The Writing Hole

there’s going to be a difference sometimes between the stories that you find masterfully crafted and the stories that mean a lot to you personally and those two things don’t have to overlap completely or even at all to make that story worthwhile

and that’s a good thing to remember as a reader/viewer/etc but also as a writer because even if whatever you ultimately write is full of mistakes, someone out there is gonna take it so to heart that it fundamentally changes them as a person. and that is. Huge.

"why does writing take so long" because 60% of it is coming up with a sentence, realizing that sentence doesn't work the way you want it to, and staring at a wall

I hate how that’s my current issue rn

yknow theres a lot of pressure to be successful, particularly on artsy kids whose professions are seen as useless unless theyre famous, but life is fucking hard and sometimes things dont turn out

but i think thats not bad. my dad has wanted to be a musician forever, and hes rly pretty good. but then he joined the military to get away from an abusive family, and then he got married, and then he got divorced, and a lot of horrible shit HAPPENED. he has ptsd and severe anxiety and he could never really get back on the horse. and he never made it as a musician, and now hes 53

but i grew up in a house full of instruments, and he can play all of them, and some of my earliest memories are of him playing guitar on the front porch and me thinking there wasnt a better musician in the world. so. even if you dont get to the stars, exactly, what you do isnt worthless. its not a waste of time if life is difficult and you cant make it, or if you arent famous, or if your work doesn’t influence thousands of people. it will influence someone

there are a million ways to be happy and a million ways to be a successful artist. we create what we do to enhance the human experience and relate to each other and improve ourselves. theres something to be said for just doing that,,,for the sake of doing it, yknow

This is the most comforting, warm and important piece of text I have ever read, and it is so true. No life is wasted that is spent sharing and loving.

My mother never became a professional artist. She became a social worker, then later taught emotionally disturbed children. But our home was filled with photographs of wildflowers and wildlife. Spice racks, shelves, and other useful objects were adorned with small paintings. She taught me and my sister that we could make things beautiful, even if in small ways, and let us glue glitter and fake gems on our cheap kids furniture and make it ours. Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art. We make art to convey emotion. To make an object or a moment or a story OURS. And making someone smile when they hear you sing, or look at something you made for them is as valid a reason for creating as any other.

“Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art.”

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here… I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

waiting in deep suspense

Psst you ready here comes the secret

Here it comes

I am also very curious about this secret

Your time spent enjoying the creative process is infinitely more valuable that any final project you create. So stop putting yourself down for never finishing or posting those WIPs because every moment you spent creating something you loved is a moment not wasted. Your progress and talent is measured by your passion not your number of posts.

This post went from 3k to 7k overnight and that just goes to show how many of you need to hear this so make sure you don’t ever forget it

writing dialogue is just advanced theater where you play every role and silently judge yourself as the audience.

an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks

some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15

add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed

The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma'am

the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”

wHat did I just put my eyes on

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Not quite a short story, but read in class: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” from The Twilight Zone

Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers

“Where are you going and where have you been” by Joyce carol oates

“The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury

the lottery by shirley jackson

i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf

Ett halvt ark papper. I cried so much.

Ночь у мазара, А. Шалимов

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury 

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme

I read Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day” in seventh grade (it wasn’t assigned, I was just going through my textbook for new stuff to read) and as a bullied kid with SAD, it Fucked Me Up.

An Ordinary Day with Peanuts, by Shirley Jackson

Eh, this was more like community college, but The Star by Arthur C. Clarke

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl

and this story that I can’t remember the name of and can’t find, though it might be by O. Henry? it’s about a bunch of demons who want to stop Santa Claus from going through with Christmas, and he must travel through the mountains they inhabit to escape their vices? (good christ I can’t remember the name for the life of me)

Ok but the laughing man and a good day for bananafish but j.d. Salinger

The City (195) Ray Bradbury. An intense commentary on colonialism and space exploration. I read it for a sci fi survey class.

Another short story I read in that sci fi class was Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. A commentary on humanity and how human we believe ourselves to be. Also, an interesting commentary on mental health.

In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, written in 1947 by Ango Sakaguchi. It made my skin crawl the first time I read it.

Also going to recommend For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny, a commentary on whether AI can become human in a future without humans: http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt

whoever posted “The Laughing Man” and “A Good Day For Bananafish” is Correct

All of Flannery O'Connor’s shorts.

I didn’t read it in a text book, but “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” haunted me for life.

Adding to the list of Bradbury: “There Will Come Soft Rains”

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke. (I never re-read it and suspect if I did, I’d find it had issues, but I still think about the ending.)

“W.S.” by L.P. Hartley

“Lost Hearts” by M.R. James

“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

My Father’s Hands by Calvin R. Worthington

In the Vault, by  H. P. Lovecraft.

The Feather Pillow, by Horacio Quiroga

What a Thought! by Shirley Jackson

There Will Come Soft Rains - Ray Bradbury

Singing my Sister Down - Margo Lanagan

Flowers for Algernon and The Contents of a Dead Man’s Pockets were both in my junior high english textbook and they both made a huge impact. There was also some short story about a hitchhiker and a guy who was trying to drive across the country that was spooky as fuck

This was in college, but “A Real Doll” by A.M. Homes is… something.

your unreliable narrator fucking bit me

thats not how they told it

screaming, crying, throwing up, as I force myself to write a story i'm very passionate about and love writing and have no obligation to write except that i want to

More high lesbian antics involving food

Indeed it is the same wife, once again stoned and wanting snacks

my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

happy writing :)

writing is so fun

writing is impossible why does anyone do this

Becoming a writer is great because now you have a hobby that haunts you whenever you don’t have time to do it

sometimes the best writing advice is "just let it be bad." revolutionary. terrifying. but it works.

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

You should only write in present tense with extreme caution.

not because it's bad or anything but because if you do it even once you're going to be editing the bits where you shifted tenses out of your writing for the rest of your life

if u write in present tense enough times in a row, you can switch this problem around & get confused when your present-tense narrator is talking abt something that happened in Their past. I recommend this bc it keeps u on ur toes

guys i made my first blackout poetry

^^^