I wrote this short story a while ago, intending to submit it to some magazines, leaving it to decay chill until I had time off from uni to edit it. Currently busy af w *shiny* new novel, but I wanted to share some of it on here to motivate me to work on it. Alors,,,,,,
genre: spooky lit-fic logline: Trudging through the barren Arizona desert after a night out partying, a group of friends come across a cupcake shop owned by a creepy old lady and her cannibal husband. TW: drug use, dead rats, disturbing cupcake ingredients, murdery elderly people.
The slope was 90 degrees and we were rock climbing, harnessed to a frayed string that tugged our shoulders. Desert on all sides, not a single car. One cactus, ten yards away, frilled with spines. When a café tiled with orange bricks sprouted above us, we first mistook it as a mirage. The sign read Cupcake Shoppe and assured us they were sustainably sourced and organic—probably made using soy milk or that green powder Julie mixed into milk with a golden spoon. I tried it once; it tasted like marbles.
Thank you @glasshouses-and-stones and @comicgoblinwrites for tagging me. Even though I should be writing a production proposal for Macbeth this afternoon for my
cw: alcohol, mild sickness
ok at this point if my characters just spoke normally that would actually interest me.
Tagging: @orphanheirs, @noirwordsmith, @writingwithsnails, @mintyswriting, @tildeathiwillwrite, @icarianauthor, and @holdmyteaplease, to share (aprox.) seven lines of their work if they’d like!
TO EVERYONE SAYING THEY'RE INSECURE ABOUT THEIR WRITTING:
I've been seeing a lot of people reposting their insecure about their writting and its really sad because ik for a FACT most of you write BEAUTIFULLY. So I just wanted to send some motivation because writting is hard, and writers deserve love. You guys are literally creating ENTIRE REALITIES with your imaginations . Wether it be fan ficts, short story writers, etc., You are giving us a key into experiencing the world from a different perspective. Your craft is an escape, your craft is inspiring. Its always good to want to be better, but please appreciate the work you're doing RIGHT NOW. It may not seem like much, but your stories are so much more than just words in a page. Its the adventure we never experienced, its the worlds we never got to see. Writers please, whatever you write, I want to assure you today it IS good enough. Because you bled your thoughts into the page, because you were brave enough to create. Writting doesnt have to be perfect, for perfection is nothing but a myth, writting just needs to exist. Insecurity is normal but let me tell you today, your writting is worth it, your ideas are worth it, your work is worth it.
Writers, keep your heads high, continue to poor your soul into your words and know you never have to punish yourself for creating
Much love for all of you
Thank you @alicewestwater for the tag! :))) Lil excerpt from my new novel where Amber gets annoyed at Raisa’s ghost while waiting for the bus. you know, just some relatable content ;p
Raisa laid in a rectangle of grey sunlight under the window, tranquilized by rum and spiraling dust bunnies. Hands folded over her belly, bulging with chocolate covered almonds, eyes shifting like marbles under the orange juice pulp of her lids. Dreaming of cities without people or cars, the houses, puffs of cotton candy with gumdrop path lights and woolly archways.
I wanted to plug her mouth with the heel of my hand, but to passersby I’d only be cupping air, squinting at concrete. I didn’t want to start off another Tuesday, an unhinged street performer.
tagging: @noteaboy @oceancold @emdrabbles @aelenko @fluoresensitive @writeremma @purgatorydotexe and ofc, anyone else who’d like to do this challenge!
🍟 @/aetherwrites
Share a gif that represents your wip. What Mr. Sinclair sees in the checkered corridor in his nightmare in Bug Box. (gif is from The Wall, 1982)
Thank you @drchenquill and @autism-purgatory for tagging me.
Sharing some excerpts below from Draft 1 of Project Istanbul that are getting scrapped (these scenes didn't survive my developmental revision plan). Hope you enjoy!
TW: addiction, unsafe quitting methods in first snippet.
Gently tagging: @literaryvein @mcplestreet and anyone who wants to participate. Rules are simple: just share some of your writing!
the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on and neither do we: surrealist version.
GENRE: surrealism.
POV & TENSE: third-person limited, present tense.
SETTING: an apartment in an unnamed suburb, present-day.
TONE: satirical, resentful, delirious, wistful.
STAGE: completed first draft, 1807 words.
LOGLINE: after being called back from college upon her family’s death, july contemplates her situation by villanizing and blaming her dead family.
LITERAL LOGLINE: life got you down? your entire family dead under mysterious circumstances? don’t worry, your friendly shoulder demon’s got your back, just smoke it out!
july is a college student who was called back in the middle of her course— something that she worked super hard to get into— to go vacate her now-deceased family’s home. she’s angry about this, because she feels robbed of her dream. as time goes on and the story progresses, july continues to detach from her pain over her family’s death and reality itself, subsequently leading to her unravelling.
hale is the shoulder demon. they’re a fun and sarcastic person, and secretly worries for july and her increasing detachedness. nobody knows why they’re here, what they’re doing, or even if they’re real in the first place.
july is called back from college to attend to her now empty home following the sudden death of her family— mother, sister, grandmother— under mysterious circumstances. this is a source of dual emotions for july. on one hand, she’s grieving for them immensely, and this is signified through the various memories she has of them + her relationships with each member. on the other hand, she’s extremely annoyed by this, because she knew they would die together eventually— it’s implied to be something that runs in the family, and had happened to her father before— and the timing inconvenienced her.
july is,,,, pretty unhinged. a lot of surreal things happen in the story and it’s difficult to distinguish reality from her mind. she also has a friend in hale, the demon on her shoulder. the story chronicles the short period of time she spends in her home, trying to collect her thoughts and prepare for her own inevitable death.
this is a very short story so i don’t want to share much, but here’s one little peek into the tone + style of the prose.
July scoffs again, but now it’s silent and nobody hears. The will features meaningless drabble, small talk and verbiage typical for her mother, and she’s tempted to rip it and swallow the pieces whole. [Why, she can’t say. There’s an odd craving in every object and she’s the only one who makes herself tick.] She concludes that the house is now her’s. How wonderful. Of course July would have traded her college room for a nowhere house any fucking day.
this is the weirdest thing i’ve written. it’s high-key surrealism and plays with form and character a lot. july is an extremely unreliable narrator. there’s a lot of funky concepts—every speaker’s dialogue is formatted differently, she’s spying on her neighbours, there’s a demon on her shoulder— and while it’s been hard threading them in coherently and fluidly, i’ve never had more fun drafting before. it’s also one of my best short story titles, hands down. feel free to ask anything about this story because there’s so much meta i can get into. [general taglist under the cut]
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beforehand I'll do like a brainstorm/word vomit in my notebook to get ideas flowing. when actually writing I'll light essential oil candles, open pinterest, wordbook and google, and drink like a gallon?? of ginger tea and disapear for like 3 hrs.
do any of you have writing rituals? tell me about them!
This is beautiful, I'm obsessed??!!!!
In Tabby, a reclusive man who’d rather exist as a phantom than a human notices the neighbours aren’t feeding their cat, and is sucked into a world that breaks the stillness of his own.
Genre: literary fiction, “soft” noir (??)
POV: 1st person present, very observational and detached for most of the narrative
Setting: late 1940s/early 1950s, unnamed US city but implied to be Los Angeles
Atmosphere: a summer that’s sickly, orange juice, the smell of paint, shaky hands, peach skies, sunflowers, blood splatter, a cats purr, the gut feeling that something is very, very wrong
Literal Logline: this cat is my friend and he doesn’t judge me over silly little things like the murder i just committed (also i think he might be god??)
Hi I wrote a story about a cat and got way too into it and accidentally made it about murder and now it might be my favourite thing I’ve written! Lets talk about it! cw for murder and blood imagery!
general taglist ; @kowlazovdi @avi-burton-writing @ryns-ramblings @melpomeny @kitblogsthings @ezrathings @aetherwrites @bookphobe @haldimilks @alicewestwater @bookpacking @shaelinwrites @writingamongthecoloredroses @harehearts @zemnian @onlyganymede @theelectricfactory @write-like-babs @oceancold @notphilosopherstudentblog @veiliza @sidhewrites @wolf-oak @feverdreamwritings @oasis-of-you
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Stuck in an unanticipated editing spiral at the beginning of Draft 2 of Project Istanbul, oh and mourning the plot lines that got chucked for the Greater Good. Goodbye side character whose only purpose was to be aesthetically pleasing, I never knew you.
writeblr /// tangents about my wips It’s all lit-fic, mystery, and noir around here Project Istanbul
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