Marguerite Duras, From The Lover

“you’re in love with a boy who is a prayer on your lips with no god to go to. he’s bleeding sunlight and you’re trying to patch up the holes in his heart with trembling fingers and the blood keeps spilling. you’re in love with him, here’s the best part: he loves you more than his own life. he’s golden as they come but he’s bleeding out. one day, someone will strike a match on him and he’ll explode. so, here’s the worst part: he loves you so much more than his own life.”

— sunlit lovers | m.j.

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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

She-Who-Fights-And-Writes FAQ + Complete List of Writing Resources

Please refer to this page before sending any asks, please!

I will answer questions about:

Characters

Plotting

POV

Setting

Tropes

Fanfiction

Genres

Getting Started

And more!!!!

I will NOT answer questions about:

Things that are already on this list 

The publishing/editing industry (primarily because I’m unqualified)

Children’s fiction and Nonfiction (Same reason as above)

Hyper-specific details of your WIP; I can’t tell you how to write your own story. 

“Does ____ sound like a good idea?” 

Anything that can be figured out with a quick Google search (i.e. how fast can cheetahs run, how long does it take to get a license, etc.)

Asking me to reblog your post, give you a shout-out, etc. This blog is just for writing content only and will remain ad-free. 

Asking me to read/edit your story. I’m a college student with a very busy life who also has her own writing projects to worry about, and cannot put time aside to edit someone’s work for free. However, if you do send a message perhaps we can discuss pricing if I have the time. 

Sorry, but I am quite rigid about these rules!

This is just a compilation of the questions I get a lot or I think I answered pretty well, so if you need anything else feel free to check out my #answering asks tag!

I’ve also included some posts from other blogs/sources as well because I feel as though they can explain it much better than I ever could!

Once Upon A Time (The Basics)

How to Get Into Writing Fiction

How to Improve Your Writing

How to Outline 

How to Overcome Writer’s Block

How to Write A Scene (AKA get through the boring parts) (Source: Jerry Jenkins)

How to Write a Sub-Plot

How to Write In Certain Tenses

Is Your Story Better as a Fanfic or an Original Work?

POV Tips

How to Choose Which POV to Use (Source @evans-writing)

How to Write First Person POV

How to Write Switching POVs in Fanfiction

Genres + Setting

How to Write About Medieval Europe

How to Write About the Mid-Nineteenth/Early Twentieth Century (In America)

How to Write Gangster/Mafia Fiction

How to Write About School

How to Write an Apocalypse

Stuff Happens (Plot)

How to Write Humor

How to Make Your Story Less Sad

How to Make Your Story Longer (Feat. a helpful reblog from @romancingthebook)

How to Make Your Story Scarier

How to Write a Fight Scene

How to Write Magic

How to Write a Missing Person’s Report

How to Write Character Death

How to Fake a Character’s Death

How to Write Pain

How to Write a Terrorist Attack

Subverting Common Fanfiction AUs and Plot Ideas

How to End Your Story (Source: Now Novel)

Descriptions + Dialogue

How to Write Arguments

How to Write Dialogue

How to Write Humor

How to Expand Your Vocabulary and Utilize English Idioms/Figures of Speech

How to Write a Smooth, Rhythmic Narrative

How to Avoid Purple Prose (Source: WikiHow)

How to Balance Description and Dialogue

Prologues and Info Dumping

How to Write Flashbacks

Master List of Speech Tags

Characters (Who you will inevitably wind up torturing)

When to Change Your Character’s Name

Ways To Tell if Your Characters are Too Similar (How To Cut Characters)

How to Describe Bodies

How to Describe Clothing

How to Write Characters Who Are Different From You

How to Write Complex Characters

How to Write (Good) Female Characters

How to Write a Villain

How to Write a Villain Redemption Arc

Villain Motivations

How to Write Young Children and Babies

How to Write Siblings

Love Stuff

How to Write Close Platonic Relationships

How to Write Romance

How to Write Falling In Love

How to Write Healthy Relationships

How to Write Long Distance Relationships

How to Write Make-Out Scenes

How to Write Non-Explicit Sex Scenes

How to Write Teasing in a Romantic Relationship

How to Write Toxic Relationships

Reasons for Divorce

Fantastic Beasts (And How to Write Them)

How to Write Shape-shifters

How to Write Characters With Wings

How to Write Angels (A History of Angelic Lore)

How to Write Characters with Tails

How to Write Zombies

How to Write Gods, Goddesses, and Deities

How to Write Animals in Battle

How to Write a Hive Mind

Diversity

I am a straight, white, neurotypical, cisgender woman and shouldn’t give you any advice but to DEFINITELY include diversity! Here are some great blogs for you to follow!

@writingwithcolor

@yourbookcouldbegayer

@scriptautistic

@actuallyblind

@cripplecharacters

Writing Deaf of Hard of Hearing Characters

Miscellaneous

My Writing Playlist

How to Become a Writing Advice Blog

How to Write Constructive Criticism

Books You Should Get As a Writer

Writing Memes

My Book

I’m currently working on a novel titled Wings of Faith, and often post content such as art, aesthetics, and writing updates!

Summary:

A one-winged angel must team up with a ragtag band of demons to escape from Hell. Haloes and harps must go on the backburner if it means clawing his way out of the fire, and if the world burns to ashes in his wake, so be it…because let’s be honest here: Hell’s humidity got old after, like, a day. 

You can find all my Wings of Faith content under #wings of faith and #wof on my blog, (if you’re looking for progress reports, check #writing update) and feel free to check out @wiingsoffaith​, a blog run by my bestest friend and fabulous beta reader @gettinhellaturnt​. 

friendship can be so fleeting no wonder humans are so scared to be vulnerable . what do you mean we put our hearts and souls into people only for something as simple as time to rob our bonds … what do you mean some friendships just aren't meant to last forever?? that sometimes we outgrow people we once knew better than the lines on our palms?? when the version of them we have in our heads becomes outdated, when it means nothing that we know exactly how they take their coffee and why they don't talk about their brother. that today I mean the world to somebody who might only think of me on my birthday in a years time. what an open fucking wound.

It’s crazy and fucked up that being yourself is actually the solution.

Messy happy Gryffindors enjoying a quidditch match…

This whole thing came about just because I wanted to paint Remus absolutely cheesing to show his lil crooked teeth ☹️

they literally created a place where you can go and learn about something that really interests you and they fucked it up by inventing ASSIGNMENTS

“You don’t meet the people you love, you recognize them.”

― Anna Gavalda, “Life, Only Better” , trans. Tina Kover

“You and I know each other in our bones”

― Kurt Vonnegut, from a letter to Nanny Vonnegut 

“but everyone had this patina

  of slightly bruised longing, this shimmer of

  I think I knew you when we were children,

  this look of I’ve loved you ever since you

were born

  and probably longer than that”

― Paul Hostovsky, from “Everyone was Beautiful,” Dear Truth (Main Street Rag, 2009)

“He’s been here in my heart before I even knew him. Understand? He’s always been here. Always.”

― Sandra Cisneros , from Woman at Hollering Creek: Stories; “Never Marry a Mexican,”

“You came into my life–not as one comes to visit…but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps…”

— Vladimir Nabokov, in a letter to Véra Slonim (1923), Letters to Véra

“I love you. I feel as though we were never strangers, you and I, not even for a moment.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, from a letter to Mathilde Trampedach

“Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place.”

— Robert Brault

“Here when I say “I never want to be without you,”

somewhere else I am saying

“I never want to be without you again.” And when I touch you

in each of the places we meet in all of the lives we are,

it’s with hands that are dying and resurrected.

When I don’t touch you it’s a mistake in any life,

in each place and forever.

— Bob Hicok, Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem

“She said that she had been searching for my eyes in the crowd because she felt as if she were talking to my heart.”

— Audre Lorde, from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name,” published c. 1982

“Who knows? perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening…”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from You who never arrived (tr. by Stephen Mitchell); Uncollected Poems: 1913–1918

thinking about anastasia trusova paintings again

Speaking of books it's been a while since I've seen one of these posts going around & I'm curious so everyone could you tell me what you are reading rn in the tags please

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