bettsfic

[bettsfic]

Do you have any preferred notebooks? Anything better than Moleskine which I don't think would be hard (!!??)... The ink bleeding through to the page behind is so distracting. Random question but I figured you'd be perfect to ask!! Thank you

i've been waiting my entire tumblrlife for this, anon. stationery is one of my most persevering special interests.

just to caveat, i still use a moleskine for my personal journal, but i only write in it once or twice a month so they tend to last years. i bought my current journal in 2017 before enshittification and so i haven't had a problem with the paper. i use a felt-tip pen on it mostly, but even the few times i've tried fountain pens, i haven't had any bleed-through. it's really unfortunate they've gone downhill.

and i mean, for context, i beat the shit out of my moleskines. and look how they've held up!

the one on the left i used from 2011 to 2017. it went all around the world with me and i carried it everywhere for 6 years. i taped every stupid scrap of paper i came across into it and that's why it's so beefy. the elastic band has stretched too far is all; i need to find something sturdier to keep it shut.

the one on the right i started in 2017 and i'm about 2/3rds through it. i tape some stuff in but not as much as i used to. at one point it was in my backpack in the overhead compartment of a plane and some guy's water bottle spilled all over it. i was devastated. but it slurped that shit up and kept trucking. you can't even tell it's waterlogged anymore.

my mom bought me a special edition van gogh moleskine for my birthday last year that i was planning to use for my next journal. i just tested the paper against the 2017 journal using a kaweco sport bold tip, and the van gogh paper does indeed bleed significantly more than the 2017 paper. a real shame. i'm probably still going to use it though, because i've kept the proud tradition of "use notebooks people buy me for my birthday as my next journal" since i was 14. also, i'll probably end up starting it when i'm 37, the age van gogh died.

last august marked my 20th anniversary of my journaling habit, btw. i was going to write a newsletter about it but it started spiraling into a whole-ass book and i had to set it down.

a close and higher quality alternative to moleskine, much beloved by bullet journalers, is leuchtturm. their A5 hardcover is very similar to the classic moleskine pictured above. i don't use one because i have no use for lie-flat notebooks for anything other than a personal journal (which is covered for the next decade or so), but i love buying them as gifts.

my commonplace notebook is the A4 rhodia top spiral, which i've mentioned in my newsletter before. there is something truly magical about this notebook. when i bought it, i carried it around with me everywhere even though i had no idea what to write in it. i started commonplacing before i even knew what that was, simply because the tactile and aesthetic sensation of filling each page was so satisfying. i go through 1-2 per year.

this isn't a notebook proper, but my research binders are B5 maruman clartes with their corresponding loose leaf paper. again, like the rhodia A4 top spiral, the sensation of writing on the paper and organizing the binder is very satisfying and so it encourages me to take a lot of notes.

maruman also makes the famously amazing mnemosyne series of notebooks. i haven't used one before but i really like them, and as soon as i need a high quality top spiral notebook that the A4 rhodia can't fulfill, that's what i'll be moving to.

my purse notebook is a field notes reporter's notebook. these are new so they haven't stood the test of time the way the others have, but i love the size and the binding, and afaik field notes is one of the few american stationery brands that hasn't fallen prey to a quality drop in paper. i also love field notes classic pocket notebook but have never been able to make a pocket notebook habit stick. it took me a long time to realize tiny notebooks don't encourage me to write in them, because a lot of my notebooking is about the thrill and aesthetic pleasure of seeing an overwhelming amount of text on a page.

my planner is a hobonichi techo weeks, which is the same size as the reporter's notebook and also goes in my purse. this is my first year using a hobonichi planner and i really love it. like the others, its quality encourages me to use it. i've found hobonichi overall is a really good notebook brand.

my sketchbook (which i don't use very much) is a strathmore 500 series mixed media softcover. i bought it before i realized how deterring i find lie-flat books and i think i would be more motivated to draw by investing in one of their wirebound ones, even though all the artists i follow on youtube tell you not to do that. i keep meaning to change it into a collage notebook instead, i just haven't had the time or desk space to do it.

and an honorable mention: before the pandemic, back when i did things and went places, i used a grand voyageur traveler's notebook from paper republic. i'm actually very sad i don't have much of a use for it anymore, but maybe one day i'll do stuff again and return to it. it's weird that i don't see paper republic mentioned often (ever) in bujo spheres, when i think their products are better than traveler's company (although i haven't tested one for a significant period of time; people swear by them though).

hopefully one or two of these stand out to you!

#writing advice #stationery recs #commonplacing #journaling

[bettsfic]

Face reveal reaction from the most recent newsletter--

First of all, the headshots are great! I hope they help resolve some of that existential crisis.

For some reason I didn't expect your blond hair, I think I was expecting dark hair to march some of the darker themes you've covered in your writing?

one of the great conflicts of my life is that i was gifted with the looks and peppy disposition of a kindergarten teacher, but have the personality of a grizzled veteran telling war stories at a 24-hour diner.

my natural hair color is, as my father used to call it, "dirty dishwater blonde," and i've spent the last few years with mere highlights. but i finally took the full barbie plunge again, thank god. i can only recognize myself in a mirror if my hair is blindingly bright.

#out of all the difficult things i've ever had to accept about myself #realizing that i'm happiest with platinum blonde hair is pretty high up on the list #purple shampoo until i die i guess #lkwrnl

[bettsfic]

the thing about paranoia is that it can be created from and exaggerated by anything, and the more tools you have at your disposal to expose you to more things, the more paranoid you can become.

the atom bomb was invented in 1945, a thing that could destroy humanity, and people got very, very paranoid. those kids who grew up in that fear are the baby boomers. and we think of boomers as entitled and out of touch, but mostly i think of their generation as one of fear. i've never met a boomer who hasn't had some kind of bizarre terror of something totally disconnected from logic and treated with higher stakes than it deserves. i saw my roommate's parents freaking out about the possibility of a piece of tupperware melting in the bottom rack of the dishwasher. granted, that would suck and be inconvenient for a beloved container to melt in the dishwasher, but the intense emotions they put toward that moment exemplify the mentality of people who grew up during and immediately after the Cold War. your personality changes when you have no sense of security.

millennials were raised by boomers. their hoarding became our minimalism. their wealth became our poverty. their perfection became our futility. i am not blaming them. i am blaming the circumstances that created them.

there's a domino effect at play, from the invention of the atom bomb onward, from the Korean War, to the Vietnam War, to the Iraq War. from the civil rights movement, to the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, to Black Lives Matter. regardless of where they stood on the political spectrum, our parents and grandparents watched as the idea of "the government" went from being a part of the people to being against the people, to being a faceless, nameless mass that has more authority than it really does. and you take that fear of the faceless, nameless thing, and you try to protect the things you care about, from your children all the way down to your tupperware.

with every major increase in technology, we get access to more paranoia-inducing tools. the atom bomb corresponds with the boom of television in nearly every household, and suddenly people weren't reading and listening to the news, they were watching it, and the news became more real, and the fear crept closer. the internet came and devised away not just to watch the news but to interact with it, and to read the interactions of other people to their news. and now we carry the internet with us in our hands, a device which notifies us constantly to glance up from the focus of our daily lives and look at the state of the whole world. there are a lot of things to be afraid of when you get access to the knowledge of everything that is happening everywhere.

gen z inhabits this new space where the paranoia has transitioned into normalcy. that is not their fault. none of us can be expected to know the way life used to be before we were alive. but you develop a certain mentality when everyone around you is carrying the bone-deep generational terror of human annihilation. of course your devices are listening to you. of course businesses are manipulating you and exploiting you at every possible opportunity. of course the government has power over you. of course your loved ones can and will check in on you wherever you are at any time of the day. we're so close to everything; there's no distance anymore. how many times in the past year, two years, five years have you gone somewhere where your loved ones didn't know where you were and nobody could reach you?

maybe zero, because of course your loved ones should know where you are and be able to reach you. right?

Maybe this is the wrong platform to pose this question given the average tumblr user but

Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the 'standard' sense?

Like, everyone I talk to who's over 40 has all their wild stories about their teens and 20s, being young and dumb, and then I talk to my friends and coworkers and classmates, and we just... dont.

#once more i have no idea what to tag this

[bettsfic]

Reblog so everyone can hear what they need.

#look at the distribution though #everybody's struggling huh

[bettsfic]

Crosshair: My cold dead heart feels no affection for anyone.

Omega: *sneezes*

Crosshair: ARE YOU SICK?? WHERE'S YOUR JACKET? SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR

#guess who's 3k into a tbb fic that is basically just this but it's an 80s au set in rural missouri #i don't know why or how it came to be #it just happened

[bettsfic]

imagine if every chapter in a real book ended with an author's note

#i'd love this though

[bettsfic]

when i was a teenager in the early 00s, i carried a disposable camera everywhere. i worked at a restaurant and didn't make much money, so i didn't take a ton of pictures because i knew how expensive it would be to get them developed. (i almost forgot that verb. i was about to write "printed." god.) so i only took pictures of things that were important to me, and they all came out kinda shitty because that's how disposable cameras worked, but i bought a tacky-looking photo album at a CVS one day while waiting for the 1-hour photo, and every time i got a roll developed, i put all the pictures, even the shitty ones, in the album.

i've had a smart phone since 2010. i've probably accumulated thousands if not tens of thousands of pictures. but there are so many that i just don't go back and look at them. nowadays when you want to take a picture of something, you take a few so you can get the shot right. but i didn't have that option with a disposable camera; you took one shot of one moment, and if it didn't come out, it was lost. and that was fine.

on the cloud, i have 14 years of pictures and memories that i never look through unless i happen to be looking for something specific. but every time i clean my apartment and i'm dusting off my bookshelf, i see that ugly CVS photo album of my old disposables and flip through the pictures i took, and they're not good memories really, but it's not something i would ever think to do with digital photos, which feel far less real and important to me.

i miss tangibility. i miss holding ephemera in my hands. and i know i'm not alone in this, and i see posts about it all the time, but i wonder what, if anything, can be done about it. i don't think it's an old-man-shakes-fist-at-cloud thing. i see young people, people who may not have consciously known that we used to "develop" photos instead of "print" them, struggling with the same thing because it's human nature to touch stuff, and care for it, and put special things on a shelf to look at when we clean, and depriving of us that deprives us of something in ourselves. something that, if we found it again, might alleviate a bit of the depression and anxiety we've accumulated as a society whose memories exist in the cloud.

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

#i don't know what to tag this #but it's something i think about all the time

[bettsfic]

tgcf is like if xie lian was faced with the trolley problem every single day and every day he said "i'll choose a third option!" and that option was throwing himself in front of the trolley to stop it but instead it flips over and kills/maims everyone on both tracks and xie lian himself

#this is the best summary of this book i have ever read #tgcf

[bettsfic]

I’m taking another break from writing and I really want this break to be different so that when/if I go back to writing I’ll actually stick with it and have some of my walls pulled down so that I have less resistance to working on a project. Do you have any tips on how to step away from a project to recoup mentally and then go back feeling ready to tackle writing a novel again?

I don’t want to just avoid writing by watching tv and stuff but also be ready for a new project:

If this helps, here’s what happened:

I was working on a story idea off and on for 6 months and I noticed it becoming a story I did not plan on and one I didn’t think my skill set was ready for. It made me avoid the project for days at a time or build up walls around the idea of writing because I have attempted this thing for 2 years now with no significant progress. Just starting and stopping an idea and hating myself and slowly hating writing in the process with each failure.

As someone who is goal oriented I set mile stones, like query in 5 years finish my first novel this year,etc….

But it feels daunting when you stand on square one and feel like your ideas not right or your not skilled, people are going to hate it, and you are afraid of self-inserts(I don’t like to read self-inserts so I’d hate to write one of my own by accident).

So now I’m burnt out and has lost touch with what’s fun about writing.

it's interesting that you mention the idea of walls multiple times here. that seems to be both the problem and the solution. it sounds like you're writing from two different minds: the half of you feeling creative and inspired, and the half who wants to do the job to the standards you set yourself.

the problem is that you can't do one task with both minds, so you have to give each their own task. the half of you that wants to make something and have a good time with it can become the generative half. you use that energy to plot, draft, daydream, etc. the other half of you needs to do something they're good at, because they don't seem to be very helpful with generation.

my recommendation is to create an independent study for yourself. this project sounds very important to you, and you want to do it justice, and that means that second half of you needs to devote itself to developing the scaffolding that will allow your generative side to build the thing you want to make. if you've done any kind of teaching before, great. if not, think back to how your favorite class you've ever taken was structured and go off of that. write a whole syllabus if that sounds fun to you (creating syllabi is very fun for me).

most people i know see everything in one step: do the thing. but try breaking all your goals up into at least two steps: teach yourself how to do the thing, then do the thing. especially for people like you who are goal driven and organized (and probably were/are very good students), it can be extremely fun and satisfying to become your own teacher.

here are some individual activities you can try that i think might keep you focused on your project and relieve the burnout:

write a list of learning objectives. this can be anything from specific craft mechanics to mindfulness and meditation.

create a reading list. find some relevant texts that will help inform your project. you say, "I don’t want to just avoid writing by watching tv and stuff," but if you watch tv through the lens of your project, it becomes a productive exercise. take notes, then organize and index your notes. personally, i love taking notes about the tv i watch and then indexing my notes.

craft small assignments that use what you learned from the reading list to reach the learning objectives. if one of your learning objectives is "learn how to write in first person," you take your favorite first-person reading and use it as a prompt for a short piece of prose.

make a final assignment. maybe your final assignment is a drafting plan (not an outline) for how you want to tackle your return to drafting. maybe it's a sample/practice chapter of your project. maybe it's an actual "what i learned in this course" style book report.

this isn't advice i would give to everyone. there are a lot of writers out there who would read this and go "absolutely fucken not" because they are the "just do it and see what happens" sort, or they had such a horrible primary education that the thought of framing creativity within the structure of a course seems agonizing. but for writers who get in their own way, who have both tastes and ideas that outweigh their current skill level, i definitely recommend training your scaffolding brain to tasks that are more actionable, and taking the time to learn what you want to write before writing it.

#writing advice #writers' block #pedagogy #process

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts,

How do I become the kind of person that can write 50-100k in a month?

anon, i am so fascinated by the phrasing of this question. not "how do i write 50-100k in a month" but "how do i become the kind of person that can write 50-100k in a month."

writing 50k in a month seems easier than changing who you are in order to write 50k in a month. because once you do it, you then become that thing; you don't become the thing and then do it. if that makes sense.

to write 50k in a month, what you really have to be is the sort of person who can write very badly for a very long time. that's the key to high word counts: shitty writing. that's also the downside to high word counts: you don't keep the shitty writing. you write 100k in a month, you end up with tennis elbow and maybe a couple thousand words that'll make it to the next draft.

don't get me wrong, i think things like nanowrimo are great. every once in a while, it can be good to set a high word count goal and meet it. but only every once in a while, when you plan for it and set your mind to it, and accept the discomfort of spending a whole month prioritizing quantity over quality. word count is only one metric by which to measure progress.

so i guess my answer is that to be the kind of person who writes 50k in a month, you have to be the kind of person who makes a plan to write 50k in a month, the kind of person to see it through, and the kind of person who, if you don't meet your goal, tries it again later.

and lastly, word count is not actually about writing. it's about sentence-making. writing is the umbrella term we use to describe what is actually about a hundred different smaller tasks. sentence-making is just one of them. practicing sentence-making won't make you a better writer, just a faster one. you begin to internalize sentence structures and paragraphing, and then it becomes easier to deploy them, because you don't have to think about things like "should i make this a clause or a new sentence." that work eventually becomes less conscious and you're free to render the stuff in your head in a more intuitive way, that you later revise in a more intentional one.

#writing advice #word count #process

[bettsfic]

just curious as they're always things i've never questioned just doing but people in my life are often surprised that i don't mind doing them alone

🔁 pls reblog for sample size

#i do all of these alone all the time #in fact i do them more often alone than with other people #i haven't traveled with someone else in years #i go to the movies alone every week #i eat alone at restaurants pretty frequently #i don't go to many shows or concerts but i have gone to them alone before #i went to cirque di soleil alone in las vegas and made friends with the couple sitting next to me #i just find that i'm such a people pleaser that when i'm with someone else #i prioritize being with them and paying attention to them #and because i can't pay attention to multiple things #i end up ignoring everything else #and missing out on a lot #when i travel alone and see movies alone and eat alone i'm free to pay attention to the place and the story and the food and the music #when i was 23 i went to peru by myself on a whim and after that doing everything alone became the default

[bettsfic]

kid who desperately wanted to be a butcher when they grew up but instead became a boring old toymaker:

#why does this exist

[bettsfic]

Have you ever thought about writing a craft book of your own? I love how practical your advice is. Also I saw on your latest newsletter you were thinking of moving your writing advice to Obsidian, I'm really excited for that!! Obsidian is great for organising data and you can publish your notes (and link to other notes if you prefer) super easily. The plugins are super useful too.

i have thought about writing a craft book! i would love to write a beginner process book so Bird by Bird is no longer the default (or worse, On Writing), which has not aged well at all. Lamott has that kind of zany vodka aunt humor that just reads as tasteless bordering on offensive nowadays, and i feel like i can no longer recommend it to people just starting out. so i'd like to write a more sincere but still accessible "how to approach the blank page" sort of book. i also want to write a fanfiction craft book (which may have to be two books: one to establish fanfiction *as* craft, and the other which will actually get into the theory by referring back to the first), and then a book on my theory of the ideal, which i probably won't be able to write for 10 years or so because i don't know enough about it yet. in fact my research folder is called "things to write when i'm 45."

tl;dr a basics book, a fanfiction craft book, and a "here's my contribution to craft theory, now i can die knowing i did the big thing i set out to do with my life" book.

unfortunately to publish a craft book you need to have published a novel and that novel needs to have done well. so that's what i'm working on. i want to put at least one novel in the world (and maybe only one) and then focus my attention on craft and teaching.

i'm not really writing much right now so i hope i get time soon to figure out how obsidian works and set up an organizational system. @nonsequitur22 offered to help, so it already feels far more manageable than it did. also i'd love to do like an annual, chronological ebook of writing advice asks for people to buy if they want a more bookish version to read. unfortunately that presents a whole new set of logistical problems, so that's on the backburner for now.

#writing advice #writing update

[bettsfic]

this is another reason i think the writing of SDV is brilliant. it would've been so easy to make Pierre the underdog good guy to the evil Joja hireling Morris. but CA wrote him simply as the lesser of two evils. and as someone who spent many years working with small business owners, i can't emphasize enough how real that is. just because Pierre isn't a link in a chain of some corporate bureaucracy doesn't mean he's not a capitalist. the most righteous and good-meaning companies in the world still have to resort to underhanded business strategies just to stay afloat. that's all Pierre is trying to do: get by. and he does it in shitty ways to help sway the fine people of Pelican Town away from Joja.

i'm no Pierre sympathizer, but i do appreciate the nuance he's given as a character and how it speaks to the complexity of the greater themes at play.

she’s gonna fucking kill him!!!!

#sdv

[bettsfic]

a xenomorph. so no, i wouldn't survive, but neither would anyone else.

#alien

[bettsfic]

Betts! This is just an ask to let you know how influential you have been to my writing life. Your advice is always so insightful and so honest, and your approach to feedback so inclusive and open-minded, you have genuinely made me look at writing - and the world! - in a different way. And you’ve also made me believe that I have something to offer the world with my writing, which is what keeps me trying. Not to mention your incredible writing! I feel lucky to know you even peripherally.

Thank you for being the wonderful writer and teacher that you are.

i think believing you have something to offer the world is one of the hardest lessons to learn but has some of the greatest benefits. thank you so much for the kind words, anon! 💖

#sns

[bettsfic]

Introducing the FAW Summer Asynch Session!

Many people have mentioned that the times I lead the spring and fall workshops aren’t accessible for those with busy/unpredictable schedules, but they would still like to participate in the workshop and join the FAW community. To address that feedback, I’m running an asynchronous summer session. An asynch session doesn’t have a set meeting time. Instead, you’ll read up to 2 pieces presented each week by fellow participants, write them crit letters, and participate in discussion over Discord. 

The only required* meeting is an individual 30 minute Zoom call with me any time during the two weeks prior to the start of workshop. We'll use that time to go over the syllabus together and I can answer any questions you have. You'll book via Calendly once I send the welcome email.

*Optional for previous participants

Participants of the workshop receive:

Attendance in a 4-6 week asynchronous course during which you’ll provide feedback to your peers and workshop one piece of your own work, up to 6,000 words.

Access to the Fanauthor Workshop Discord server, an active community where we host weekly accountability meetings, writing sprints, a twice monthly short story club, and other events.

A 15-30 minute pre-workshop consultation with me to go over the syllabus and any questions you have.

A 30-45 minute post-workshop consultation with me to discuss the feedback you received, come up with a plan for revision and/or publication, or anything else you’d like to discuss regarding your writing.

Open enrollment option in future workshops.

Timeline

Applications close: June 14

Syllabus calls: July 1 - 12

Workshop begins: July 15

Workshop ends: Before August 23, depending on the number of participants

Cost

The recommended amount is $150. If you’re experiencing financial hardship and unable to pay, or can't pay the full amount, please let me know.

How to apply

Eligibility

Anyone over the age of 18 who considers themselves a participant of fandom and who is familiar with fanfiction may apply. A stable internet connection is also required. Submissions must be written in English.

Application requirements

To apply, you will need:

A brief cover letter discussing your fan history and goals as a (fan)writer (more specific instructions on submittable).

Maximum 1,000 words of your writing, either original work or fanfiction. This may be previously published/posted.

You can apply via submittable. Applications close June 14. There is no fee for applying.

FAQ and other info under the cut.

FAQ

Are there any content restrictions to what I can workshop?

The only restriction is word count (max 6k), with the following caveats:

If you workshop a piece in a form other than prose (for example, a script), your peers may not be able to offer constructive feedback on that aspect of the work. Participants are asked only to have a familiarity with prose.

Content warnings are required for each piece (if applicable), and participants who are uncomfortable reading certain subject matter may abstain from your workshop.

What is the time commitment of the workshop?

As a participant of the workshop, you'll be asked to:

Workshop any piece of your own prose up to 6k words, which will need to be uploaded no later than the Sunday prior to your workshop week. For example, if you sign up to workshop in week 2, your submission will be due July 14. Participants will have a week to read it and write their crit letter, and discussion will begin over Discord on July 22.

Read 2 pieces per week, write a 1-page crit letter for the author, and participate in the Discord discussion.

What are the benefits of being in the Fanauthor Workshop community?

We have an active Discord server open only to those who have participated in the workshop. Once you've completed the workshop, you'll have access to attend our weekly accountability meetings*, writing sprints, our twice monthly short story club, and other events we host.

*I'm working on figuring out an asynch accountability group.

You'll also have an open enrollment option in future workshops, where in lieu of applying again, you can pay a portion of what you intend to pay and secure your seat in the upcoming workshop.

I'll be working on rolling out additional events and benefits throughout the year.

Can workshop participants submit to OFIC Magazine?

Yes! Part of the reason I run the workshop is to inspire and promote the original work of fanwriters. You can follow us on tumblr @oficmag.

Who is running the workshop?

@bettsfic! In short, I lived a dreary cubicle life as a banker until I found fanfiction at 24. I loved it so much that I quit my job to get an MFA in creative writing. I loved the MFA so much that I became a writing teacher. I have some publications, awards, an agent, and 2 million words of fic on ao3. I don't have a book out yet but I'm getting there.

Currently I'm a writing coach and freelance editor. I also have a lowkey writing-related newsletter. And I've been answering writing advice asks on my blog for 10 years.

If you want an idea of the kind of writing activities I create, last summer I worked with @books on a workshop series which includes craft essays and some fun prompts.

If you're interested in my original work, my short story "Not If, When" is a good representation of my writing. For something darker, check out "Shut Up and Kill Me."

What is the workshop like?

Check out G's experience of attending the workshop. And here's some feedback from previous participants.

One final note: This is the first summer asynch session so there may be some hiccups. I've taught asynch classes before so it's not totally new to me, but there's still bound to be some pivoting when the workflow that makes sense in my head doesn't work super well in reality. It happens sometimes. I'm always taking feedback and trying to improve the workshop.

If you have questions about the workshop or application process, you can shoot me an ask, DM me, or add me on Discord (I'm bettsfic there too). Or you can email me at [email protected].

#excited to try out the asynch model! #figuring out the workflow nearly broke my brain but i think it'll work #all my asynch pedagogy classes during covid really bummed me out but oh boy are they coming in clutch #faw