*clearly Covered In Blood And Guts But Trying To Act Normal* Ok. Maybe I Did Awaken My Inner Beast. So

yep a boyfriend sounds nice but a supreme enemy you make out with in secret sounds a lot more hardcore

that halfway stage of oc creation when you're closing in on the design or the personality or both but the other half of the character's still a nebulous concept and they don't even have a name but now they're alive and they demand to be heard. agonizing

"But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don't know how to workshop.

"And one of the things they'll try to do is they'll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

"And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

"New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they're really good at doing a bad thing, and they're doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story."

—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy

you know what doesn’t get talked about enough in writing circles

completed story grief

That feeling you are left with when you have finished a long project - whether it is long because it contains a lot of words, or long because it took you a long time to write, or long because it took you a long time to start writing it - when you’re happy because you finished it but empty because it is finished. You took out all of the words that were inside of you, at least all of the ones that pertain to that story, and the relief that follows such an action can be devastatingly exhausting.

On top of just the empty feeling, there follows that bittersweet sense of understanding that this thing which has for so long been your companion is no longer just your companion, and that you have in some ways severed the ties with it, because you will not be writing it anymore. You might write other stories related to it. You might write stories in the same world. Or stories with the same characters. But THAT story is finished. That story has been taken out of you and put where it can be a part of everyone that reads it. That is unimaginably happy and sad at the same time.

So I just want to say, I guess, be nice to yourself after you finish a story. Yes it’s happy, yes it feels good. But if you also feel a little like you’ve just lost something, give yourself some time to process that, because in a way you did. It’s a happy loss, the sort of loss wildlife rescuers feel when an animal they saved is able to go back and be wild again. It’s a good, happy thing, but it’s also okay to take a little time to be sad and take care of yourself.

writing tip

the second you say ''i'll just give my character a random name and change it later'' you're already doomed. placeholder names are no joke. you will be taken hostage

One thing I genuinely like about writing, is how the story unfolds as you write it. You may start with a general idea, but little did you know that something you put in the story would become a major symbol, or that two characters would grow as close as they did, or that apparently you need a scene between Character A and Character C…

I just love how the story grows under your fingers, and becomes something beyond what you first imagined. 

when the character finally has the breakdown you’ve been building to all book

it's not a red string of fate those two are bound by dog collars and a steel chain