serena-l-wood

[serena-l-wood]

There needs to be way, way more of a conversation about how being unable to drive in America means you don’t get to participate in society. That shit is genuinely life ruining. My neuro shit has kept me from driving my whole life and it’s always meant I can’t go do stuff I want to, I can’t get the trade jobs I know I’d be good at, I can’t even see the people I want to. Unless you’re in one of a handful of major cities in the US with decent transit systems, you’re basically expected to drop dead if you can’t drive.

[serena-l-wood]

Late Night Thoughts - March 8th, 2023

When the long night stretches into day

I find there are so many things that I could do

I could write down all my thoughts of you

Or I could find the right words to say

But by the time the day stretches into night

I find that all those ideas are lost on me

Everything I want to do goes out of sight

And nothing I do will make anyone ever really see

The world is blind to my strife

I wonder if they’d even notice if I ended it all

If I were ever to let my guard fall

I long to see what it’s like in the afterlife

#poetry #writers of tumblr #writing #writers block

[serena-l-wood]

Life is chaos and I'm awful at checking my notifications so I've missed a lot

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Written: December 1st, 2022

[serena-l-wood]

Ruse - December 1st, 2022

Sometimes I hate to be alone

But then I realize I’d rather be here

Than in your zone

Because you expect too much of me

And I find it hard to make you see

That I will never fill those shoes

You’re caught up in a ruse

[serena-l-wood]

Hospital

So I've been in the hospital for the past few days, almost a week, and I'm finally home now so I can get back into the swing of things. I hope to return to posting more often and I'm really hoping I'm out of that dark stage of my life. Here's to moving forward!

[serena-l-wood]

A little something I wrote earlier

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Feeling creative but not sure what to make/where to start. The constant struggle

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The best thing about fantasy is I can write whatever I want cause I can just make shit up on the spot and declare it canon like it’s nothing

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I was inspired by another work I saw on here so I wrote a little fan fic of my own

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Help - November 8th, 2022

I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock blaring. I open my eyes groggily and reach out to turn it off, blindly swatting in the general direction until the sound stops. I roll over in bed and stare up at the ceiling. Another day, I’m still alive. Last night I dreamt that I died in my sleep, I guess it was only a dream. I guess that means I’ll still be going to work today, lovely. How fortunate for me.

I let out a groan and drag myself out of bed. It takes me ten extra minutes to get ready for work than it usually does because I find myself staring at my reflection for a while wondering where it all went wrong before my wristwatch beeps and tells me I’m running late. So then I have to rush out the door, skipping breakfast for the third day in a row but it’s not like I really care, I’ve lost so much weight over the past few months that my doctor is really starting to worry about me but I don’t think anyone else has hardly noticed and I can’t be bothered to care. Who’s got the time to eat when they’re constantly bombarded with thoughts of their impending doom?

I run through the normal motions at work and the day flies by. Soon I’m back home, sitting at my kitchen table with a pathetic-looking microwavable meal sitting in front of me. I pick at it with my fork until I’ve decided I’m no longer hungry and then I take it to the trash with most of the food still uneaten. Then I trudge up the stairs and curl up under my blankets. It’s only 7:45 pm, way too early to go to bed but I’ve got nothing better to do and sleep is always a great escape from these pestering thoughts.

As I lie here and wait for sleep to take me I start to wonder if there’s more to life than this. Could I ever see myself being content with my life? Happy?

Maybe I could find a partner. Maybe I could get a pet. Maybe I could even just get a plant.

As I’m thinking of ways to brighten my life I find myself gravitating towards my phone, searching it’s database for options. And then I come across something. Online therapy.

I stare at the ad for video-call-based therapy for a moment trying to think it over. Sure, I’ve heard of therapy before. I’ve heard of it more times than I can count actually. But I’ve never really considered it an option. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try, I start to think. I mean, hell, I wouldn’t even have to leave my house for online therapy.

I click on the ad and download the app before setting my phone aside and curling back up in my blanket. I might not get to it today. But at least now I know it’s an option.

#writing #writers of tumblr

[serena-l-wood]

Yayyy

I actually managed to work on something! I finished a story and I’ll post it here in a bit. Ahhh, I’m so excited. I finally got past my creative block!

[serena-l-wood]

It’s late and I’m going insane

it’s like 11:21 pm (which is like kinda late but not too late I guess now that I think about it) and I’m literally losing my mind here because I’m trying to think of something to create. Like I’m just in a really creative mood right now, I wanna create something that other people can view/consume/whatnot and I just can’t for the life of me think of what to do with that energy. Like it started with “Maybe I’ll write a story” (as you can probably tell from my other posts) And then it went into “Maybe I’ll make some Tik Toks” or something like that but that’s about as far as I get. I don’t know why I’m coming up so blank when it comes to ideas, it’s like there’s nothing there. This creative block is killing me right now, pretty soon it’s gonna be detrimental; to my mental health, if it isn’t already. If anyone has any ideas on how to get my creative flow back, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

[serena-l-wood]

I love this, it’s so well written and it fits the characters perfectly

Wrote this little relationship study for Isabela and Camilo pretty late tonight. Here’s an unedited version for tumblr, full version on AO3. I’d really like to do some more studies on rarely paired characters. Enjoy!

…………

Camilo always felt as if Isabela didn’t like him very much.

Sure, it was never to the extent she had been with Mirabel, for which he was grateful (he really didn’t think he could survive Isabela’s stare-downs the way his youngest prima could.)

Her disdain for him was always quieter, more subdued. It was just enough that, had you not been looking for it, you may not realize it was there.

Camilo always noticed it, buried deep under perfect smiles, though little sprouts broke three in the little things she did.

She never would laugh at the jokes he made. Even the ones he made for her, when he thought she seemed a bit too tense and tried to lighten the mood, they were always met with a glance of narrow eyes and downturned lips.

Before big events she would stare at him just a second too long, as if she expected him to ruin them somehow. She seemed to always think he was going to deliberately cause chaos. (Camilo didn’t, though he didn’t always make that clear. It was a good cover for his natural clumsiness in his own skin.)

Every time, every way he tried to connect, it just fell flat. Slowly, he stopped trying.

………….

The more Camilo watched, the less he really wanted Isabela to like him.

Isabela was hurting his sister.

Dolores was quiet, and introverted. With all the noise, she opted to keep her thoughts inside her head until absolutely necessary.

Thanks to his gift, Camilo was a master of observation, and he saw it all.

He’d heard her sigh at feeling like she was second place her entire life. He had seen her face fall each time Isabela became the perfect, eldest grandchild even though Dolores was only a few months - not even an entire year - younger.

Then, he’d seen Dolores fall in love.

She would sit on the balcony every night, with that same puppy-dog look written over her face. For the longest time, Camilo wasn’t sure exactly who she was listening to, until he finally caught her staring at him across the courtyard.

His sister was in love with resident dumb hunk Mariano Guzman. Now, Camilo didn’t quite understand it. He still thought Dolores could do significantly better with all she had to offer (her kindness, her patience, her grace, her willingness to give up the last arepa) but he couldn’t deny he’d never seen her happier than the day Mariano was reciting poetry in the town square.

She was in love, totally and completely, with the man that his prima had been courting with, and planned to marry.

The man that, just two months shy of the beginning of their courting, Isabela had said she had no interest in. The man that Isabela had told Dolores she should speak to.

Once again, he saw his sister biting her tongue to keep the peace. She wasn’t allowed to be angry, not at the golden child. Dolores never raised her voice

So neither did Camilo, but that didn’t mean he couldn't hold a bit of animosity for what his Prima did.

….

Then, Casita had fallen. The family was different, casita was different, and eventually, the magics hold was different too.

Isabela had changed. She was vibrant, free, and often smiling so much more. Her smile was different, and he couldn’t help but wonder which one was her real smile.

Camilo wondered a lot of things about Isabela.

He wondered why she picked the colors she did for her dress, bright blue and pink, despite finally saying her favorite color was actually red. He wondered how she learned to move on from her broken engagement so quickly. He wondered how much pacing it took her to finally come clean and announce she had no plans to marry any man.

He wondered how she managed to find herself so effortlessly.

All it took was a hug and then Isa seemed to know who she was. She dressed differently, she walked differently, sometimes it even felt like she breathed differently (far more deeply, as if she was calmer now.)

Most of all, above all else, he wondered why he couldn’t too. How was it after three weeks Isabela was able to know what she liked, to be herself, but he himself was still staring up at walls?

Some nights, Camilo found himself staring into the mirror for hours. He would simply stand there, observing, wondering which details were correct. Were they all truly his, or had he picked a few up and forgotten to let them go?

He never slept those nights.

His room was simply too oppressive, with all the reflective surfaces and pictures of different people he’d need to take shape of. Casita would carefully help shift tiles to get him down to the kitchen on shaky knees, where he could stand over the sink, heaving and sure he’d be sick.

He wasn’t.

His shoulders were still trembling when he pushed himself up, slipping away out to the back patio of casita. Maybe he just needed some fresh air. He was hunched slightly, trying to get his breaths to even out and heartbeats to slow when a hand met his shoulder, almost jumping from his skin.

“Camilo? Are you okay?” His prima’s voice asked gently. It wasn’t the way it was with an overly sweetened, feminine tone, but still had the same gentle warmth of Julietas.

Merida.

“Peachy.” He mumbled, half-heartedly in reply. He should pull on a smile, crack a joke she would roll her eyes at like he usually did, but his head was pounding and Camilo just couldn’t pull out the energy to care.

“I thought you were supposed to be a good liar.” Isabela cut in, but Camilo couldn’t bring herself into lifting his gaze to hers. He didn’t need that cold stare, the one that made him feel as if he’d done something wrong before he could even take a breath.

Wait, no, that wasn’t true anymore. Isabela had turned a new leaf, changed into her true self, and was much happier for it.

He didn’t feel like anything had changed.

“Camilo? What’s wrong?” His prima repeated, “something’s up. Should I get Lola?” She asked, voice teetering on uncertainty.

That’s what caught his attention, as his gaze flew up to her shaking his head.

“Please don’t.” He pleaded. Later, attempts to recover, “Don’t need to stress her out just because of me.”

She hummed gently, wavering before nodding in acknowledgment. Having seemingly reached the end of what she could do, she began to move away, but was called back suddenly.

“Isa?”

The small tremble in his voice caught her attention quickly, spinning back, “yes?”

“How do you do it?”

“Hmm?” The eldest asked, eyes widened slightly when processing the sentence. “Do what?”

“Just, this.” He says, feeling a pang in his chest. “You just- You found everything you liked, so easily. How do you know this is anymore “you” than before. What’s the difference?” He asks in quick succession, ignoring the shake in his words. “It’s like you found yourself in a week.” He mumbles.

Isabela chuckled suddenly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I totally worked through over a decade of self-repression in a week.” She cuts in sarcastically. Camilo looked up, and upon seeing his expression near tears, her expression fell to much softer.

She saw his shoulders stiffen, moving to sit next to him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Milo, I’m still learning just as anyone else is.” She brag, leaning back with a sigh. Chuckling slightly, she continued, “You know why I’ve been making so many cati? They’re harder to kill. I’ve been working on so many new things, and all of them fail at least once.” She explains.

“It just feels like you’re always so sure of yourself.” He concedes after a moment, pushing the fallen curls from his face. “You look into a mirror and know exactly what you are.”

“Wasn’t always like that. I had to rediscover what I liked.” Isabela cut in with a warm smile. Slowly, she slid his hand into hers. It was a bit stiff and awkward, and it made her realize just how long has it been since they’ve talked this way? When was the last time she and Camilo had a serious conversation. When had Camilo last had a serious conversation with anyone?

“I tried accordion with Mira, romance books from Tia Pepa, Papi’s love for the piano. None of it felt right, so I started to see what I liked. I like expanding my plants, I like reading of the plants in other places, but I had to find those things. Didn’t mean I was searching alone.”

Her primo was silent, seemingly lost in thought. She could see the look on his face, see him slipping away, so she nudged him. “It doesn’t mean you’re searching alone, Milo.” She gently reminded.

The air hung for a moment. She didn’t let go of his hand, letting Camilo process it all. He was still trying to take smooth breaths, when after a moment, he began to stumble.

“Maybe we could start in the garden? I think I’d like to learn more about your plants, or what they do?” Camilo asked. His entire demeanor was stiff and questioning, relaxing as Isabela only smiled.

“That sounds wonderful. I’m looking forward to it.” She agreed, “maybe we could use some of my colored pollen in your hair.”

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Creative Block

So I’ve been sitting here for the better part of a half hour trying to figure out what to work on and I just can’t seem to come up with anything. I can’t seem to work on any of my old story ideas, it’s almost as if I don’t find them interesting any more. And I can’t seem to come up with any new ones either. So I’m completely at at a loss as to what to do but I just really wanna work on something right now. I could really use some advice if anyone reads this, thanks.

#writers block #creativity block #somebody help please

[serena-l-wood]

Stories

So I have like 20+ story ideas and novels that I’ve started to write in my google docs account and I wanted to start posting them somewhere (but obviously I have to start finishing them first) and I wasn’t sure where I should post them. I thought about Ao3 but a lot of them aren’t really fan fictions so maybe I’lll post some shorter ones here if I manage to finish anything that I think wouldn’t be too long winded. So yeah, stay tuned for that maybe

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IDEK

So, I finally got an Ao3 account and I’ve been working on fics to post there and I’m really excited because the first one I posted got like 21 kudos in less than a day so it made me want to write more. And it just got me thinking about what I want to do with my future and obviously becoming an author is like my number one goal but I’ve always kinda wanted to make a TV show and I really think I could write a funny show and I also think I could write a really spooky one too. And speaking of funny, I also kinda want to do stand up comedy or just like skits or something maybe be a famous comedian on tik tok, I dunno. Like I know it’s probably not realistic to say “famous” but I think I could really go somewhere if I really put forth more of an effort.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say with all this, I guess I’m just venting.