i hate this so much but this knowledge is too powerful to keep from you all.
last night @phaltu discovered that setting your font to comic sans in google docs improves writing speed and creativity by an insane amount. “no” i said and “die” but then i tried it and god. i wish it wasn’t this way. i wish it wasn’t true. i wish i could protect you all from this but it’s real.
something about this font is so disarming. something about this font lets you look past the shape of the words and into their soul. i’ve never written so much as i did last night, on my phone, at 2am, in comic sans.
if you have writer’s block. if you lack inspiration. if you need this. don’t be afraid to use it. sometimes the things we find most horrifying are also the things we need the most. trust me. let comic sans into your life.
*me, having just spend the entire morning, talking to myself while pretending to be interviewed on national television about the novel by another famous author*
Trying to find the perfect name for a character, but you only have a vague idea of what you want, like “he feels like a 2-syllable kind of guy” or “It need a hard consonant at the end.”
When a character doesn’t realize they’ve been, like, shot or whatever and they hand brushes against their side and comes away wet with blood, and they’re just staring at it like wtf is this and then their knees just totally give out on them and they sink down, maybe gasping a little as the reality finally hits them. That’s good stuff.
I see that, and raise you a character who knows they’ve been shot, but waits until the rest of their crew is out of sight to put their hand against the slowly spreading stain of blood on their shirt, then trying to steady their breathing so they can follow without letting on how injured they are.
Okay but like the character who doesn’t realize they’ve been hurt trying to see if everyone else is okay only to slowly realize that everyone is looking at them with mounting horror. Then they touch their side to find it’s wet and oh no
all 3 of you are evil but i admire, respect, and fear you
- you just had a brilliant idea. it’s 3am
- bonus: you have something important the next day
- “wow I wrote so much, let’s see the word counter” 350 words “LIES”
- when your worst work gets the most attention
- “[AO3] You’ve got kudos!” emails are your lifeblood, water your crops, and clear your skin
- B L A N K P A G E S O F D O O M
- playing the entire story out in your head. never writing it
- watching or reading anything ever and imagining an au
- making playlists to write to. never writing
- getting an “[AO3] Comment on ______” email and doing the thing. you know the one
- headcanons. so many headcanons
- spending days or weeks on a piece
- watching the hit count rise and the kudos count stay on said work
- when will the kudos return from war
- You have a great idea for a new fic. You have seven half finished fics already.
- Your story idea is no longer relevant/appealing because of things that happened in canon.
- You have a great idea for a story and no idea how it should end
- You have a great idea for a story and know exactly how it should end and how it should begin and in the middle is a vast wasteland of ????????
- Trying to figure out an appropriately literary way to say “and then they do that thing, you know, that thing they do on the show where they make that face and it’s just adorable?”
- Worrying your headcanons reveal way too much about your deep dark secrets as a person.
- Writing down a headcanon that DEFINITELY reveals too much about your deep dark secrets as a person and editing it to make it seem a little more subdued.
- Having to decide between what you want for your faves and their happiness and what’s actually in character.
- Being stuck on an idea for 9000 years and then taking a shower and figuring it out instantly.
- Seriously what is it with being in the shower did you make a deal with one of the fae where you’re only a good writer while you’re naked??
- “What are you writing?” “Oh, you know…just…a thing….”
- What the hell you can just copy/paste formatted work on Ao3 you don’t have to put the html in yourself WHY DID NO ONE TELL YOU THIS, WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO FIGURE OUT?
- Wanting to tell your non-fandom friends about your story ideas, but they can’t understand a word you’re saying.
- Wanting to tell your fandom friends about your story ideas, but they’re all reading your fics and you don’t want to give them spoilers.
- when the plot decides to do is own damn thing and suddenly you have to add three more chapters to accommodate it all and fuck it all, this was supposed to be a one-shot
- spiralling down wikipedia hole in the name of research
- what’s that word? The one that means, you know, the thing?
- When someone reads your back catalogue and leaves a nice comment on Every Single One
- not being able to hit a 2k word essay, but churning out a 10k word fic the same night
-there is a very specific AU in your drafts. No one wants this AU. YOU don’t want this AU. But you keep going back to it, working on it, swearing you’re never ever posting it
-you know that you’re lying and will eventually inflict it on people in hopes of validation anyway
people be like “editing sucks!” but to me it feels like upgrading my story into the STRONGER, BETTER version of itself it was always meant to be, so I’m more like:
how i think i write: using interesting descriptions and a normal amount of commas
how i actually write: and there they were, standing there, and they were there, in the field, and the sun shone shiningly down on them, where they were, in, the field, and the sky was blue, and there were clouds in the sky, and the field and the sky and them and us and you and me were all there, standing,
