when i saw her the insides of me were a thirst that the throat forgives. she was the light that never forgets itself. some people have a beauty in the simplest of movements. i could spend hours finding oceans in the whorls of her fingertips. every part of her was a mystery, a delight, a gift.
Middle-earth is a place that sparkles as it dies, holding on to the last few glimmers of summer in flowers pressed into pages stiff with the sea air. Middle-earth is a place through which you only pass, cannot stay; its beauty is that of autumn leaves bright for an instant before falling and crumbling back into dirt. it is pointless to fight against this. It is wrong to fight against this.
Bilbo sits in a dark cave in front of Gollum who was once like him and who now is only named by the strangled noises he makes in the back of his throat. Gandalf stands alone in Dol Guldur and feels a presence that rings just a little too right with him, and shivers. Aragorn stares down the Mouth of Sauron at the Morannon and sees a glimmer of eyes underneath that hood and knows those eyes: those are his cousin’s eyes, his mother’s eyes, his own eyes.
Be mindful of dying; see what happens if you refuse.
My pet peeve in writing is the bilingual character who just sprinkle in words from a different language for no other reason than the author wants to remind you they’re bilingual
whatever do vous mean
tú come into mi casa on this the day of my hija’s boda
Ursula Vernon’s Certificate of Bad Artistry, for those days when it’s just not coming together.
Or for those of us who are still in the “really kind of crap” stage of learning. Thank you Ursula Vernon.
I’m just gonna go ahead and interpret this as permission to write badly as well.
Writing is art. You are allowed to make bad art. So write bad shit.
Hell yeah, writing is art. So are a lot of other things that aren’t visual. This absolutely includes singing off key and forgetting half the words, playing a musical instrument fumblingly and without rhythm, dancing with no coordination and no idea what the steps should be, and, yes, writing for crap.
Your art does not have to fit anyone’s standards for quality or even basic competence, not even your own, for you to be allowed to make it.
Which sounds like the Steven Universe OC Sailor Moon crossover no one asked for but I’m happy to put into your heads then just vanish and never update again. So have fun with that mental image.
Can I give completely unsolicited advice to fantasy writers that I wish someone had given me when I was into fantasy writing? The cliche “write what you know” is bad advice if taken literally, it’s how we get books about depressed middle-aged creative writing professors who contemplate having an affair. But generally speaking it can be helpful. Tolkien wrote a medieval fantasy because he was the world’s foremost expert on medieval English literature. His book about Beowulf is still considered academically significant. He gave every race detailed languages because he was also a linguist. He wrote about giant battles because he was traumatized by his time in World War I and wrote during World War II. You don’t have to do any of this because that isn’t you. You are allowed to write a whole fantasy epic without a single battle (or you can make battle scenes modern urban melees because clashes of great armies aren’t a thing anymore.) If, say, you’re really into fashion, feel free to describe in painstaking detail every outfit that elves wear for all possible occasions. I promise you it’s no weirder than describing the dialects of tree people. What I’m saying is, you’re not Tolkien and that’s a very good thing because your voice is needed more. Let your freak flag fly and make the world that comes from you specifically.
“
If, say, you’re really into fashion, feel free to describe in painstaking detail every outfit that elves wear for all possible occasions. I promise you it’s no weirder than describing the dialects of tree people.
“
thank you, also, this gives me a great idea for a fantasy story centred around textiles
willowfoot 