it looks like you're writing a novel

you might receive negative feedback on your favourite part of your novel, and i want you to know that it's okay. it's okay for readers to be wrong

don't let readers know your characters have feelings or they'll be really sad when you do all those horrible things to them

none, although at one point i realised i'd made part of the plot very convoluted when there was a simple solution staring me back in the face the whole time and i got a bit annoyed at myself for that

i went into more detail about how i did this on my tumblr if anyone is interested:

your first draft isn't perfect? what? that's weird. i've never heard of that happening before. maybe you should give up

write👍

three screenshots of a wordcount popup in microsoft word, one for each of the drafts mentioned in the body of the post. the second draft is 220,464 words long. the third draft is 156,176 words long. the fourth draft is 107,351 words long

draft 2 / draft 3 / draft 4

ask me anything

writing is easy, it's my protagonist's penis that's hard

the hot new reading trend is counting how many times the author uses the word 'that' and including 'that stats' in goodreads reviews. be warned

not sure what to write next? how about you cry yourself to sleep

when in doubt, kill your protagonist. if still in doubt, kill your antagonist. continue killing characters until all doubt is removed and your story is just a description of some land or a building

you can't write characters who aren't like you, what will people think? you need ALL of your characters to be EXACTLY like you: same sexuality, same likes and dislikes, same appearance, same name,

stuck on the next line of dialogue? have you tried zoning out for three hours, thirty-two minutes and waiting for it to come to you

any writer can write 100,000 words, but only a TRUE WRITER can DELETE 100,000 words

the trick is to write a book that readers want to throw across the room (affectionate), not throw across the room (derogatory). it has to get thrown, though. no way around that

if you don't enjoy writing something, people aren't going to enjoy reading it, so stop writing those work emails and get back to writing that sopranos omegaverse fanfiction

just uhhhh, just like uh,. get uhhhhhhh.. just get weird with it

yknow you should really start that second book project. yeah i know you haven't finished even a quarter of the first one but you're strong and you can manage

not sure what to write? jump up and down repeatedly to shake the ideas loose! note: if you're doing it for longer than a day with no results, you should probably just accept that you shouldn't write

book

nice mention of my wife's hometown

i've named a lot of places in my novel vaguely british-sounding names that are puns on real place names, and sometimes worry no one will take them seriously. anyway i've just discovered there's a real village in warwickshire called Wormleighton so i think it's going to be okay

if you tell your readers your protagonist is a nice person, they will think your protagonist is a nice person. it doesn't matter how many people the protagonist has killed. why would an author lie like that

field! and the magnetic field wasn't there for no reason, it was there because the character's house was built on top of a secret government base! and the reason that the secret government base was there is

you gotta explain EVERYTHING, otherwise your readers will never be satisfied! the protagonist of your fantasy story can't just have powers randomly, they got them from touching a space rock! and the space rock can't have just randomly turned up, it was attracted by a magnetic

have a thoughtful shower and drink an inspired potion. write for two hours. have another thoughtful shower and drink another inspired potion. write for another two hours. congratulations. you have finished your book

insinuate that two of your main characters are getting married and then divorced repeatedly off page. deny it if anyone asks

STOP

step 1: write it

step 2: edit it

step 3: read it

step 4: spend fifty-two hours trying to work out what's wrong with the opening of that one chapter

step 5: oh god oh fuck if i change that then i'll have to change all of the fucki

step 6: go back to step 1

write one word. write one goddamn word on that page. i beg of you. just one word. please