The Skellingcorner

[neil-gaiman]

mediocreyoungone-deactivated201 asked:

Someone important to me believes that something I wrote is based off of them and it as been hurting our relationship, how do I get them to know that it's not them?

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s possible to persuade people that you didn’t write about them. There is one long-ago short story of mine in which every former girlfriend of mine saw herself reflected, and each of them made a point of telling me that she had read it (I think they were flattered) and obviously the person in it was her, and I realised that nothing I could ever say about the story would change anybody’s mind. 

That’s because it’s almost impossible to explain to anybody who hasn’t done it that the way we make fiction is a sort of composting process in which things we see and feel and experience and think and imagine are put into our minds and then rot down into a black compost, in which new things grow. Or for that matter that you can steal the way that one person plays with their hair and the way another person sighs and always turns up late and grow a third person who isn’t either of them out of it.

So you can tell them it’s not them in your fiction. But they will still believe what they will. Perhaps instead you should just work on the relationship, and if they are worried about issues of privacy (or whatever) being compromised by what you write, tell them you must have done it without realising, and will do your best to make sure they aren’t in any more stories of yours, even unwittingly. 

I hope this helps. (You will probably find a lot more wisdom than this in the comments or the reblogs.)

[sweetlittlevampire]

And, as of now, my internship has officially ended.

It’s…bittersweet. On one hand I’ll be happy to enjoy a few days off. On the other hand…I did have fun here. Great fun. Also quite a bit of stress and responsibility, but most of all, fun.

Farewell, radio 100,7 . I’m sure we’ll meet again!

[writerswritecompany]

3 Important Points To Remember When Creating Antagonists In Short Stories

[writerswritecompany]

Happy Birthday, Suzan-Lori Parks, born 10 May 1963

Seven Quotes

1. Each moment is perfect and heaven-sent, in that each moment holds the seeds for growth.
2. A play is a blueprint of an event: a way of creating and rewriting history through the medium of literature.
3. People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most days it’s very hard because I’m frightened – not frightened of writing a bad play, although that happens often with me. I’m frightened of encountering the wilderness of my own spirit, which is always , no matter how many plays I write, a new and uncharted place. Every day when I sit down to write, I can’t remember how it’s done.
4. Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion.
5. My father was in the Army and we moved around a lot, and one of my favourite places was the library.
6. Every play I write is about love and distance. And time. And from that we can get things like history.
7. I don’t read reviews. I refuse to have my ego inflated or deflated by someone I don’t know.

Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write

[weneeddiversebooks]

de-canon.com

Writers of Color Discussing Craft - An Invisible Archive

“I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.” ― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

[minoritiesinpublishing]

“At the heart of the MFA vs POC discussion is the contention that any discussion of craft does not take place in a vacuum – that race is part of one’s lived experience and how we see ourselves and are seen does impact how and what we write. Much of what is taught, for example, about craft in a writing workshop presumes the primacy of a Western European aesthetic tradition, ignoring 1) that tradition’s historical debts to other cultures and traditions; 2) the multiple aesthetic traditions in literature and the arts elsewhere in the world which were concurrent or preceded the European tradition; 3) the complexity and fluidity of cultural exchange happening presently – that we live in a global society where our literature and art should more accurately reflect the reality of our communities, not look back nostalgically to a whitewashed world that never was. 

So how do we move forward?  A key step is becoming better educated about what is and isn’t out there already. If we wish to be more cognizant of the ways race and craft intertwine as we interrogate assumptions about canon, aesthetic tradition, and the workshop, then we need to read and study the existing archive (which, though often invisible inside a typical workshop, nonetheless exists) – and if we find some things are missing, we should call attention to the gaps and (if possible) work toward filling them.”

[thatsthat24]

[sunnysapphic]

My hot friends, after bragging about all the people who’ve had crushes on them: so how many people have had a crush on you ;^)

Me, a goblin: I’m an acquired taste

[writingwithcolor]

triggerlil asked:

I didn't find anything to this question while navigating: my mc is indian-american, they live in the UK and her mother is atheist while her father hindu. It's a fantasy YA and idk how often to tie in the experiences of the character (raising the dead, magic, etc), with her heritage/religion? I mean I want to stay true to the characters past and her family, but I don't want to write about stuff I'm not qualified to write about

Atheist-Hindu in Fantasy

As I’ve probably said before, you can identify as both atheist and Hindu.  I do.  People may disagree on this point but I’m prepared to have that argument.  I’ve also said that the particulars of a person’s brand of atheism is going to differ based on what, if any, traditions, they were raised in.  If you have a bad experience as a member of a faith and later lose it, your atheism is more likely to have some residual hostile feelings toward that faith.  Since I didn’t encounter any abuse or negativity being raised a Hindu, I have a lot more affinity and affection for markers of Hindu culture than many ex-Hindu atheists in India may feel, where they find themselves under persecution by the Hindu right [See: Indian character who doesn’t fully identify with heritage]. 

So these are all things to take into account, particularly with regard to the character’s mother.  What is her ethnic and religious background?  Is she Indian?  White?  Something else?  Is her family Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or anything besides? [See: Indian Pakistani Girl, Atheism & OCD]

From the Hinduism side of things, I think as a religion it’s perfectly compatible with fantasy settings.  The Hindu epics are basically awesome fantasy novels anyway if you take away all the trappings of divinity.  There are plenty of stories involving raising the dead, things are rife with divinely-acquired powers that would be considered magic outside of a religious fold—I really don’t see any inherent problem with mixing magic and Hinduism.  Every religion has its own “magic system,” so to speak, so I would just say read Hindu stories and get a feel and a vibe for how divinely-inspired and magic powers work and feel in that world (if any Hindu followers are upset at this treatment of the religion as nothing more than a fantasy worldbuilding exercise, let’s talk—there are reasons I’m speaking about it like that in this context).

As far as the atheism side, please know that just because we don’t believe in gods doesn’t mean we’d all suddenly turn blind in a fantasy world.  That’s “Flat Earth Atheism.”  Most of us arrived at our nonbelief through a process of continual investigation, research, introspection, debate, and weighing the evidence presented to us.  While losing your faith may be an emotional process, becoming accustomed to nonbelief is anything but and in most cases must be approached rationally.  If you can’t justify something you can’t stay secure in it.  Being an atheist in an obviously fantasy world would be, I think, actually really fun.  You’re continually encountering things that challenge your worldview, and investigating them would be incredibly stimulating.  

Fantasy worlds are qualitatively different from our own, so I think that to say that there’s no room to imagine a world that both challenges the scientific method but where gods still don’t exist is a bit blinkered.  As a scientist, I think it would be quite mind-blowing to come face-to-face with phenomena that could expand our view of the natural world.  I think an atheist in that face of that would be naturally skeptical but the process of investigation is typically an integral part of our character, and should be shown as such as part of such a person’s narrative arc.

So while I’m concerned about accurate and varied portrayal of South Asians and Hindus, I’m also anxious to see better portrayal of atheists and atheism in fiction, as more than soulless automatons or a bunch of gross, obnoxious dudebros, and I think there’s a real opportunity here to do it justice.  Hope this helps.

~Mod Nikhil

[alexreadsboooks]

Day 8 of #grimdragon is Reliable Narrator
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What even is a reliable narrator? I’m not entirely sure something like that exists. But I’d say the narrators in Tolkien’s books are reliable for the most part. Or at least they’re not glaringly unreliable. 😅
*
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#bookstagram #bookish #booklover #bookworm #booklr #books #bibliophile #maybookchallenge #bookstagrammer #booklove #booksofinstagram #instabook #read #reading #reader #buch #bücher #lesen #bookstagramfeature  #bookphotography #leser #igbooks #bookishallure

[sweetlittlevampire]

Looks like I found my devotional notebook…

…or did it find me?

So you might recall that I´ve talked about starting a kind of devotional notebook for Hecate…

As my internship ends on Tuesday I have a few days left before school restarts, and I actually wanted to go and hunt for a notebook on Wednesday. Now I belong to these people who kind of hoard notebooks because they´re pretty, with the firm intention of using them, but actually never doing so. So today I sat down and went through my stash of unused notebooks, put one into my suitcase because I want to use it as a travelling notebook, put one in the kitchen for recipes and similar stuff, icluded one into my art supply stash for random sketches -

And then I found this.

It´s about the length of my hand. The majority of the pages are lined, but there are quite a few unlined ones as well (yay for drawings and doodles!). It´s also pretty lightweight, and the whole thing - including the pages is styled like an old spell book.

The front cover says: “Tradition Notebook - Witch & Wizard. Precious memories - magic spells, line note, idea, memo, drawing.” I looked it up online; apparently it comes in black with gold detailing and in violet as well. I kind of like the vintage pink though.

I didn´t even remeber I owned this. Hell knows where or why I bought it.It literally fell into y lap while I was rummaging through one of my storage boxes.As if soeone had gone: “Here. Use this.” And  I was instantly drawn to use it as Hecate´s devotional journal, The thing that really sold me to it - as cheesy as it may sound - is the key on the front cover. I mean how ore blatant and obvious can it possibly get? It´s perfect!

[fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment]

[worldbuildingjune]

World Building June 2017!

Hello friends, its that time! What time? World building time! World Building June is right around the corner and its time to prepare your mind, body, and building supplies for 30 days of building worlds with some of the coolest cats this side of the internet!

What’s World Building June exactly?

WBJ is like other casual creative challenges where you create something every day! But how you approach WBJ is up to you! Are you mainly a writer? Write up articles and exploratory stories about your world to help flesh it out. Are you more of an artist? Make illustrations and concept art which helps visually flesh out your world. Are you more comfortable combining both art and literature? Do just that and create an illustrated guide!

How much or how little you build is up to you, as long as you build! The main purpose of WBJ is to get that world you’ve had on the back burner and finally making progress on it! Just get it on paper and you’ll be one step closer to putting that world into action!

Comic artists, Novelists, Roleplayers, dice rollers, game designers, this is for anyone who has a world that needs building! Even if you don’t have a world that you’ve had locked away you can take this as a creative challenge to make one from scratch!

Cool! How do I join though?

Just make a piece every day of June! Easy! But you can also show off your progress to the rest of the builders by tagging posts as #worldbuildingjune

Also you can follow this blog and we’ll be posting prompts and tips every day to help figure out what you can build further on!

You can also join us at our discord channel: World Building June Discord, and you can ask fellow builders for input, trade tips, and hoard resources for when you’ll need them!

We’ve been doing WBJ since 2014 and are about to break 3,000 builders!

So invite your friends! Invite their friends friends! Build your inspiration folders and crack open that journal you haven’t been using. But most of all…

GET BUILDING!