 30 free days of subscription time for everyone!

One small change we’ve made to mark this momentous occasion is a new logo! Our new logo looks much like the old one, but it has a few key changes. We’ve cleaned up the colors to a single one, we kept the iconic shield (which represents our game) and we’ve transformed the 4 so that the leg it stands on is a pencil (to symbolize our writing) and the triangle it holds up at the top is an open laptop (to symbolize the digital universe we are creating and holding up with our writing) in addition to being a book (containing the story we’re writing here together).

To honor the past that’s brought us to this moment, we’ve made a set of legacy items with the old logo that will only be available for the next 10 days. 

Claim your 30 days of free subscription time and legacy items by using the special code “oldschool” in your Account page. This code will only be available until October 25th so make sure to claim your gift while you can!

Thank you for being on this journey with us, Dust Warriors! 

We can’t wait for you to see the redesigned 4thewords, and if you’d like to get an early look at what’s coming, read our previous news for more details. 

We’re sending out an email to all our Dust Warriors letting you know about the redesign and this code, so if you see new faces in the Forum, or old faces peeking in again, please give them a warm welcome!

Dragon Clan’s Invitation

Dust Warriors of the Valley,

I have shared the good news with my clan that we have found other non-Dust infected beings! While we were planning on visiting your Valley to meet you, the density of Dust there made us reconsider and we believe it would be best to invite you to visit us on neutral territory instead. 

This time of year is the most special for our clan as our mother dragon is about to lay eggs! 

The Dust has taken much from us as well and we find ourselves in need of companions for these new dragons. Warriors who will help us raise them and train them. If the bonds between you and the egg you chose are strong, the dragon will have you as a battle companion for life!

We’ve found an isle free of Dust that will be perfect for meeting. It is filled with the food, water, and shelter we’ll need for dragon training and to nurture the eggs that will be laid.

We have given the location of this, our Dragon Isle, to your shipbuilder Skuppa (who will be bringing you to us). We will see you on October 31st, Dust Warriors, and together, we will train the next generation of dragons!

Your friend from the ice,

Loksi

We can’t wait for the months ahead, Dust Warriors! We’ll be back soon with more news as we near the redesign launch and things pick up for October’s Special Events, the best is yet to come! For the Valley!

#4thewords #promo code #writing #writer #4 the words #schedule

[theminecraftbee]

hi! i’m thinking of getting into writing fanfiction, do you have any tips for staying motivated? hope you’re having a good day!

oh!!! uh, see, my motivation is a bit of a cryptid. but given how much of it i've gotten back lately, let me offer things that have helped me!

word goals with external enforcement. the punishment shouldn't be horrible and should be reversible - for example, i got covid in january, and was also mid-posting a fic, if i hadn't had a way to repair my streaks on 4thewords when my brain was too fuzzy to do better than vaguely comprehend editing stuffed bird i probably would have cried - but it SHOULD be enforced by someone who Is Not You. as mentioned, i personally use 4thewords. that's a paid service, though. other things i suggest include camp nanowrimo when that comes up... i think april if i remember right... or even just. a friend who will poke you to write about 100 words a day, if that's what you can keep up with. but some kind of external motivation to put words on paper helps a lot!

getting this tumblr? BIG help. sometimes i don't have like, a full idea for a fic, but i still want to write. on this tumblr i feel like i'm "allowed" to write a 300-word drabble in twenty minutes at 1 am and just. get a story out there. and as a result i have written SO MUCH MORE because i'm less concerned with things needing to be long and presentable. i'm willing to just... throw concepts at the wall and WRITE THEM. it's actually really fun it's the main reason i'm glad i decided to make a tumblr sideblog like. the sheer number of things in my fic tag is ABSURD my output didn't used to look anything like that.

write what you want to write! i know that sounds trite, but no, seriously, i need you to understand that stuff like stuffed bird or certain brilliance? i was dead convinced only i would like them. and that's really scary! the fear no one will like your stuff is scary! but writing things you genuinely find interesting will often make it interesting to other people. don't try to force yourself to write things that you don't think are cool!

that doesn't mean you won't have to write things that are HARD sometimes, mind you - if you write a longfic there will be scenes that are a little boring to write or hard to write so you don't want to. just make sure what you think you're writing is cool.

if you don't get noticed at first... remember that at least half of what gets popular is sheer, incomprehensible luck. like, there ARE things you can do for metrics (make friends on tumblr for reblogs, post at times of day that are good that i still haven't learned, write in categories people are reading a lot of, post high amounts of content, get good at summaries). but at the end of the day, none of those things quite stand up to... sheer, dumb luck. good writing also gets you far, mind you! but if you're beginning to be scared your writing is bad, remember that the first thing i ever tried to post got like, three total interactions and i gave up immediately. the NEXT thing i tried to post was black box. so there's a shit ton of dumb luck, not merit, that goes into deciding what gets popular, and if you learn to just Not Care, you will feel so much better about yourself.

(also that anecdote was just in mcyt, i’ve been in other fandoms under other handles and my stuff there just never really got big i’m flying blind here these days)

...also finally, if you're writing a longfic, i KNOW posting the chapters early is motivating, but also write the whole thing first before posting it. your readers and your backlog will thank you.

i hope these all help! i don't know if i'm very good at advice.

#answered #i think this is all generic good advice but like. they're the things that work for me specifically. #no guarantee they work for other people!

[stonefreeak]

I absolutely love your chancellor kenobi series and am so grateful that you've written so much of it, you have sparked much joy for me. I wanted to ask your advice as someone who has written & published a large AU with many moving parts. How do you choose what order to publish things in? Do you have an outline that you stick to, do you publish as you write it, do you go with the flow?

Hello! Thank you so much, I'm glad to hear that you enjoy it!

Now, I could probably tell a few horror stories about how I was structuring my files and writing early on before @veilofadyingstar clowned on me enough times to get me to not write more than 5 different fics in the same google doc, separated only by headers (yes really), but I don't think that's very conductive to your questions, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

Chancellor Kenobi (CK) started as directly-into-tumblr ficlets. As in, I wrote everything directly into the text post editor and then just tagged it and pressed save and that was that.

It was also, early on, sort-of-not-really a prompt fic. Basically, I started by writing a ficlet on an idea, and then people wanted more of that ficlet, so they sent me asks. Sometimes they did manage to hit on what I imagined would happen, sometimes they didn't (in which case I would tell them what actually happened). I have so many asks still that I planned on replying to with a ficlet but just forgot, which is why my inbox currently has 156 messages in it, lmao (sorry everyone who sent me an ask!)

Back when this was the format CK was in, back in December 2016, I posted ficlets in whatever order I wrote them. I updated daily back then, sometimes even twice per day. After 10 days of this (so on the 13th, with about 10ish ficlets to the story) I asked if people wanted me to collect everything in a masterpost, which they did, at which point I had to go back and actually double check the order of events.

This was all so early on in the story that I just posted ficlets as I wrote them, haphazardly adding them into the timeline where they belonged, without caring about posting order at all.

I had an idea of what would happen, and as it grew more complex and I got further into the story, I realised that posting things out-of-order wouldn't be feasible anymore. The ficlets were becoming far too context dependent (because of the complexity and details of the plot) so even though I was still writing ficlets in the order of "whatever strikes my fancy", I now had to wait with posting until it was actually the next bit of the plot, this is when my updates started to slow down a lot, because yeah...

I started writing down an outline of events, but I never finished that, and I've since lost it lmao. So the actual plot, the story, the details... all of that lives only inside my head. I'm mentally keeping track of everything.

Which, honestly, I don't think I recommend that LMAO

After all, keeping it all in your head means that if you forget something, lmao, it's gone. bye bye

However, I did mention fairly recently that I'd done some organising of my files where I properly placed files out in order and name them, which now kind of works as an outline, lol (I use a writing subscription service for a gamified writing experience called 4thewords). However, there are a few blank files in between the named ones because I know I need more stuff in there in between the named events so it's not really a proper outline either.

So. I still write the fic out of order, which is something I can easily do due to the format I'm writing it in: interconnected ficlets as chapters. This means that I have ficlets that are far in the future of what I have posted, but they cannot yet be posted for the simple reason that the plot is now so complex that things need to be posted in order, otherwise it won't make sense.

As such, I no longer publish as I write, though I used to. At this point, the fic has grown too large and has too many moving pieces for that to be feasible.

Generally, I usually like to finish a fic before I post it, because that means that I can go back into early parts and edit them if need be (say I come up with something cool I need to foreshadow, or I realise that I mentioned something too early, or I realise I introduced a plotline I dropped so it's better to edit it out etc etc). That's not really possible with CK anymore (though, I mean, I guess I could go back and secretly edit stuff and pretend like nothing's up, lmao) so it's entirely possible that this fic has some inconsistencies etc (though I do my best to ensure there aren't any, there's always the risk I've missed something).

Writing CK and sharing it with all my readers has been an amazing experience, and I dearly hope people are not only willing to stick with me to the end, but also that they will feel like the pay-off was worth it.

For some people, finishing a fic before posting doesn't work because they need engagement to keep going, which is absolutely valid! For that, I think having a more structured outline is very useful in order to keep things clear and avoid accidental plot holes. It's no guarantee of course.

Ultimately, how you post and how you write comes down to you as an individual writer.

For me, it's rather flexible. Sometimes I write things in a strictly chronological order from start to finish and that's it. Sometimes I skip around in the story and need to make sure I leave very large empty spaces (metaphorical or literal) so I know where there's missing content that need to be written before the story is finished.

All of this is of course very much personal to me, and what works for one writer might not work for another. But I hope it gives you some help and some insight, perhaps.

Happy writing, anon!

#Supreme Chancellor Obi Wan Kenobi #writing #I got an ask! #anonymous #how I write #writing tips #well #kind of #long post