#I'm writing a fucking presentation for uni about the book and god I am feeling undisclosed emotions for these three

[boycows]

songs mentioned in the john dies at the end books, songs that remind me of them, and songs that i think the characters would like. ram ranch is on here because it sounds like something that john would write

#I'm emo about these books again sorry guys #I'm writing a fucking presentation for uni about the book and god I am feeling undisclosed emotions for these three #yes it's a solid mixture of 90s/00s pop punk folk punk and creedence #jdate #john dies at the end #David wong #anyway someone please talk to me about jdate I MISS IT #(also yeah most of these songs are John @ dave so what) #and yeah I'll plug my Spotify I have mediocre playlists #dumb post

[sageblogsthings]

to celebrate The Crimson Moon reaching 30k as of this morning, i thought that i would share the progression of the opening lines of the book, and talk a bit about how the book has grown and changed in the last year! on july 27th it will be exactly a year since i first started writing this and wow i’m not getting emotional you are aha whaaaat

*cough* anywayyysss!!

draft one: please oh god don't judge me

ok i'm not going to talk negatively about my past writing because it got me to where i am today but. [marge i am looking away meme] if you can't tell, i wrote this when i was going through the existential crisis phase of uni and just wanted to live in the woods, i say like i would not currently move to the woods in a heartbeat asdklfja

at the time that i wrote this i was really happy with it because the writing was fun and, as a result, easy! at this point i was just writing in my down time from uni, and i didn't know what the plot was or what my plans were for the book as a whole. because this was just something i did in my down time, i think my writing took on more of a conversational, stream-of-consciousness tone, and that's part of what made this draft (or start of a draft, i only got like 12k in i think) so easy to write. but eventually, as the plot started to come together and i started to gain more inspiration from sff writers as a whole, i realized that this book wasn't heading in the direction i wanted it to. it wasn't just something to do in my free time at that point, it had taken on a life of it's own. and thus, draft two began.

draft two: electric boogaloo

ngl these lines still slap and i love them. there are definitely things i would change, but these lines will be in the current draft of the book, albeit not in the first chapter and altered slightly. when i started this draft, i didn't have an outline but i had a very clear, cinematic image of how i wanted this chapter to go. i think having that before i started writing helped a looooot, both in terms of prose and just being able to convey aspects of the setting/character in the first paragraph. as i continued writing this draft though, i realized that some of the character arcs didn't make sense or were getting a bit messy, and that, based on the story i wanted to tell, it didn't make sense to start with Xalia. while there are six main pov characters in this book, Vanna really is the main character and i wanted that to be clear.

draft three: this time it's personal actually good

these are the current first lines of the book, and honestly my favorite so far! starting off with Vanna rather than Xalia definitely gives the book a different feel, and it's one that's more true to the vision i have for it. in my opinion, this opening does a much better job of setting up some of the book's themes, which admittedly i'm still figuring out lol. grief and loss are major components of all the character arcs, and are integral to the plot itself. switching to present tense has also been a LIFE CHANGER for me. it's funny because, on the second stab at this book, i kept slipping into present tense, but forcing myself back to past tense because i thought present tense sounded weird. turns out it only sounded weird because it was surrounded by past tense, and now that i've written 3 chapters in present tense i can solidly say that this is the way the book was meant to be written. it just feels like my book now, and i'm so happy with where it's headed!

i also made an outline for this draft of the book, and while i've already deviated from it somewhat to work out plot holes or increase ~foreshadowing~ in certain scenes, getting all of the events out of my head and onto paper has really allowed me to just write because i know that i have a document to refer back to if i get stuck on where the story is headed. making the outline also really pushed me to think about character backstories, most of which i had previously established, but now they've changed a lot to fit together more cohesively and integrate with the plot more clearly. i've also changed a lot of the character designs, and as a result of changing the appearances and backstories of a lot of the characters, i feel a lot closer to them and the story itself. the characters have well and truly taken on a life of their own, and now i'm kind of just along for the ride, telling their stories and loving every second of it!

ALSO!! the last big change with this draft, which i just implemented literally this morning and am so so sooooo excited about, is having first person referral, present tense mini-chapters/interludes! it gives the book a really unique sound and ties into the plot really nicely i think! i feel like the structure and form of the story are finally tying into the story itself and it's driving me insane a little bit askdfjka

as of right now i'm not ready to reveal who the pov and referral characters are in these chapters, because i'm debating between a couple ways of doing things and if i go one way that would end up being a pretty big spoiler! that being said, i got really hyped up about it earlier today and rambled in the spoilers section of my server so if you do want that sweet sweet spoilers content....join my server! ;)

also. i hope u all know that i almost deleted that first snippet about ten different times but transparency in writing and all that, i really do want to show how much this book has grown and changed! even if it's going to cause me immense psychic damage to type up the image description for this but i digress

i think that's all for now, and thank you so so much if you read all of that! the love and support this project has received and continues to receive absolutely blow me away, and i can't thank you enough for being part of the journey! <3

the crimson moon taglist (ask to be +/-)

@dallonswords | @isherwoodj | @florraisons | @aetherwrites | @childhoodlovers | @bijouxs | @ziyin | @moonhungers | @piyawrites | @avi-why | @svpphicwrites | @alicewestwater | @ladywithalamp | @spencers-tomes | @discreet-writer | @sunwornpages | @abalonetea | @the-bard-writes | @x-writes | @morganwriteblr​ ​| @aphaimaniis | @stephwriteswords | @ninazeniks ​| @araliensmagica | @fuyugomori | @ryns-ramblings | @greyjaywrites | @marimos

image descriptions below the cut

[header image description]

the background is a dark castle with a checkerboard-patterned marble floor. the hallway fades into black, with the hint of a figure standing in the doorway. white text across the image reads "The Crimson Moon" in a large, all-caps font, and below that reads "wip update post" in thin, lowercase text.

[image description for excerpt one]

I lay on my back, gazing up at the sky. The weather was absolutely perfect. I could hear the crickets singing, the birds chirping, the brook babbling, all that good poetic shit.

I came out here often, just to get away and pretend like I wasn't a part of the fuck-all society I lived in. How could humans be so ignorant? We live in a world with this, I gestured expansively in my mind at the field around me, how can we not see how beautiful it is? How perfect it is? How imperfect we are by comparison?

[image description for excerpt two]

Xalia strode down the marble halls, the soft leather of her shoes meeting each tile with a cacophony of echoes. This was not the first, second, hundredth time that she had walked these passageways, and yet the chill she felt when contained within their depths never seemed to subside. The looming corridors and billowing curtains always seemed to hide sinister whispers that breathed down her neck and pricked at the tips of her ears. Perhaps it was the High Council, with their unnerving masks and owlish eyes, seeming to know and perceive all — or perhaps it was the knowledge that every time she stalked back towards the exit, she would carry the weight of another’s life on her shoulders, a life that she had to take.

[image description for excerpt three]

Vanna’s mother always tells them that grief is a sharp, biting thing; something that latches its teeth around your stomach until you double over with the weight of it. But for Vanna, that’s not quite right. There isn’t something hidden and tucked away behind the confines of their gut because there isn’t anything there at all. As they walk towards the town well — a spell book in one hand and emptiness in the other — they think that their mother got it wrong trying to describe grief in terms of presence. Grief, to them, can only be absence. The absence of light, the absence of a smile, and the absence of a palm which had curled so perfectly into theirs.

#kit writes #arnora #atlastracking #writeblr #wip update #whoowee this sure got long #i'm just very in my feelings about this wip okay <3 #yknow those stories that grow up as you do?....yeah