Writing Tips

Helpful and Preventative Stretches for Writers, Artists, and Gamers 💪🎨✍🎮

If you type, write, draw, game, or generally use your hands a lot (especially if you’re prone to RSI or Carpal Tunnel!) try these stretches as both a preventative measure, and on the spot relief. Take care of yourself and your body, friends!

Start with hands up, fingers stretched out.  Stretch your thumb as far as you can over your palm. Hold and repeat 4 times.

Touch each finger to your thumb. Hold each for 30 seconds. Repeat on each hand 4 times.

Start with a fist. Open half way, hold for 2 seconds. Stretch fingers out, hold for 2 seconds. Repeat 4 times.

Start with one arm out, palm up. Pull your fingers back with your other hand. Hold for 10 seconds. Do the same with your other hand. Repeat 4 times

Start with arms up, palms out. Bend wrists down until you feel the stretch, but keep your fingers loose. Hold 10 seconds. Bend wrist upwards, until you feel it in your wrist and arm. Hold 10 seconds. Repeat 4 times.

Writing Tip #8

Write every day. That’s right, every day. You may have heard this before, maybe you haven’t. It’s a lot easier to eliminate writer’s block and to get pages dished out in a day. If this seems daunting and you don’t believe you have the time, make time. In between work, or studying, or even before class (which is what I do), just start off with what you can get and then go from there.

Don’t worry about the quality of your writing, just write what you can. That’s what editing is for later. Keep at it until you are writing at least three paragraphs or more everyday. It should be easier to start when the time comes to just sit and start typing (or writing in a notebooks) for a whole hour or more.

I know not everyone wants to read the books, but I think more people should read this passage from the masked empire specifically. Especially those who are struggling to understand modern elves being oppressed and the evanuris having been oppressors.

Shoutout to all the fanfic writers who pour their heart and soul into a fic and it doesn’t get enough notes.

Shoutout to all the writers who’ve stopped writing because their work wasn’t appreciated enough.

Shoutout to all the fanfic writers for whom writing is like a coping mechanism.

Shoutout to all the writers who have resorted to writing as a way of expressing themselves.

Shoutout to all the writers who project their trauma into writing.

Shoutout to all fanfic writers.

You are valid. You are important. People like what you do. And no, its neither awkward nor pathetic. Its ok, its wonderful.

And i love you honey, please remember that I’ll always support you .

In light of my recent writer positivity, have this post from a year ago that I almost forgot about.

Never let anyone tell you that you can’t write. You are NEVER: too young, too old, too mature, too naive, too uneducated, too intelligent, too unoriginal, or too boring.

ANYONE can be a writer and EVERYONE is just as qualified as published authors.

You don’t have to have an english/literature/creative writing degree to magically make you worthy enough to try. Many published authors just picked it up after their day jobs, did it for a hobby. If they can do it, you can as well.

No one can stop you unless you let them, yours is the only opinion that should matter. So write your fanfiction, your novella, short story, screen play, or novel. Don’t give a damn about what the naysayers believe. Be fucking proud of every word you put down on the page (yes, even horrible rough drafts) because you’re amazing.

You ARE a writer. Be proud of that.

Love it! It's so Sadira!

Did @sinedra 's Sadira for a Halloween prompt. The randomizer said cute grim reaper and I was like...bet.

Hello Mr gaiman. How old were you when you started writing stories ? I'm 14 and I try and try but they are all awful. I always give up in the middle and I can never finish what I wanted to write.

I know. I found a pile of papers of mine from my teen years and into my early twenties recently, and there were so many stories begun, so many first pages of novels never written. I’d start them, and then I’d give up because they weren’t as brilliant as Ursula K Le Guin, or Roger Zelazny, or Samuel R Delany, and anyway I wasn’t actually sure what happened next.

I was around 22 when I started finishing things. They weren’t actually very good, and they all sounded like other people, but the finishing was the important bit. I kept going. A dozen stories and a book, and then I sold one (it wasn’t very good, and I had to cut it from 8,000 words to 4,000 to sell it, but I sold it). I probably wrote another half-dozen stories over the next year, and sold three. But now they were starting to sound like me. 

Think of it this way: if you wanted to become a juggler, or a painter, you wouldn’t start jugggling, drop something and give up because you couldn’t juggle broken bottles like Penn Jillette, or start a few paintings then give up because the thing in your head was better than what your hands were getting onto the paper. You carry on. You learn. You drop things. You learn about form and shape and shade and colour and how to draw hands without the fingers looking like noodles. You finish things, learn from what you got right and what you got wrong, and then you do the next thing.

And one day you realise you got good. It takes as long as it takes. So keep writing. And all you need to do right now is try to finish things.

writers

write that sentence, that dialogue, that scene that terrifies you

don’t delete stuff, just move it to another document

have a “bits and pieces” document for all the odds and ends you can’t fit anywhere else

think of the color of a person’s eyes, imagine something reflected in them, now write that scene

fiction doesn’t have to be 100% accurate, don’t research yourself to boredom

i’m being serious there’s a thing called suspension of disbelief and it’s magical (yes that’s me making a joke)

write something that makes you cry

write something that makes you laugh

write something you can’t explain to other people

write something you won’t remember until you read it the next day

don’t read about the publishing industry until you really, really need to. all it will do is make you unbelievably tired

listen to music from open world RPG video games, you’re welcome

always take a small journal or some paper and a pen with you

write by hand in a journal every once in a while

put the ending of your story in the beginning and see what happens

listen to input from other people. yes you’re the writer, but they’re the reader and they want to help you make something spectacular

said is not dead dude like wtf

the thesaurus is shiny and lovely and a great resource but don’t let words get in the way of your story telling, you don’t need to write prose as poetry for it to be beautiful

just finish the draft first, worry about perfection after

yes, you do have talent

yes, you can do this. you already are

OPENING COMMISSIONS

MESSAGE ME AND LET'S CHAT!

Limited openings!

What isn't ok?

Don't be a gross weirdo and we can talk, ok? No gore, death, anything with pedophilia, homophobia, transphobia, or being a general degenerate.

For those of you who thought you couldn't write sex scenes. I promise, very little could beat these. (Worst part is my professor read these out to us in class.)

Bad sex award 2015: the contenders in quotes

Eight purple passages are up for the prize every author dreads, the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award. Can Erica Jong beat Morrissey to the sweetspot?

Hahahahaha Morrissey I had no clue breasts could barrel-roll. This is some next level hentai shit.