You Will Be Rejected

don’t let anyone tell you that it’s a bad thing to feel things deeply. a full heart is a strong heart and being soft doesn’t make you weak. being soft and loving makes you radiant. you deserve all of the love in the world and so many good things.

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. 

Mulan (1997), dir. Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook.

After I get the spark for an idea, I get bored by it. How could I work it out so I can get into it and write something? I never finished anything because it's not interesting anymore.

 Almost every author I know has had this issue.  The minute you sit down to work on a project, ten other, apparently more attractive ideas will bob to the surface.

This isn’t a quintessentially fun solution, but the answer is to build a habit of commitment.  Jot down the shiny new ideas that pop up (or devote a separate time allotment to working on them, if you work best that way), plow ahead, and finish.  If you’re overwhelmed by the length of your current projects, try shorter ones.  You don’t have to like the final result, but you’ll be a stronger writer once you get in the habit of finishing projects.

The thing about us authors is, our stories are always more cinematic in our heads.  As we’re planning them out, we’re immersed in an opulent world that we want to share, and can only do our best to convey one word at a time.  So be patient with yourself, set reasonable goals, and build that habit!

I hope this helps, and happy writing.  <3

“Getting” yourself to write

Yesterday, I was trawling iTunes for a decent podcast about writing. After a while, I gave up, because 90% of them talked incessantly about “self-discipline,” “making writing a habit,” “getting your butt in the chair,” “getting yourself to write.” To me, that’s six flavors of fucked up.

Okay, yes—I see why we might want to “make writing a habit.” If we want to finish anything, we’ll have to write at least semi-regularly. In practical terms, I get it.

But maybe before we force our butts into chairs, we should ask why it’s so hard to “get” ourselves to write. We aren’t deranged; our brains say “I don’t want to do this” for a reason. We should take that reason seriously.

Most of us resist writing because it hurts and it’s hard. Well, you say, writing isn’t supposed to be easy—but there’s hard, and then there’s hard. For many of us, sitting down to write feels like being asked to solve a problem that is both urgent and unsolvable—“I have to, but it’s impossible, but I have to, but it’s impossible.” It feels fucking awful, so naturally we avoid it.

We can’t “make writing a habit,” then, until we make it less painful. Something we don’t just “get” ourselves to do.

The “make writing a habit” people are trying to do that, in their way. If you do something regularly, the theory goes, you stop dreading it with such special intensity because it just becomes a thing you do. But my god, if you’re still in that “dreading it” phase and someone tells you to “make writing a habit,” that sounds horrible.

So many of us already dismiss our own pain constantly. If we turn writing into another occasion for mute suffering, for numb and joyless endurance, we 1) will not write more, and 2) should not write more, because we should not intentionally hurt ourselves.

Seriously. If you want to write more, don’t ask, “how can I make myself write?” Ask, “why is writing so painful for me and how can I ease that pain?” Show some compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself for not being the person you wish you were and treat the person you are with some basic decency. Give yourself a fucking break for avoiding a thing that makes you feel awful.

Daniel José Older, in my favorite article on writing ever, has this to say to the people who admonish writers to write every day:

Here’s what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of ‘should be,’ ‘should have been,’ and ‘if only I had…’ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.

The antidote, he says, is to treat yourself kindly:

For me, writing always begins with self-forgiveness. I don’t sit down and rush headlong into the blank page. I make coffee. I put on a song I like. I drink the coffee, listen to the song. I don’t write. Beginning with forgiveness revolutionizes the writing process, returns its being to a journey of creativity rather than an exercise in self-flagellation. I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.

Writing has the potential to bring us so much joy. Why else would we want to do it? But first we’ve got to unlearn the pain and dread and anxiety and shame attached to writing—not just so we can write more, but for our own sakes! Forget “making writing a habit”—how about “being less miserable”? That’s a worthy goal too!

Luckily, there are ways to do this. But before I get into them, please absorb this lesson: if you want to write, start by valuing your own well-being. Start by forgiving yourself. And listen to yourself when something hurts.

Next post: freewriting

Ask me a question or send me feedback! Podcast recommendations welcome…

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Mallorca Files (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Miranda Blake/Max Winter Characters: Miranda Blake, Max Winter Additional Tags: Wintake, post-series 3, Established Relationship, married Wintake, Not Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, neurodivergent, Babyfic, Kidfic, Fluff Summary:

Miranda surprises Max with one of her "weird little ways."

some things I need to remind myself daily tbh

How to recover an unsaved draft on Microsoft Word

This literally saved my ass a few minutes ago. Yes, you can recover those files that you accidentally closed and thought you couldnt get back. 

Right after that happens, open Microsoft Word again and click File - Info - Manage Versions - Recover Unsaved Documents.

It is literally that simple.

You are a dynamic character in the story of your life.  You are complex and multi-dimensional.  Don’t give up.  Your story isn’t over!

Word Counter - Not only does it count the number of words you’ve written, it tells you which words are used most often and how many times they appear.

Tip Of My Tongue - Have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue, but you just can’t figure out what it is? This site searches words by letters, length, definition, and more to alleviate that.

Readability Score - This calculates a multitude of text statistics, including character, syllable, word, and sentence count, characters and syllables per word, words per sentence, and average grade level.

Writer’s Block (Desktop Application) - This free application for your computer will block out everything on your computer until you meet a certain word count or spend a certain amount of time writing.

Cliche Finder - It does what the name says.

Write Rhymes - It’ll find rhymes for words as you write.

Verbix - This site conjugates verbs, because English is a weird language.

Graviax - This grammar checker is much more comprehensive than Microsoft Word, again, because English is a weird language.

Sorry for how short this is! I wanted to only include things I genuinely find useful.