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mnalohomorapodcast · 3 months

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Alohomora 'Live Your Dream and Book a Spot on the History Bites Tour Through England and Scotland!' - is now available! https://alohomorapodcast.com/live-your-dream-book-spot-history-bites-tour-england-and-scotland/

Here at Alohomora!, we love to get into all the tiny details of the Harry Potter books. But there are some experiences we can’t quite get across just talking about them. The best way to understand cultural, location-based, and historical details about the series is by exploring the places they were written!

Does that sound like something you’d be interested in? Then we have fantastic news for you.

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Live your dream and book yourself a spot on the History Bites Tour through England and Scotland this summer! You can explore places not only significant to Harry Potter but also the worlds of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Led by author and historian Solomon Schmidt, you’ll spend eight days in some of the most magnificent places in the world. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The whole experience was amazing. I was very sad when it was time to depart.” – Judah A.

Here are the top five reasons you don’t want to miss this “once in a lifetime” tour:

Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

The tour begins in London, where you can visit the iconic King’s Cross Station. Take a photo with the Hogwarts Express Trolley and find some fun new merch at the Harry Potter Shop!

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Walk in Harry’s Footsteps

In Oxford, you’ll have the chance to visit Christ Church College, where several scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed. Witness the famous chained books of Duke Humphrey’s Library, aka the Hogwarts Library – watch out for screaming volumes! Recreate Professor McGonagall’s welcome to the first-years on the Bodley Tower Staircase. Just up those stairs, you’ll find the college dining hall, which inspired the Great Hall.

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Edinburgh, where it all began

In this historic city, you’ll wander Greyfriars Kirkyard–keep an eye out for familiar names on the gravestones, including a Tom Riddle! Near the city center is the famous Elephant House, where the early books were written. Catch a view of the remarkable Edinburgh Castle; you may even have the chance to see the misty clouds hanging over it, a magical sight indeed.

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Ride the Hogwarts Express

It’s every Potter fan’s dream come true. The 84-mile trip through the beautiful countryside will be an experience you’ll never forget. Cross the famous viaduct and other familiar filming locations. Settle in with some Bertie Bott’s or a few Chocolate Frogs and you’re on your way to the new term at Hogwarts.

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Luxury accommodations and expert guides

One of the greatest benefits of this tour is the beautiful places you’ll get to stay, including historic inns, and the enjoyable meals you’ll have at palaces and high rises. You’ll also get the expertise of historian and author Solomon Schmidt and other knowledgeable local guides.

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This trip was a dream come true for me! I would go on another in a heartbeat!” – David S.

History Bites Tours aims to provide the highest quality and most exciting tours possible in England and Scotland. Join author and historian Solomon Schmidt on an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime experience as you journey to two of the most beautiful and historic lands in the world. Find the full itinerary and registration information on the History Bites website.

And who knows? Your new expertise could be the perfect thing to share with us on the podcast!

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acecademia · 3 years

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What are your favorite books and who are your favorite authors? Do you have any tips for reader's advisory?

Hi, nonny!

Fiction-wise, I mainly read young adult. It's my jam. I occasionally branch out into middle grade (shocker) and sometimes I read books that should honestly be classified as "new adult" but that genre hasn't really been established enough yet. I also like comic books and graphic novels (though my comics advisory professor would be very disappointed in me for using that term, even though I like it) and have dabbled in manga in the past.

Some of my favorite books (that I can think of at the moment):

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (I'm a huge fan of the entire grishaverse, but SoC is my all-time fave. The Nikolai duology is also bomb af)

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kahn (the first ace book I read with an explicitly ace protagonist--also biromantic! before I'd fully settled on that as a label for myself)

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (africanfuturism, sci-fi goodness)

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (honestly, these should be considered classic children's lit, and it's a travesty that they're not)

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Tiffany Aching is my girl)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (kid lit murder mystery that I've reread at least a dozen times, and I catch new details and clues every time I read it. A masterclass in foreshadowing and mystery-writing)

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (creepy and dark but also decidedly feminist and with an ace POV character)

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (need I say more? The reason I fell in love with portal fantasy)

The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson (another portal fantasy from my childhood)

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (wow, another portal fantasy? It's almost like I have a type)

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (iconic, goddess, I want to be her when I grow up)

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang (lovely alternative history graphic novel with awesome fashion and a gnc/genderqueer (it's unclear) main character)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (childhood favorite that stands the test of time. Ignore the movie. We pretend it doesn't exist)

Hazel's Theory of Evolution by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (middle-grade novel with a protagonist who's questioning her identity and starting to understand being aroace)

That's all I got off the top of my head. I'm always open to giving recs especially if you're into YA (and even more so queer YA, especially ace stuff).

For reader's advisory, I mostly just rely on my knowledge of youth lit when that's the genre in question. I read voraciously as a kid and know a lot of (what I consider) classics. I also go to a lot of youth lit festivals, so I know what's coming out and what's popular.

For kids, especially, if they're not as into reading (I hate the phrase "reluctant reader"), I like to recommend comics or graphic novels or hybrid novels which combine prose and illustration or even comic sequences.

Another strategy I use with younger readers (though it also works for any age!) is to ask about interests that are not books. This is great for people who aren't really big on reading or books or have no idea where to start. This kid likes Minecraft? We've got Minecraft novels. That kid really loves soccer? Here's a book about a kid who plays soccer. You have to meet them halfway and emphasize the part of the book that you think will appeal to them.

I also like using tools like Goodreads (especially the "readers also enjoyed" section) and NoveList if you have access to it. Other, more specific databases and websites like LGBTQ Reads (and their tumblr), Good Comics for Kids, Queer Comics Database, and My Anime List (especially if you don't have a lot of anime/manga knowledge yourself) are all great as well. Awards lists can also be a great place to start. There are some great ones for kid lit (Caldecott, Newberry, etc.), queer fiction (the Lambda Literary Awards, in particular), and comics (Eisner). I wouldn't just trust anything you see with an award sticker on it (I will forever be salty about The 57 Bus winning a Stonewall), but they can be a great jumping-off point. If you're really in a bind, you can also "cheat" and google the name of a book the patron liked with "readalikes" or "libguide" and see what other people have posted 😉

#replies #nicole speaks #nicole rambles #readers advisory #book recs #anon

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ettawritesnstudies · 3 years

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1, 2, and 7 for the fan-tastic ask game?

oooh these are fun questions..... I'm going to do a short answer for all of my main WIPS! Thanks for the ask!

What kind of readers would be fans of your WIP?

Runaways: People who like The Spiderwick Chronicles, House of Hollow, Narnia, classic fairytales, and wholesome children's stories that are actually really dark if you think too hard about the implications

Storge/The Laoche Chronicles: People who like political intrigue and complex plots with a lot of moving parts, epic worldbuilding, dramatic character arcs and sacrifices, and the promise of a happy ending.

What do you plan to do with this WIP when you finish it? If you HAVE finished, how long did it take?

I have finished the first drafts of both Runaways and Storge, and I'm outlining the Laoche Chronicles! I plan to self-publish all my books, in that order. I came up with the idea for Laoche in 2014, realized I needed a prequel and started Storge circa 2015-2016, and finished the draft in summer 2020. I fully expect it to be another 6 years before these books start to get published just because they're so long and epic and complex and I write so slow.

Runaways on the other hand: it started as a scrap of an idea in a phone note, was outlined, drafted, and finished in under 6 months, and I want to finish editing it by October so I can give it to beta readers with the intention of putting it up on my website as a serial novel. It'll stay there until I go through the actual self-publishing process to turn it into a book sometime in 2023 after I graduate, I think, at which point I'll take it off the website.

You’ve published or shared your WIP and it develops rabid fandom. What’s the fandom known for?

Runaways: I think it would be really cool to see people coming up with their own faerie/changeling/powered OCs and playing in the world I've created. It's a very open concept to explore and I'd get a kick out of seeing people's different ideas! Also, fanart! I love fae character designs and I hope the fandom would oscillate wildly between cute domestic scenes of the girls and literal nightmare fuel

Storge/Laoche: I can see a few options/sections becoming a thing

it would be the Discourse™ These books include a LOT of analysis of philosophy, politics, religion, society, duty/responsibility, and are strongly influenced by my personal (read: Catholic) beliefs and I don't honestly don't think tumblr is ready for those takes which is why I don't talk about current events here and prefer to let my writing speak for itself because otherwise I'd be torn to shreds on the daily but anyhoooowwwww

Ensemble cast + redeemed villain + potential for endless tropes (friends-> lovers, enemies -> lovers, travel aus, etc) = shipping wars for no good reason

people memeing on the out-of-context lines (ie. the cosmere's "I am a Stick!" shtick)/incorrect quotes blogs

I also think it would be really cool to see OCs for this world because it's also a very open concept and I'd love seeing people's ideas but I have a feeling that would take a backseat to the three above topics.

Fan-tastic ask game!

#ask games #ask answered

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thetigarchives · 5 years

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THE TIG ARCHIVES│TRAVEL│INSIDER’S GUIDE TO THE LOWER EAST SIDE

“It wasn’t until filming the pilot for Suits that I began to know NY. And it wasn’t until a good year after that, that I began to know NY well. I found my nook. My downtown: a little grubby, a little rough around the edges, a lot stylish, and as cool as I aspired to be - we’re talking the Lower East Side. I love a neighborhood that you can get lost in, always finding new nooks and crannies, interest and intrigue. And while the West Village is high on my list, and nothing is more convenient for work than staying uptown, this neck of the woods deserves a post all its own. And trust me when I say, editing this down to our favs was a task in and of itself. Bon voyage, friend!”

- Meghan Markle, February 2015

STAY

The Ludlow - “When my dear friend, Markus (you know the one), intro’d me to Johnny Christ to check out the new property he had his hands in, I was tickled pink to try it out (after all, Johnny had been the main man at The Bowery Hotel, followed by The Nomad, and then West Village gem, The Marlton) - the man has taste. The Ludlow was generous in allowing us to use the space for a Tig photo shoot, both in the perfectly styled rooms, the welcoming lounge, and breathtaking rooftop. It really is a LES treasure which I can’t wait to call home next time I’m in the city.”

The Bowery Hotel - “An old standy, known for its cozy charm, who’s who nightlife scene (let’s not discuss the nights I’ve had on the back patio with everyone from my Suits cast mates, to Jess Stam, Dianna Agron, and the countless celebs you end up clinking glasses with). And yet, with all of that star power, it remains one of the most down to earth properties you could dream of - friendly staff, soaking tubs that wash away any bad day, and also small balconies from the baby suites that make it feel like your own LES sanctuary. Ask for Gigi. She’s my favorite.”

EAT

Dirty French - “Since opening on the ground floor of The Ludlow this fall, Dirty French has been booked solid with reservations - and for good reason. It’s not only the classic, #throwback French restaurant that’s opened around the city recently, but it is one of the best (and considering it’s brought to you by Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi - the same team behind the much lauded Torrisi Italian Specialties, it’s not exactly a surprise). They’re not messing around with the food here because with plates like duck a la orange and cote de bouef for deux, you don’t come here if you’re just looking for a nosh.”

Contra - “It’s difficult to describe the food at Contra (they like to call it ‘contemporary New York cuisine’), but we can say this: whatever they’re serving today on their seasonal, locally-sourced 5-course tasting menu is delicious and like nothing you’ve ever had before. They use a ton of vegetables that tend to not get a lot of love on other menus (like kohlrabi) and combine flavors in unique ways that will certainly pique your tastebuds. Plus, at $55 for a tasting menu, you’re not going to get a better deal in the city if you tried.”

Freemans - “Hidden in the back of an easy-to-miss alleyway, Freemans has that hipster vibe that shows itself not only in the flannel clad crowd that heads there for brunch, but in its cool, eclectic decor. The food is great and the place is one of the coolest in the city, but note that they don’t take reservations, so bring your phone to flip through your Instagram feed while you wait.”

The Fat Radish - “A delightful and delicious British (yes, British!) restaurant, The Fat Radish may have one of the greatest restaurant names of all times, but that’s not why we keep going back to this beloved spot (okay, not the only reason). On top of its delectable, locally-sourced cuisine (featuring sharable plates like Montauk diver scallops and peeky toe crab gratin), The Fat Radish just has a happy, bright vibe that we simply love.”

Clinton Street Baking Company - “Hands down the most-loved, most-talked about, and most crowded bakery and brunch in all of NYC - and that’s really saying something. New Yorkers from every side of town flock to CSBC for their fluffy blueberry and banana-walnut pancakes and brioche french toast. But the real secret is that the restaurant serves their menu all day, including dinner, so if you ever have a hankering for breakfast at 9pm, you know where to go.”

SHOP

Reformation - “A brand that’s cute and eco-conscious - now that’s what we’re talking about. Reformation may be LA-based, but it fits right in to the Lower East Side, where doing things that are good for the earth while still remaining chic gives the area its mojo.”

Frankie Shop - “What was once the cult e-comm site Pixie Market’s brick-and-mortar is now the concept shop Frankie - a much more grown-up version of the original boutique. Head here for creative work wear (like tuxedo dresses and oversized turtlenecks) at prices that you’ll scoff at - for how low they are for the quality the goods are.”

Narnia Vintage - “Vintage shops are like Starbucks on the Lower East Side - they’re literally everywhere, but Narnia Vintage is one that stands out. It may be a teeny tiny storefront, but its offerings are selected so perfectly that you won’t even need to rummage around through tons and tons of clothing. Narnia is known to be the fav of vintage pros around the world, so you know that it’s definitely at the top of its class.”

Russ and Daughters - “Historically, The Lower East Side housed mostly Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and you can still get a taste of that (literally) today. And in a city filled with a deli on every corner, Russ & Daughters is where you should be getting your lox for all those bagels and schmear you plan on eating later. The food shop celebrated its 100th anniversary last year (which they celebrated by opening up a cafe around the corner), so you know they’re at least doing something right (and that something is smoked fish.) Seriously - run, don’t walk over there.”

Bowery and Vine - “Rather than raiding your mini bar for a $50 half bottle of mediocre wine, hit up this local wine shop that carries wines from nearly every region you could possibly think of. And their liquor offerings are notable as well, particularly with their whiskey selection. Plus, the staff is incredibly helpful and knowledgable, so holler at them if you need any help or if you just want to chat about booze.”

FROLIC

Yoga High - “Even though the Lower East Side isn’t as hectic as, say, Midtown, it’s still tough to find peace and quiet in a city like New York. So slow down, take a breather, and take a class at Yoga High. It’s crucial to slow it down for a quick hour or so while you’re in NYC, so finding a great yoga spot is critical, and Yoga High is the absolute best in the Lower East Side.”

The Tenement Museum - “Hands down --this is the coolest museum in New York City. And considering all the wonderful museums in New York, that’s saying quite a lot. But you’re not going to get the same experience that you do at The Met or The Guggenheim - The Tenement Museum is a hands-on experience. You’ll be taken on one of their many tours - either a walking tour of the neighborhood (including their legendary food tour) or a tour of an actual tenement. The Lower East Side is filled with so much history, and The Tenement Museum gives you a look at what it would be like to have been an immigrant in the turn of the century. This is something that you won’t want to miss - so make sure you sign up in advance on their website.”

Meghan’s outfit credits: Dress - Piazza Sempione, Sunglasses - Stella McCartney, Shoes - Gianvito Rossi

#the tig #the tig archives #meghan markle #lower east side #new york #tiglowereastside #tigtravel #tignewyork #tigtravelguides

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morethanithoughtofficialblog · 4 years

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Chapter 11: And I had an anxiety attack... again.

In which the title describes the whole chapter

*Your POV*

I slammed the door behind me, fell to my knees, and closed my eyes. Today was such a shitty day I actually don't want to go back. But I have to. Unless I want to get fired, which actually doesn't sound THAT bad.

Wait... yeah, that sounds reasonable.

My apartment was just like my mind: a complete fucking mess that made no sense and looked like Narnia. But despite that, my personal laptop was hanging out on the small table I have in front of the TV. I sighed and went to the kitchen, trying not to worry.

It's been a while ever since I met the group of monsters and, honestly, I'm loving it! They are super nice and a part of me has changed a bit... so I'm becoming more dedicated to making them as happy as I can.

And that also refers to some of their complaints, like "you should seek a better job" or "this is dangerous for you, you should have something that makes you happy". And that's what I was about to do.

After taking my cup of coffee and I sat on the couch, I opened my laptop and started to search for different jobs and opportunities. I'm a scientist and a... politician? We could say that. I'm experienced in both terms and I'm really trying to look for a scientist post today. I want to do what I love and, well, I'm a science nerd. Fite me.

I just don't want to work in the Congress anymore. It's boring, it's lame, and I'm not going to stay in an office for the rest of my days- not when I'm starting to care about things. Alphys and Sans have said that they want to become part of the science world, but they have to study hard to get it. While I'm waiting for them, though, I'll make them proud and work in science!

While browsing around, I ended up on a Facebook page and noticed I had a shitton of notifications. Interested, I checked the groups and started to read the messages... bad idea...

Paula: Hey, monster lover! You should just go with them to the Underground, hah!

Anna: Jesus, when did we let this happen?

Anna: I thought you were smarter than this!

John: You are gonna put us in trouble

John: And it'll be all YOUR FAULT!

And so it went. I frowned slightly and decided to check Discord, trying to get distracted for a bit. My mind was starting to make bad moves, and I just couldn't make them real. What if it was better to leave the topic? Did I make a mistake? Should I start protesting AGAINST them?! Are they a threat to humans? Oh my God, what have I done? Should I-

Do you wanna get... Frisky?: Hey (Y/N)!

Do you wanna get... Frisky?: you wanna play UNO?

CoolSkeleton95: YES, HUMAN!

CoolSkeleton95: YOU SHOULD JOIN THE FUN!

I shook my head with a smile, knowing I could never do that to them. Not after the little and funny history we have together, and how much comprehensible they looked with my problems socializing. They've made laugh like there is no tomorrow and to learn a lot of things. I just can't wipe them away from their dreams. I just can't wipe them away from my life.

Smartass: Sure, right now?

puns are love, puns are life: we're startin' right now, kiddo.

puns are love, puns are life: join this round before undyne comes with her shitty strategies again

I giggled softly, remembering the stupid nicknames we all had in that Discord group. I immediately went for my headphones, then joined the chat.

"Hi!" I exclaimed, praying that everyone could hear me. Fortunately, they could.

"hello kid, ready to lose?" A deep voice said, which I immediately recognized it was Sans. Everyone seems to have a high-pitched voice comparing them with him. Heck, even my father would sound like a three-year-old girl if we compare their voices!

After a bit of playing stupid rounds of UNO and hearing Sans's awful puns, I lost track of time. Eventually, Sans and I ended up playing Dead by Daylight together, the skeleton by some coincidence having the game installed. And so talked privately from then, and... got used to the game, I suppose.

"DUDE WHAT THE-" I stopped myself before I could use a bad word, not knowing how he would react. I still don't feel comfortable enough to be my usual, swearing, and boring self around them. I'm trying to be as less boring as possible... but I know that I'm still boring, even if I, indeed, try hard.

"i hate this game soooooooo much... what if we play somethin' else?" he asked, making me sigh in relief. This game's no good for someone with anxiety, keep that in mind. Bad thing I'm kind of a masochist in that aspect.

"You hate a lot of games, don't you? And sure, any suggestions?"

"do you have... mortal kombat?"

Oooh

This is going to be interesting!

"Which one?"

"x, i'm too poor to buy the new one"

"Sure, I have it! I'll love to play it, it's been a while"

"cool cool, i'll invite you then"

And we played like for, what, hours? Mortal Kombat is sincerely one of my favorite sagas of videogames since I was a little child. Dolls? Nah, videogames were my thing since the beginning of times.

I forgot my problems, I forgot everything. It was just me, my character, and an angry Sans rattling his bones all over the mic. I was enjoying it, even if he tried to deconcentrate me with his jokes, that at the end were all just corny comments trying to make me flush but made me laugh instead.

I joked now and then as well, and hearing his laugh was such a gratifying feeling I couldn't do anything but to laugh with him. Besides, his laugh is quite contagious, and I'm easily influenced when other people laugh, so this got the best of me.

When I looked at the clock though, fear ran all over my body, and I stood quiet for some good minutes. I tried to contain my anxiety, to calm down. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes, telling myself I'll be just fine.

"(y/n), are you-"

"HOLY SHIT IT'S 1 AM WHAT THE FUCK- AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

...

Nice job, sweetie.

My mind was being a huge and stupid mess whenever those awful screams were out of my mouth. Sans wasn't answering, so I felt worse. I started panicking and creating ways to make him hate me less, and before I could say anything, I heard laughter.

His laughter.

"oh my god (y/n) you panic a lot" he said between breaths, while I just remained silent. What the- "i'm sorry, it's just... you should not worry about anything, k? remember you said tomorrow you don't have to work, k? just relax. nothing's wrong with staying late once in a while, right?"

"Wait, so you don't think I'm pathetic or anything like that?!"

"wha- of course not! everyone has their moments (y/n), and you have anxiety, for god's sake! it's totally normal for someone to freak out now and then. you shouldn't feel guilty of that"

How...

I felt tears trying to escape from my eyes and I hold them back, keeping my cool... temporarily. I draw a weak smile in my face, even if Sans couldn't see it.

"Thank you. I needed that" Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnd my voice broke down in the process. Shit.

"don't worry (y/n)" he said kindly, and I bet he was still wearing that permanent shit-eating grin. I chuckled to myself, slowly making tears disappear "hey, do you wanna meet up tomorrow? maybe you want some time to yourself, i know, but maybe you should try to interact more with people... since i'm assuming you don't"

I never thought I would get lectured by a skeleton. Guess life is unexpected, huh?

But I realized he was right. My social anxiety can only be solved by interacting with others. There is no escape, and I'm conscious of that. Besides, what can go wrong? Sans has been nothing but a nice guy, and I'm starting to enjoy his company a lot. Maybe I'll be able to consider him as a friend?

"I'd love that, thank you so much. I don't get to hang out often, so that means a lot"

"don't sweat it. everyone deserves a chance to express themselves"

We hung up the call with a quick "see you tomorrow" and I went straight to bed, never erasing that last sentence he said from my mind.

"Everyone deserves a chance to express themselves", huh? Maybe...

Maybe this is my chance

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Sans's POV*

We hung up the call and I let out a sigh. I never realized I was playing until late, mostly because Papyrus didn't come for his bedtime story, and so I lose track of time. I was having a good time though, but I can't be stubborn and keep her up any longer. Not after she almost had a heart attack.

She's nice, and she seems pretty genuine. Doesn't look like the type of girl that should hide anything, not with that anxiety of hers. She's a goddess in Mortal Kombat, though. She knew how to use almost every fighter perfectly, and I felt like a punching bag with jokes in its interior. The more she won, the more I joked. At least she laughed... a lot, actually. She's a good audience, just like Tori.

Then I remembered she cursed when she was starting to freak out, and I started to wonder if she uses "strong" language daily. Or well, at least in her head.

I looked over that beautiful website called Youtube and watched some memes, that are truly gold if you ask me. A sick and dark sense of humor combined with random things and retards living their lives- in one word, perfection. I would also watch Tumblr, but that site gave me a good uncomfortable feeling that I don't want to relive any sooner. I also wanted to check Wattpad, but ever since I knew that it was mostly FanFiction, I thought more about it. Then I remember that Alphys told me she had an account and I immediately never went to that place...

Alphys is scary sometimes, no one can judge me. Her weird FanFictions are pretty much apart from anything I like to read or write...

And yes, I'm a writer.

That's why I thought Wattpad would be a good idea...

Thank God I changed my mind.

I'm mostly a science fiction lover, but drama and suspense are not that bad. I also like a lot of horror novels, but I'm no good at writing one my self. Believe me, I tried. It's hard to make it as noncliché as possible, considering that paranormalities are a huge cliché themselves.

I always include romance in my stories though. I realized it's quite essential in defining people's personalities and actions. Besides, romantic scenes leave a nice drama feeling when they are not exaggerated, so I try to put them once in a while.

I'm currently writing a novel instead of a short story, but it's hella difficult if you are bone dry of ideas. It takes a skele-ton of effort to come up with something good, and it's harder to put it in words. I also need to do some more research, since it includes scientific things...

Ah, sci-fi. What would I do without it?

I'm also a classic novel lover. Macbeth it's just wonderful and Journey to the Center of the Earth are old masterpieces that have a special place in my soul. I read them when I was a kid, and I would do it over and over. But I also want to see what new books the surface has to offer- one of my wildest dreams is to visit the biggest libraries around the world, like the ones in Paris or in Tokyo. But that has to wait.

I'm tired, but I never get myself to sleep. I suffer insomnia since... quite a few time, actually. It all started with the first reset of that goddamn flower; it started whenever I realized that the timeline theory was real and that, whoever got the power- the DETERMINATION- had the entire world at their hands.

Flowey was first, then Frisk came and had the power. Now I don't know if she has it anymore, considering we are at the surface and anyone could be more determined than her. But there's still a chance she has time and space at the tip of her fingers, and with a snap, she can make everything and everyone I love disappear.

That kid... she probably wants to see me suffer. After everything I've done to stop her, she hates me even more. She's selfish. She's a prick. And I'll never forgive her.

She knew I would remember when she did that. She killed everyone I loved, she destroyed the little hope I had on my home... and laughed at my face about it. That fight, that crazy look in her eyes... I have nightmares about it. Whenever I see the kid, a part of me replaces it with the painful memories of past timelines.

And I can't make them stop. I can't erase that devilish and empty smile Frisk had. I can't erase the vision of that flower becoming a God before my eyes.

I can't erase Papyrus's smile still with hope before turning to dust.

I shook my head and sighed. Out of all the times, I can't bring myself now into thinking like that... not anymore. We're on the Surface now, for God's sake! I should be happy because now I can fulfill my happiest dreams!

...

I lack the motivation, though.

There's no hope for me, or that's what I think.

I want the best for everyone (except Frisk and Flowey; screw them), but me? Heh, this old sack of bones won't be his usual self any sooner. It's just... it's just stupid to think I'll ever be the casual and relaxed skeleton ever again. I'm paranoid. I'm scared. I'm a fucking coward trying to protect his brother, but being too useless to do anything about it.

I can't go back to Snowdin. I can't go back to that goddamn house. I can't.

I glanced over my desk and noticed the folder with the things for my education. I let a sigh, knowing that I would never be able to keep up with that kind of stress. Not if my mind it's worried about something else.

I turned off the lights and went to my bed, trying to clear my mind. I let a new human enter my life, one older than Frisk...

That doesn't mean it's less dangerous.

That doesn't mean she's not a murderer...

#sans x reader #sansxreader #more than i thought fanfiction #more than i thought #sans #x reader #undertale

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aroworlds · 6 years

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@aromantic-official: Pride Week One, Aromantic Identity

It’s still the first week! We’ll just ignore that I’m posting this on Saturday, okay?

How did you realize you were aro/arospec? How long have you known?

It’s been a few years now, although I’m not sure on precisely how long, since I realised it at a time when I was too ill for blogging, so there’s no internet record of my realising it. I don’t even remember when I happened across it, as my memories of that period (thanks, clinical depression and dissociation) have more holes than Swiss cheese. I have this vague sense there was a lightbulb or eureka! moment after reading something online, but it wasn’t until long after that I put it into words or labelled myself that way.

There wasn’t much conversation outside asexual spaces on being aromantic as separate from asexual until relatively recently, and as someone who didn’t feel myself to be asexual at the time, I didn’t know this was a thing I could be. (I’ve decided since I’m abrosexual, shifting between pansexual, greysexual and asexual.) I had asexual and aro-ace friends and I still didn’t know I could be aro without being ace! For years I was writing so many posts in frustration about how my pansexual and agender/trans identities were only framed in media by romance narratives. I was dreaming of starting a LGBTQIA+ genre fiction press that published non-romantic pieces (it was one of my stated goals in doing my writing course, actually). I was tired and frustrated and alienated by an amatonormative, alloromantic world, and everything I said and wrote was just waiting for the word “aromantic” to identify it.

Have you come out to anyone? Share a coming out story (coming out to yourself also counts)!

I’m out online, everywhere. I’m out to offline friends, but I think they all know me online, or at least enough of me that there was no real coming-out process I had to deal with. I’m not out to my family, oddly enough--or at least I don’t know if they know I am aro, because as a writer, they could easily have jumped on my website and read all about me. My relationship with my family is not the best, and I’ve got a lot of reasons for not trusting them, so I don’t tend to gift them with personal information given how they’ve used it against me in the past. Likewise, if they know things about me, they don’t come forward with it, so it’s this complicated, silent mess.

For being aro, I don’t have any good coming out stories. My writing tends to signal my aromanticism before I have to, be it in my profile, discussion posts on my personal blog or in promoting this blog. For being otherwise LGBTQIA+, most of them are pretty awful, so I’ll stick quite happily with being the kind of person online who doesn’t have to come out.

Sometimes I feel cowardly, for being this person who is so out I’ll never find my way back to Narnia, yet still being so cagey (words like “queer” are useful to me for their lack of specificity) with my relatives. My reasons are good, and my safety matters, but being in the closet, even partially, is a crushing weight. I wish society understood that, how much being in the closet damages you, because it is so tiring to have to talk around my aromanticism with comments like “I don’t like romance much”. I wish I felt safe enough to be completely out.

How/Why is your aromanticism important to you/your identity?

I don’t have a whole identity in the sense of many pieces fitting together to form me; I have more segregated sense of identities that I switch between, although they definitely colour each other (look at the way I can’t not talk about autism here). There are definitely identities more important to me than others, though--autism, agender/trans and aromanticism are definitely the top three identities that come closest to my feeling a sense of me.

I am other things--physically disabled and mentally ill, abuse survivor, abrosexual--but I just happen to be or experience them. Autism, agender/trans and aromanticism are who I am. They’re the words that make sense of who I am in the world and why I feel the way I do. They’re the pillars on which everything else rests, and recognising each one was profound, a relief, so wonderfully sense-making and defining.

What are some misconceptions about aromanticism that bother you?

All the “aros don’t love” and “aros are heartless” nonsense cuts me twice because it draws from a well of rendering aro-specs too inhuman to be allowed, but it does so because we’ve been taught certain behaviours about love and connection, commonly associated with neurodevelopmental disabilities, mental illnesses and abuse survival, are wrong ways to be. As someone who is all of those things and aromantic, it puts me in an untenable situation: I come across as that touch-averse, heartless, love-doesn’t-describe-how-I-feel-about-people, alienated-from-people aro stereotype from a combination of autism and abuse/assault. I see my experiences used to erase or deny me as an aromantic but simultaneously rejected by my own community in their fight against these hurtful assumptions/stereotypes.

The blame for this is squarely on the people who hold these beliefs and use them as a weapon against us, but it is so difficult to experience this sense that I am a monstrous example of everything an aromantic should never be, that I damage my own community just by existing, that my community is fighting back against stereotypes that harm us by rejecting me. Where do I go then, when the autistic community is fighting back against the “autistics don’t love” stereotype by the amatonormativity of insisting on our ability to love romantically? Where do I go as an autistic, mentally ill aro?

Ableism shapes aromisia so very often, and the two twined together as they are hurt me in ways I struggle to describe.

What’s something you like about being aro/arospec? Something you dislike?

I have this profound contentment with this word, this identity, this experience. For me, it’s liberation: I don’t have to shove myself into a box that never fit me. I can just be me. I love not feeling romantic attraction, I love writing aro-spec characters, I love questioning and exploring what constitutes a happy ending, I love the discussions about non-romantic relationships and connections with other people, I love the art other aro-specs are making, I love the way aro-specs are coming together to support each other. I love being aro. There is no way I’d choose not to be aro, just like I’d never choose to have a gender or be allistic.

Everything I dislike is steeped in amatonormativity or aromisia/aro antagonism, not the experience of being aro. I hate, profoundly, how writing characters who are aro like me makes it that much harder to find a supportive and encouraging audience. I hate the lack of categories and visible tags for aro-spec writing. I hate the way gen/low romance/no romance works are seen as childish or uninteresting. I hate the way aro folks are unquestioned targets for hate because nobody wants to listen to us talk for long enough to understand.

I hate how amatonormativity impacts me as a creative so much I made this blog.

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writing-in-the-tiny-house · 3 years

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Plotting, but Upside Down

Become patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Be sure to check out the podcast Writing Roots, found wherever you listen to your podcasts!

The following is a transcription to this episode. The complete transcription is on the show’s website.

Devin Davis: Do you have the most awesome character in all of fiction and you have wonderful plans for this character, but you just don't dare to put those plans into action? Well, I am here to tell you to dare to dream. Well, in ways. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and we are here together for another wonderful episode of writing in the tiny house. I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you how to fit in writing a book, even in the most busy of schedules. So that's what we're doing.

[00:01:09] That's what we do here. Sometimes we have interviews of professionals in the field. Sometimes we have me talking about different writing advice. Last week, we talked about plotting from the inside out, from finding an event that would happen in your plot and in your book and finding ways to entangle that with all of the different subplots and then working backward so that you can find out how everybody got there.

[00:01:41] This week, we are going to be talking about characters and the awesome things we want them to do. So this is still plotting. This is still doing the plot structure stuff. But I warn you: what I'm about to talk about can be dangerous. But first I want to do a quick shout out. You know, that in these episodes I sometimes have announcements.

[00:02:06] One of the podcasts that I just stumbled upon is called Writing Roots by Aspen House Publishing. They release episodes twice a week and they are great. And I highly recommend that you guys search them out and have a good time with that. It's been fun exploring some of these other writing podcasts and just building a community like that.

[00:02:27] So that's it for announcements. Let's just get in to the nitty gritty of this. Let me first share with you the warning. Let me first set the stage. This stage is: you have this wonderful character, and because I am a fantasy genre author, we're going to keep things kind of fantasy.

[00:02:50] If you do any other type of fiction though, this totally applies. So with fantasy, anything can happen. There's magic. I appreciate a really good magic system. I appreciate believable characters. I appreciate human characters that I can relate too. So we have this character who is becoming more and more powerful in magic, and we imagine this wonderful big finale or this wonderful big spell or this wonderful big situation that this character really should be put into.

[00:03:31] If the character were in that situation, the entire plot would be more exciting. And that particular scene that you are imagining would be fun to write. It would be fun to envision. It is fun to daydream about. If it were a movie, you know all of the camera angles, you know all of the pictures, you know all of the special effects that it would have.

[00:03:54] And so we get to ask ourselves, "How did we get our character to do that? How do we get our character to get there?" We need to include these exciting moments because it's fun. And that's what makes some of this literature really fun is really big magic, really big high stakes things.

[00:04:18] We like the fights. We like the battles, at least in fantasy we usually do. And so it's important to include those things. However, when it comes to this specific character, doing this specific thing or developing in this specific way or having this or that specific backstory, it is important to step back and ask yourself why.

[00:04:49]And this is the reason why I say things like this. If you do not step back and ask yourself why it can lead to problems with your writing. It can lead to problems with your story. When you have a character who needs, in your opinion-- and it truly is in your opinion, none of this is real. And so you are in charge of everything in this writing process. But if you have this woman who needs to learn a specific spell or needs to do a specific fight, then you need to find a believable way to get her there. It is important to write down the different things that you want this character to have, and that you want this character to do.

[00:05:42] It's important to write all those things down for all of the main characters. But, you need to cross reference all of that with the previous stuff that I said in the previous episode. You need to make sure that you're getting your character from this stage to this other stage in a believable way. It needs to be something that is organic.

[00:06:10] It needs to be something that is real. It needs to be something that we can believe. And so what the pitfall is, is plot devices. Sometimes plot armor. If you're familiar with that term, that is when the character doesn't die or doesn't really get hurt just because they are the main character.

[00:06:32] Not because they are otherwise special in any other way. But just because they're the main character we protect them, or we have our main character or our main crew of characters, and we need to get them from here to there, but we have written them into this corner. And so how do we get them out of this corner?

[00:06:53] Well, the problem is the unbelievable solution or the convenient thing that comes by. I spoke about plot conveniences earlier when I spoke about Santa Claus showing up in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia and Santa Claus brought deadly weapons, which the children would be needing at the end of the book, and that is all very convenient. And this way of plotting can lead to these plot conveniences. However, I'm going to tell you that if your character absolutely needs to do a specific thing, what I invite you to do is write down what that specific thing is, and then sit on it for a while.

[00:07:42]Have it in the back of your mind. If everything in the story already makes sense and leads up to that, and this would be just a natural progression along the way, then absolutely stick it into your story. If not, pay attention to your gut feeling. If it ends up being extra or stupid, or unbelievable, or just too much, or it ends up affecting the pacing-- like things get really slow and boring now that we have this thing in there-- then I invite you to step back and to perhaps revisit it or to throw it away entirely. There have been many wonderful ideas that I have thought of in my own stories that simply did not survive just because there was no organic way to include them in the story.

[00:08:40] So in instances like this, sometimes sometimes, and I absolutely give you every excuse to do this if you feel you need to. Sometimes you simply must sit down and write it anyway, knowing that it is going to be modified later. And you could write thousands of words just because you need to write that. You need this particular scene or event to exist for you, for you as the storyteller. In writing that scene, it brings you a little bit closer to your character. It lets you get to know the character and the dynamics of the environment that they're in, the stakes that they have and many more things. But it is okay to then turn around and rip it out of your manuscript.

[00:09:36]If you are the type of person who has heart failure over deleting things in their manuscript, it's okay to cut them from the manuscript that you are working on and paste them into another file that you can title your graveyard and to have those ideas continue on in the graveyard for either further inspiration or just reminiscing about what might've been. When I wrote my first book As Magic Shifts, the prologue was the longest chapter in the entire book by far, and it was the prologue. And if you do any type of Googling or just a quick search in YouTube, you can discover that prologues are kind of on the hot plate right now.

[00:10:34] They're kind of a debatable subject. Do you need a prologue? Do you not need a prologue? And there are a million different things to say about that subject. But in my book As Magic Shifts, when I wrote that 13 years ago, I simply needed to write this battle scene. And in the prologue, I wrote the battle scene from start to finish.

[00:11:00] It was the entire battle. And it had characters in it that had not been introduced in any other aspect. It had events in it that were confusing. It had multiple points of view. It was a mess. It was also 45 pages long. Which is too long for a prologue. You want your prologue to be shorter than the average length of your chapters.

[00:11:26] And so it was a problem and I sat back and I recognize that. And so what I did instead was after I wrote the entire prologue, I took just a single scene from it, the most important scene, and I made that become the prologue. And had I not done it that way, at least that's how it became for the second draft.

[00:11:52] Had I not done it that way-- had I not sat down and written out this entire battle-- I wouldn't have arrived at that scene that worked for the second draft. And that's okay. What I did later was I had a way to understand the characters backstory, and as a way to understand just some of the magic and some of the effects that were happening in a really negative way. I had flashbacks of sorts to that war, to that battle that happened years and years ago, as a way to explain to the reader and to actually some of the other characters, what was actually going on and why it was happening in this way. And so I never forgot that battle.

[00:12:45]Again, this is the thing. If you have main characters that you really, really, really want them to do specific things or act in a specific way, make sure you reference your overall story and pay attention to your gut. It has also been my experience that if I let things marinate for long enough, I will be able to come to a very logical conclusion about those things, whether or not to put them in the book. Or I can find the absolute perfect way to include them. And sometimes that takes time. Sometimes that just takes that patience, that ability to sit back and allow the forces at work to just kind of figure out this aspect of the story that you didn't understand before.

[00:13:45] For me, I daydream about my books all day, every day. And so sometimes I get fixated on the really exciting things on the good things that I find in the storyline. And because I'm the storyteller and because I'm the author, they all make perfect sense to me. And then sometimes when I draft, I don't see that they don't make sense yet, or that they need more or that it's too much, whatever.

[00:14:15]But in the times that I do see that this doesn't work right now, or that this character doesn't get to act in this way right now, or this event doesn't get to happen right now, but I still allow myself to daydream and I still allow myself to think about it, I have found that for the really important events in my entire overall story, even though some of the context might change, I have found there is always a creative and beautiful way to approach those events every time. And that moment is so exciting when, when I come to realize, oh, it gets to happen this way. So the event is still there! And I still get to be excited about what is about to happen and the magic and the action, and you know, what the characters are going to learn and grow from or whatever, if that's even in the scene.

[00:15:17] And even though the context may be different and sometimes the secondary characters might be different or the setting might be a little different. I have found that there are creative ways to find the perfect place for those exciting moments. And for those important moments, sometimes it requires a bit of ju from your manuscript, but it can happen.

[00:15:42] Sometimes you get to be prepared to put them on the back burner so that you can give it more time to marinate and let your creative brain find the most perfect way to include that important scene.

[00:15:58] So that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me. And a special thanks to my patrons: without my patrons, this podcast would not be possible. If you are interested in joining the patron gang, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. You would be getting early access to these episodes. You would be getting an additional episode every month and an opportunity to spend private time with me.

[00:16:24] So again, that is patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. Also be sure to follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for joining me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

Check out this episode!

#writing #writer #author #fiction #am writing #wip

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pioneergirlsie · 6 years

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85 Questions

I was tagged by the lovely @dearponty <3 Thank you!

I’m tagging: @random----fandoms (I always keep thinking you’re still papillion XD) @thatwouldbeunfortunate @booksinthenooks @flyingthroughthemoonlight @xxno-wayxx

— what was your last…

1. drink: Water out of my huge Newsies cup. Or if water doesn’t count, I had a Mountain Dew yesterday

2. phone call: My aunt so I could wish my little cousin a happy 7th birthday

3. text message: @random----fandoms aka my bestie

4. song you listened to: “From Now On” from The Greatest Showman

5. time you cried: A few weeks ago I was so stressed that I just cried for about a half hour and did nothing

— have you ever…

6. dated someone twice: Haha I haven’t even dated someone once XD

7. kissed someone and regretted it: Haha I’ve never kissed either

8. been cheated on: No

9. lost someone special: Yeah. Too many special someones

10. been depressed: Yeah. After reading A Series of Unfortunate Events I got into a funk and it didn’t really go away on its own...

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: No but I gag whenever I smell alcohol

— fave colours

12. Blue

13. Green

14. Blue green

— in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: Do online friends count?

16. fallen out of love: Well... Fallen out of “like” is more accurate (and it happened twice so...)

17. laughed until you cried: Oh yes XD

18. found out someone was talking about you: Yes, but not in a bad way

19. met someone who changed you: Yeppers

20. found out who your friends are: A lot of them are the same, but I see now that distance can change people

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list: I’ve kissed my parents, and we’re facebook friends, does that count?

— general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl: All of them because I don’t friend people I don’t know

23. do you have any pets: Yessss! I have three cats (one of which is missing and she’s my favorite) and a black lab/pointer mix who is adorable and I love him so much even though I don’t like any other dogs

24. do you want to change your name: No I love my name!

25. what did you do for your last birthday: We were on a road trip and my dad decided to pull off to a war memorial even though we were on a tight schedule, so that was interesting. There were LARGE mosquitos there. Then we drove for ten hours. We stopped at a gas station for a bathroom and they didn’t have a toilet seat, so that was... an experience. I cried. We finally arrived at Disney Springs where we got ice cream for my birthday. And the next day, on my bro’s birthday, we went to DisneyWorld. (But it’s alright because we both wore birthday buttons our whole trip and got mistaken for twins constantly and got many magical moments)

26. what time did you wake up today: 8 am

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Sleeping thank goodness. But I also could have been sleepwalking or talking because I do that

28. what is something you can’t wait for: My online classes being done (but I get my wisdom teeth out two days later so... maybe I can wait)

30. what are you listening to right now: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace soundtrack XD

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom: I think my aunt’s brother is named Tom but I don’t think I actually talked to him at that wedding...

32. something that’s getting on your nerves: Drama queens/kings

33. most visited website: Tumblr, YouTube, and the site for my college courses

34. hair colour: Brown

35. long or short hair: Medium-ish because I just got it cut from it being really long

36. do you have a crush on someone: It’s complicated

37. what do you like about yourself: I like my eyes a lot, and I like my personality. I have fun :)

38. want any piercings: Nopity nope nope, nope nope.

39. blood type: Ha, funny story. I skipped the day of biology where everyone got their blood tested and went to Disney instead

40. nicknames: Elsie

41. relationship status: Single

42. sign: Pisces I think. I don’t really care

43. pronouns: she/her

44. fave tv show: The new Tangled series!

45. tattoos: Oh nodie dodie.

46. right or left handed: Right

47. ever had surgery: No but I’m going to need a couple

48. piercings: Ears

49. sport: I am totally into motocross. I can’t figure out how to shift, but I love watching it and riding little 50s.

50. vacation: Are we talking all or most recent? I’ll go with most recent. We took a roadtrip through the deep south this winter all the way down to Florida to visit Disney and my friend at college and saw a Supercross Race over my brother’s and my birthdays.

51. trainers: Do braces count?

— more general

52. eating: Not right now, but if I am it’s probably pasta

53. drinking: Water, but later I’ll have a Mountain Dew

54. I’m about to watch: Some YouTube or the end of The Phantom Menace (again)

55. waiting for: Summer so I can be free

56. want: To star in a Broadway show XD Besides that, I’ve wanted this cute jacket for awhile. Ooh! And I want Newsies Live to get a CD and DVD

57. get married: Maybe after I’ve dated and found the right guy XD

58. career: Hopefully an author and an editor! Or I could do newspaper reporter/writer things

— which is better

59. hugs or kisses: hugs, especially when the person is really good at hug giving.

60. lips or eyes: eyes

61. shorter or taller: Well... I am shorter... so idk. But taller can be helpful to reach high places... idk

62. older or younger: Um? How do I answer this? I’d say younger because when you’re older everything starts to hurt

63. nice arms or stomach: Nice arms because they’re good for hugging

64. hookup or relationships: Hookups are bad. Relationships all the way

65. troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant

— have you ever

66. kissed a stranger: Ew no way. I’d maybe kiss my fiance, but not before we’re engaged XD

67. drank hard liquor: Ew absolutely not!

68. turned someone down: One time in high school a boy wanted to touch my butt and I shut that down hard. Oh, and another time this boy asked out about 5 girls at the same time, including me and my friend, and we both told him that that is not a good way to go about getting a girlfriend.

69. sex on first date: Ewwwww, save that for marriage please

70: broken someone’s heart: I really hope not

71. had your heart broken: Ha. Ha ha. Yeah. About three times. The first time was the worst

72. been arrested: Nope

73. cried when someone died: Absolutely.

74. fallen for a friend: Well... I guess he still considers us friends, so yeah

— do you believe in

75. yourself: Mostly. Sometimes I panic, but for the most part yes.

76. miracles: Definitely

77. love at first sight: Yes, and it gets me into trouble XD But I also believe in falling slowly

78. santa claus: Well... I believe in the spirit of Santa. I never actually believed in the person of Santa Claus because Jesus is the reason for the season

79. angels: Yes

— misc

80. eye colour: Blue green. And it changes on a day to day basis

81. best friend’s name: @random----fandoms

82. favourite movie: This is an unfair question XD I love anything Disney, Narnia, or Star Wars. And don’t forget the forever underappreciated “The Adventures of Tintin (2011)”

83. favourite actor: Kara Lindsay

84. favourite cartoon: Kim Possible all the way. Also the old Loony Toons are great, as well as the new Tangled Series.

85. favourite teacher’s name: Mrs. B, Mrs. K, and Mrs. L were all so incredibly influential in my life. Mrs. B was like my crazy fun aunt who encouraged me to just be me. I came out of my shell so much because of her. Mrs. K encouraged me very early on as a writer, and she helped steer me towards my current career path. Mrs. L was my school mom. She also dragged me out of my shell and shaped me into the singer/actress I am today.

#thank you for tagging me!#positive pont #game #let's play a game #tag game #elsie talks #about me #me

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little-narnian-notes · 7 years

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This is totally off topic to anything, but how do you survive high school I need some tips. PLEASE.😂

Um??? This is not off topic??? I’m always here for you guys. If you need tips on how to survive high school, then come ask Aunt Cecily. I’m legit ALWAYS HERE if you need advice for support 💕💕💕

So with that being said, oh boy do I have some tips for you. I don’t know anything about you, anon (other then that you’re likely 13 or 14 and going into high school, or are currently in it and have like 3 years left). As a result, I really can’t give you more specific advice. I’m honestly just going to give you some tips that I know helped me or things I wish I would have done. I’ll tell you some general tips, and then academic related tips.

Here’s the general stuff:

1. Music is so important. Have a good selection of singers on your ipod/phone. My go-tos were Lily Kershaw, Evanescence, Porcelain Black, Colette Carr, Neon Hitch, Trading Yesterday, Beth Crowley, The Cab, One Direction, Little Mix, Emilie Autumn, Kerli, Mayday Parade, Skillet, Simple Plan, Two Steps From Hell, and a lot of miscellaneous songs from various artists. My taste in music has changed and grown, but I still listen to a lot of those artists. Because I was so socially isolated throughout high school, I was constantly listening to music. It made me feel less alone. I had a lot of songs that I could relate to because of what I was going through.

2. Figure out what you love doing. For me, I started to love writing when I very accidentally found out fanfiction. And I mean accidentally. I was googling “narnia stories” or something like that. When I was 12, I was reading this critical analysis/theory book about C.S. Lewis and Narnia, and I was dying to know what happened to Susan post-The Last Battle. I did not find that; I find out about fanfiction instead on this website called Quizilla. It’s not active/online anymore - it was shut down way back in late 2014 or early 2015 for reasons I can’t remember now. ANYWAY. I loved the stories I found on there. I started to write my own (one of them was a Lord of the Rings one and another was with my first OC, Blaze, falling in love with Skandar Keynes. *cringe* *sigh*).

I obviously haven’t stopped writing fanfiction, but it’s because I discovered writing for fun, indulging your own ideas and interests with words and characters, that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, it’s also because I read this one specific fanfiction on there called Nothing’s Alright When You’re Bethrothed to Skandar Keynes (wow can you tell which celebrity 12 year old Cecily was OBSESSED with???). I was like, I WANT TO WRITE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Now I’m majoring in Creative Writing, because job security is for pussies (I’m kidding. I’m freaked out about what I’m gonna do post-college. Job security is some Good Shit, anon).

I also took a class in high school that was an elective, and it was called Video Productions. My teacher let me make my own vines, host some of my high schools’ weekly news segment, make a hunger games parody, etc. I also fell in love with making videos/filmmaking at that time. I knew that semester that that was something I was going to keep in my life and do something with.

Maybe it’s not as clear cut for you right now. But my point is that I discovered stuff in middle and high school that made me feel so damn alive and happy. Especially considering I was emotionally constipated and wanting to kill myself due to my major depressive disorder. So! Explore your interests. Give yourself room to create, learn, and develop skills. Useful ones and creative ones. Push yourself (safely) out of your comfort zone to try something that seems interesting. Even if you never do something like knitting or rock-climbing again, at least you tried it and figured out it’s not for you.

3. You’re in high school. You are not supposed to have your entire life planned. Some people know exactly what they want to do with their lives (go into medical field, go into law, do accounting, become a film director, etc) and that’s great. A lot of people change their minds. And then change it again. You are literally a teenager when you’re choosing a potential career in college, if college is where you decide to go. It is 100% okay to not have all the answers in life. It’s scary and can feel crippling. But guess what? It’s okay. It will be okay. Take deep breaths. Have a hot shower. Listen to your favorite song. But don’t wallow in anxiety forever. As I’ve said - start with figuring out what you love. Then figure out if you love it enough to make it a career, or if it’s just a hobby.

4. Have a job/be productive. After my freshmen, sophomore, and junior year of high school, I volunteered at a horse stable I took lessons at. It was a bunch of high schoolers helping out with summer camps meant for little kids. None of us got paid, but we knew we wouldn’t be financially compensated for our time going in. This guy I’ll call Micah ran the camp because he and his wife, Eva (also not her real name), owned the horses, barn, tack, jumping stuff, and some of the surrounding land. This was their business. In exchange for our four hours of volunteer work, we all got to have an hour or so to ride any of the horses for free and unsupervised (we were all advanced enough to do that and in a small enough group that it didn’t matter that we were left alone).

In my senior year of high school, I got paid like, $300 to write sports articles about the JV and varsity soccer teams at my school. Like give a detailed summary of each game for each time, upload them, and then I got paid in full at the end of the soccer time. That solidified how much I wanted to make writing my living, and that I didn’t want to be a journalist. I loved that job a lot, but I suspect part of why I liked it so much was because a) I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and b) I got to hang out with a lot of other girls my age. It made me feel like I had friends even if we rarely talked to each other.

I didn’t get my license during high school for a lot of reasons, none of which are relevant. If you don’t have money to pay for driving school, I’ve heard it’s a best to wait until you’re 18. That way all you have to do is get your permit, and then practice until you feel ready to take your driving test. Which I barely passed but lmao that’s a story for another time. Get your license when you’re ready or when you want it. Have a part-time job. Make some money. Make sure you SAVE your money. Don’t blow all of it on stupid stuff. Save half of your paycheck, anon.

5. High school doesn’t last forever. I’m not going to tell you some bullshit like “It gets better” (even though it does). Look, people can say that high school is only four years and doesn’t last forever, but if you’re going through a lot of rough shit in those four years, that sentiment doesn’t really help (well, in my own experience it didn’t). If you’re struggling with something like an eating disorder, parents who are divorcing, a death in your family, etc. it ends up sucking some ass to show up and care.

I think it’s more important to remember that you’re not alone. You can visit websites like 7 Cups of Tea to get support. You’re more resilient then you know. And you have more support around you then you know. There can be some dark times, but it’s possible to keep on keeping on until you find nuggets of hope and lots of help/support that help you out of your tunnel.

Also: high school only lasts four years. And that’s when most students start at 14 and graduate at 18. Those are not the best four years of your life. It’s the rest of your life that’s fucking amazing.

6. You don’t have to go to college. That’s not your excuse to be a burn-out, though, anon. If you don’t want to go to college, or can’t afford it, I’d suggest looking into going to a vocational school. From what I understand of friends who are currently in them or have graduated from them, you learn a specific skill/trade and can immediately go into the workplace you were trained for. It’s also apparently not as pricey as college. You could also consider going to community college. You can take a year or two off to do something with yourself, and figure out what’s best for you. Maybe it includes trade school or college, and maybe it doesn’t. It’s okay either way.

—

Below are two extensive school cheat sheets that tumblr user jwstudying put together. They’re more conscise and thorough then I can currently be (because it’s like. 2 a.m. where I am and I’m having trouble staying awake). I haven’t gotten a chance to look through all the stuff jwstudying provided, so I’m not sure if all the links work. Hopefully they do.

I hope all of this helps, anon! Good luck with high school. Message me again if you want to talk or need more advice.

CHEAT SHEET 1

soothe yourself | self care

stationery

printables

helpful sites

music for studying | more music

note taking methods | another one

studying methods

how to learn a language

ultimate guide for writing | writing resources | writing helps | tips for writers

how do I study for…

bullet journals | a guide to bullet journals

the testing effect

everything you need to succeed in school

time management

organisation

how to annotate | another one

guide to aesthetically pleasing notes | improve your handwriting

create a study guide

resources | helpful websites | there’s an app for that

get more out of google

productivity resources | 14 apps to become productive | how to stay productive

lazy night owl school survival guide

apps for a better life | useful websites for students

masterpost of studying tips

social media citation guide

college masterpost | another one | starting college on the right foot | packing for college | how to survive in college

how to ace that college interview

food to stay motivated | motivation guide

how to stay awake in class

balancing a healthy lifestyle

studying on your period

huge masterpost for the semester

a very long list to help you survive school

not enough time to finish an assignment?

100 delicious cheap recipes

53 posts for students

high school cheat sheet

CHEAT SHEET 2:

back to school masterlist

tips for exams

ultimate back to school tips

tips for the new school year

4 legal ways to get free textbooks

essential productivity apps

actual first time college advice | tips for lectures | how to take lecture notes

study breaks | studying hacks

bet your teachers never taught you this

how to take organised notes

text book tips

tips to make school life easier

how to do cover letters

studying a foreign language tips

dyslexia friendly fonts

writing about royal characters

language learning sites

tips for effective studying

travel cheap

23 editing tips

useful apps for students

words to describe someone’s voice

Joss Whedon’s writing tips | writing references

50 things to ask your character before you start writing

stop using google.com to search information

life hacks for school

how to write an essay

8 basics of creative writing | fantasy guide | songs for creating stuff

for crime writers

dear writers

a high school teacher’s list of 100 wisest words

confused what to underline, italicize and when to use quotation marks?

feeling anxious for school?

make pretty banners | another one | and another one | one more | okay last one i promise

how to study like a harvard student

using one note to take notes | another one

how to get shit done

things i wish people had told me when i was a freshman

handwriting reference

in class notes reference

20 things I found out about studying last year | things to do remember when studying

revising for maths

abbreviations for note taking | 2

12 things i learnt during 12 years of school

transition words

how to study from textbooks

how to make history timelines

what to do if you fail a class

backpack essentials

studying 101: how to stay focused, motivated, and on track.

secret study tips | top tips for studying in college

ultimate studyblr guide

hey, school’s hard

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art-of-manliness · 7 years

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Podcast #272: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Myth of Progress

Both The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia are filled with epic battles between the forces of good and evil. What many people don’t realize is that the authors of these two works — J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, respectively — had firsthand experience with war themselves. Both fought in the bleak trenches of World War I and both were dramatically shaped by that experience in a way that would influence their later work. My guest today, Joseph Loconte, explores the history of Tolkien’s and Lewis’ battlefield experience and how it influenced their viewpoints and writing careers. Loconte is a professor of history at King’s College and the author of A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War. On today’s show, Joseph and I discuss what C.S. Lewis called the “Myth of Progress” that had swept the Western World leading up to the First World War, why it contributed to the war’s catastrophic damage, and how the myth shaped both Lewis’ and Tolkien’s views about good, evil, and warfare. We then get into detail about Tolkien’s and Lewis’ battlefield experience and how it inspired specific characters and scenes in their respective works. We end our conversation about how the fantasy work of these writers carved a middle path between cynicism and unbridled optimism while simultaneously showing readers that even the lowliest of individuals can play a decisive role in the great adventure of life. If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia, you don’t want to miss this episode. Show Highlights * How the shared experience of fighting in WWI shaped the literature of Tolkien and Lewis * The specific WWI experiences that Tolkien and Lewis had * The “myth of progress” and how it shaped European culture and thought during WWI * How the myth of progress affected Christianity, and the faith of Tolkien and Lewis * How Tolkien and Lewis steered clear of the myth of progress * The importance of nature and the outdoors to both Tolkien and Lewis * The reluctant soldiership of the two men, and their views on war in general * The reasons both men were ultimately pulled from the battlefield * The impact the death of close friends had on Tolkien and Lewis * Major themes which emerged in their writing as a result of the war * Tolkien’s inspiration for hobbits * Specific scenes and episodes from the books of Tolkien and Lewis inspired directly by war experiences * Did Tolkien and Lewis talk about their war experiences later on while part of the Inklings? * What is a eucatastrophe? And how does it show up in their works? * How Tolkien and Lewis kept from being disillusioned and cynical after the war * Their mutual admiration of other mythologies and tales besides just the Christian story Resources/People/Studies Mentioned in Podcast * J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter * Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth * Surprised by Joy by CS Lewis * WWI in Literature * The Power of Conversation * AoM podcast about the Inklings * The Lord of the Rings series * The Chronicles of Narnia series * The Letters of JRR Tolkien * The Fellowship by Philip and Carol Zaleski * AoM Viking Mythology series * A Call for a New Strenuous Age This has been one of my favorite books that I’ve read so far this year. If you enjoyed our piece “A Call for a New Strenuous Age,” then I highly recommend picking up a copy. Many of the themes that Loconte hits in A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War dovetail nicely with the themes in that article. Also, if you’re a fan of C.S. Lewis and/or J.R.R. Tolkien, it’s always nice to learn more about the real life experiences that influenced their writing. Connect With Joseph Loconte Joseph’s website Follow Joseph on Twitter Tell Joseph “Thanks!” for being on the podcast via Twitter Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!) Listen to the episode on a separate page. Download this episode. Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice. Podcast Sponsors Athletic Greens. Get 20 FREE Athletic Green Travel Packs by visiting athleticgreens.com/aom. Toyota. Navigate to your nearest Toyota dealer or toyota.com to see why there’s always more to discover. It’s the new 2017 Highlander, the perfect vehicle for your adventures around town and beyond. Squarespace. Start your free trial today at squarespace.com and use your offer code artofman at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. And thanks to Creative Audio Lab in Tulsa, OK for editing our podcast! Recorded on ClearCast.io. Read the Transcript Coming soon! The post Podcast #272: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Myth of Progress appeared first on The Art of Manliness. http://dlvr.it/NBjF10

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awesome-bluefirebouquet-blog · 6 years

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hellppp!!!!!!! i need a thesis statement for an essay! How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement - EasyBib Blog

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement. A thesis can be found in many places—a debate speech, a lawyer’s closing argument, even an advertisement. But the most common place for a thesis statement (and probably why you’re reading this article) is in an essay. Whether you’re writing an argumentative paper, an informative essay, or a compare/contrast statement, you need a thesis. Without a thesis, your argument falls flat and your information is unfocused. Since a thesis is so important, it’s probably a good idea to look at some tips on how to put together a strong one. What is a “thesis statement” anyway? You may have heard of something called a “thesis.” It’s what seniors commonly refer to as their final paper before graduation. That’s not what we’re talking about here. That type of thesis is a long, well-written paper that takes years to piece together. Instead, we’re talking about a single sentence that ties together the main idea of any argument . In the context of student essays, it’s a statement that summarizes your topic and declares your position on it. This sentence can tell a reader whether your essay is something they want to read. 2 Categories of Thesis Statements: Informative and Persuasive. Just as there are different types of essays, there are different types of thesis statements. The thesis should match the essay. For example, with an informative essay, you should compose an informative thesis (rather than argumentative). You want to declare your intentions in this essay and guide the reader to the conclusion that you reach. Example: To make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you must procure the ingredients, find a knife, and spread the condiments. This thesis showed the reader the topic (a type of sandwich) and the direction the essay will take (describing how the sandwich is made). Most other types of essays, whether compare/contrast, argumentative, or narrative, have thesis statements that take a position and argue it. In other words, unless your purpose is simply to inform, your thesis is considered persuasive. A persuasive thesis usually contains an opinion and the reason why your opinion is true. Example: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best type of sandwich because they are versatile, easy to make, and taste good. In this persuasive thesis statement, you see that I state my opinion (the best type of sandwich), which means I have chosen a stance. Next, I explain that my opinion is correct with several key reasons. This persuasive type of thesis can be used in any essay that contains the writer’s opinion, including, as I mentioned above, compare/contrast essays, narrative essays, and so on. 2 Styles of Thesis Statements. Just as there are two different types of thesis statements (informative and persuasive), there are two basic styles you can use. The first style uses a list of two or more points . This style of thesis is perfect for a brief essay that contains only two or three body paragraphs. This basic five-paragraph essay is typical of middle and high school assignments. Example: C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series is one of the richest works of the 20 th century because it offers an escape from reality, teaches readers to have faith even when they don’t understand, and contains a host of vibrant characters. In the above persuasive thesis, you can see my opinion about Narnia followed by three clear reasons. This thesis is perfect for setting up a tidy five-paragraph essay. In college, five paragraph essays become few and far between as essay length gets longer. Can you imagine having only five paragraphs in a six-page paper? For a longer essay, you need a thesis statement that is more versatile. Instead of listing two or three distinct points, a thesis can list one overarching point that all body paragraphs tie into. Example: Good vs. evil is the main theme of Lewis’s Narnia series, as is made clear through the struggles the main characters face in each book. In this thesis, I have made a claim about the theme in Narnia followed by my reasoning. The broader scope of this thesis allows me to write about each of the series’ seven novels. I am no longer limited in how many body paragraphs I can logically use. Formula for a Strong Argumentative Thesis. One thing I find that is helpful for students is having a clear template. While students rarely end up with a thesis that follows this exact wording, the following template creates a good starting point: ___________ is true because of ___________, ___________, and ___________. Conversely, the formula for a thesis with only one point might follow this template: ___________________ is true because of _____________________. Students usually end up using different terminology than simply “because,” but having a template is always helpful to get the creative juices flowing. The Qualities of a Solid Thesis Statement. When composing a thesis, you must consider not only the format, but other qualities like length, position in the essay, and how strong the argument is. Length: A thesis statement can be short or long, depending on how many points it mentions. Typically, however, it is only one concise sentence. It does contain at least two clauses, usually an independent clause (the opinion) and a dependent clause (the reasons). You probably should aim for a single sentence that is at least two lines, or about 30 to 40 words long. Position: A thesis statement always belongs at the beginning of an essay. This is because it is a sentence that tells the reader what the writer is going to discuss. Teachers will have different preferences for the precise location of the thesis, but a good rule of thumb is in the introduction paragraph, within the last two or three sentences. Strength: Finally, for a persuasive thesis to be strong, it needs to be arguable. This means that the statement is not obvious, and it is not something that everyone agrees is true. Example of weak thesis: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are easy to make because it just takes three ingredients. Most people would agree that PB&J is one of the easiest sandwiches in the American lunch repertoire. Example of a stronger thesis: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are fun to eat because they always slide around. This is more arguable because there are plenty of folks who might think a PB&J is messy or slimy rather than fun. Composing a thesis statement does take a bit more thought than many other parts of an essay. However, because a thesis statement can contain an entire argument in just a few words, it is worth taking the extra time to compose this sentence. It can direct your research and your argument so that your essay is tight, focused, and makes readers think. Find free citing help for MLA format at www.easybib.com! We also have guides to help anyone make APA citations for books, websites, and other sources. About The Author. Sally Baggett. Like what you saw? Sign up for a free EasyBib account to receive our newsletters, updates, and more!

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writing-in-the-tiny-house · 3 years

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Villains and Plot!

S1E22 Villains and Plot

Follow me and the podcast on Instagram @authordevindavis

Become a patron on my Patreon page:

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Click here for the book that was reviewed in today’s episode:

https://amzn.to/2VIHdjc

The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be viewed from the podcast website.

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: Have you ever read a novel where the main character should lose like a lot, but because the story needed them to win and survive at the end, they just never did lose? Well, on the other hand, have you ever read a story where the villain was so awesome that he probably should have won, but didn't? Well, then let's talk about villains and plot today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. Welcome to the show. I am Devin Davis. I am your host and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain is completely possible, and you should do it. Today we are discussing villains and plot.

[00:01:13] Last week, I told you that we would be discussing villains in action. This is kind of that. I was thinking about what action actually meant and all of the points that I had written down fed more into plot rather than just action, because villains can do just about anything you want them to do. But in the overall scheme of things, they play a very important role in the plot.

[00:01:38] Don't you think? So today I don't actually have a lot of announcements because things have been going pretty smoothly and there is nothing new to speak about. So let's dive right in to villains and plot. I have a list of four pitfalls to avoid when structuring your villain and your plot when you go to do the rough draft of your book or the outline of your book. The first thing to avoid is the hierarchy structure of the villain and his henchman. The reason why this is kind of hard to avoid is because we like it. We like the idea that once a bad guy is defeated that there is another bad guy who is stronger, who is more talented, who has more magical powers. And then once that guy is defeated, perhaps there's a third bad guy who is the villain's right-hand man, until we finally get to the bad guy himself. The reason why this is so popular is because it's easy to see, and it's easy to structure a series around. You have book one of the little bad guy and then it just gets a little bit bigger until book three or book five or book seven or however many books are in your series. You finally get to nail the main villain who is behind this entire problem the whole time. It is also a popular way to structure video games. You have the bad guys and you have the henchman and the little fodder guys that are easy to pick off and are not a very big threat.

[00:03:29] And in doing those things, the main character, which is you, gains experience points and gets a little stronger and learns some new things. And onward, the story progresses. However, this is becoming cliche. This is certainly a trope that has been done time and time again. And it is more common to see villains more like people.

[00:03:58] It is more common to see heroes more like people. Like I mentioned in the previous episode, it is more common to see a flawed, main character and to see a main character make some dark decisions. At the same time, it is becoming more common to see a villain with redeemable qualities, or to see a villain who is completely justified in what they are doing.

[00:04:23] And so this structure, this hierarchy structure that you have to beat down the fodder before getting to level two before getting to level three on up to the main big boss at the end, isn't new. It's not fresh. And so find another way to structure the bad guys in your story, especially in your trilogy or in the number of books that you're going to be writing that are related to each other. There are a lot of ways to do it. And at the end of this episode, I'm going to share with you one of the most delightful ways that I found in all of the fantasy fiction that I've read in presenting to you actually a group of five books.

[00:05:10] It is a quintet. So stay tuned until the very end to get that little tidbit. So the second pitfall to avoid ,and granted, you should be avoiding this anyway, it's a thing called plot devices. A plot device, and the reason why I bring this up, this is actually kind of bigger, fundamental writing, but a plot device is a thing that happens only because the writer needs it to happen because something else needs to happen later.

[00:05:48] A plot device is usually pretty contrived. It sometimes can come out of nowhere and all that it serves is for the plot to move forward or to save the main character or whatever. It's these little unbelievable things that happen in order for bigger things to happen later, but that is all the good that they serve.

[00:06:16]One of the most popular plot devices that I can think of is actually in the Chronicles of Narnia in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The children are there in this barren wasteland of frozen ice, and suddenly Santa Claus appears and Santa comes bearing gifts of lethal weapons.

[00:06:39] If you think about it, Santa does not belong in Narnia. There are not other people like Santa Claus that populate Narnia. There are granted a lot of other fantastical creatures and a lot of fun other characters, but Santa Claus himself does not belong there. And the fact that he appears at the very best time and comes bringing gifts that all of these children are going to need to save the day at the end is the biggest plot convenience I have read in a long time.

[00:07:14] Granted it's in a children's story and. We can have more plot conveniences in children's stories if we want to. That's fine. But in the more grownup stuff you get to pay attention to your plot conveniences. Some people call this plot armor. It's when the main character simply has to live because otherwise the book will end too soon.

[00:07:36] And so against all odds, they always win. Or against all odds, they and their central group of friends will win or will come out unscathed and you simply know that just because you know the story. And so it makes things predictable and it makes things unbelievable to a certain degree.

[00:07:59] The reason why I bring this up on a villain's episode is because not only do you get to think of your main character when you are mapping out your plot, but you also get to think about your villain. When your plot is filled with these conveniences and these devices that make the main character always win, you get to see on the other side of that coin or the other edge of that sword, what it does to your villain, or how it paints your villain with these plot devices. Sometimes it can make your villain come across as pretty dumb or come across as way too complicated, way too overthinking things and not realistic in that way. Or it can cheapen such a better deeper experience with that villain if those plot conveniences were not included.

[00:09:03] One of these favorites that I like to call out in fantasy fiction specifically, I like to refer to as the wild card. It's when the forces of evil are upon us. And it looks like the forces of evil are going to win. And we are all in dire straights, but something out of nowhere happens. And it's big and it was not foreshadowed to begin with and it's unexpected and it's a surprise. And to an inexperienced reader, it's probably super awesome. But to the rest of us, it earns kind of,, an eye roll. I read a book once, I don't necessarily want to call it out on the podcast, but there was a situation similar to what I described. The forces of evil were about to conquer this special, magical place. And from out of nowhere, there came a spell that transformed one of the types of magical creatures living in this place into these big warriors. And so these little rinky-dink fairies were transformed into this army of warriors. And the spell happened, and it lasted just long enough for the forces of evil to be abated and for the day to be saved. And then the fairies shrank back down to their normal little fairy selves. The reason why I bring up these things is because you have thought all of these wonderful things through with the villain, you have thought about the awesome ways that the villain is going to come in and threaten the safety of this or that magical place.

[00:10:52] And to throw in a wild card ending really cheapens all of the effort and all of the believability and all of the energy that you have spent trying to build up a believable villain. And instead the reader sits back and realizes that regardless, the villain will not win and it can take them out of the story and it can convince them not to carry on with the series or even to finish the book.

[00:11:24]The fourth pit fall that you get to pay attention to is the villain's backstory. Backstories are wonderful. I love a good backstory. However, it has been used a million times that every bad guy was once an abused little boy or girl. Every bad guy, every bad girl, every bad woman was abused when they were little. And while psychologically all of that makes sense, it is also something that is commonly found in all of literature. And what it can do is make excuses for the villain. If you want the villain to simply be bad and to simply be awful, there are other ways to develop backstory to that. There can be something amiss when they were little and they were involved in things that simply fostered that thing that was amiss. There can be interests that they were exposed to when they were little that carried with them as they learned magic or as they learned business, if it's modern contemporary fiction, or it can be a lot of different things like that.

[00:12:35] If you want them to be abused when they're little, that is fine. It is something that happens all the time in fiction, though, when we do get a good backstory to a villain. And I have read enough and read a wide enough variety of fiction to tell you that not every vicious villain and awful person and person who is threatening to destroy worlds or whatever, not all of them were abused by their dads. There are other ways to do it and to find those ways is fascinating and it makes the writing so much better and so much easier to follow along. And it really catches your interest and holds it there when it is new and it is fresh.

[00:13:24] So let me take a moment with this book review. I'm going to be reviewing the Cleric Quintet by R.A. Salvatore. R.A. Salvatore was one of my very favorite authors when I was in high school. I have since, now that I've gained some more experience in reading and in writing, I've come to find that sometimes his magic systems are a little bit convenient, but I'm going to talk about this particular series of five books. They're five short-ish books, I believe, or five average sized books. It's not a monstrous series, but the Cleric Quintet is about this young man named Cadderly who studies at a library and comes to learn the big mysteries of magic. And over the course of five books, you see it happen and you really come to understand just how powerful this young man becomes.

[00:14:25] And it was a really cool progression to see it over five books and to see actual power happen and to see the learning of spells or the manipulation of matter, or whatever, was really delightful to me. At the same time though, and this is the type of villain that I love to see the very, very most, this villain starts out with Cadderly studying at the same library. This structure didn't have a school. It didn't have classes, it didn't have teachers. It didn't have that type of structure. It just had this library of knowledge. And everybody from everywhere came to this library to learn and to gain more knowledge that way.

[00:15:10]There was another young man studying alongside Cadderly, they weren't friends. And this young man is kind of an awful person. He wasn't talented. He was clumsy. Granted Cadderly was also clumsy. But over the progression of these five books, you watch this untalented jealous, horrible man, young man gradually become the darkest, most threatening monster that comes about in book five. And it is delightful to see, and it was so fun to read. And that is the type of villain that I appreciate the very most, where you see perhaps an amount of foreshadowing, you see character traits and you see people in the very beginning of the story and you think maybe this guy is going to end up being something bad or doing something awful.

[00:16:10] And over the course of it all, you see all of the you see the background, you see the story unfold, you see the reason why this person chooses to be where they are. And you understand their attitudes toward this or that. It makes the villain so much more believable and so much more awesome.

[00:16:33] It is this type of villain that I am choosing to write in my current work in progress, or at least as part of it. Right now I have two half finished books. In one of them, that's totally how the villain is going to be unfolded. And the other one it's going to be different.

[00:16:49] But that is how it is in this book. So if you are interested in checking out the Cleric Quintet, please follow the affiliate links in the description of this podcast episode. And yeah, I give this, I give this entire work of five books. R.A. Salvatore has written a lot of books. And like I said, he was one of my favorites in high school.

[00:17:13]He was one of the Forgotten Realms authors. Did wonderful stuff. One of his characters Drizzt Do'Urden, who was a dark elf, is considered to be one of the most liked in all of fantasy fiction. And this is written by him. So go ahead and follow those links.

[00:17:30] I give these five books, easily, four out of five stars. They were so much fun. But I reflect on some of the things in there and there was an amount of convenience to them, but it was a great read. It was fast paced and the magic and the fighting in RA Salvatore's writing is so much fun. It is so easy to get caught up in all of those wonderful moments.

[00:17:53] And that is it for today. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode .Thank you so much for my patrons, for the generous donations that they give every month. If you are interested in becoming a patron to this podcast, there are perks such as early access to these episodes an additional episode every month or exclusive time with me and other top tier patrons that you can have access to. Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up for one of the tiers today.

[00:18:23]Follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis. My Twitter handle is @authordevind. And please take just a moment to leave a review on whatever software you are listening to podcasts through. Thank you so much for your time, and we will see you next time.

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