The Thing That Helped Me Go From "no Motivation To Write" To Being On Track To Have Written 200K Words

The thing that helped me go from "no motivation to write" to being on track to have written 200K words of fiction in one year was unlocking

the power of spite

by reminding myself that writing cozy stories of successful queer romance where nobody dies and everyone gets a happy ending will really piss off the fascists.

Smooching notes~!

So the people on Twitter seemed to find my notes very useful, So I am sharing them to you guys as well

have fun!

Co editor now markedly unhelpful

Genuinely, there is no worse part of the writing process for me than revising the first draft. (I always print my first drafts because it helps me see what's there rather than what I think should be there.)

And getting into writing novels has made it SO MUCH WORSE. This fucker is 258 pages, God help me.

Also!!!! Adverbs are useful in describing body language meant to convey emotional context: Aspen stopped themself, holding up their hands apologetically.

Just saying that they held up their hands gets rid of the emotional context - you can hold up your hands angrily, or aggressively, or sarcastically. They're also a lot more useful for conveying sarcasm without just saying the character is being sarcastic: “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Becks asked sweetly from the doorway.

So yeah. Vary your parts of speech, but also

I know adverbs are controversial, but "said softly" means something different than "whispered" and this is the hill I will die on.

fun little thought: Clark actually does need his glasses bc he's pretty far sighted due to His Eyes Are Optimized for a Different Atmosphere. he gets them pretty young, about when his parents start noticing him squinting when he has to do his homework. the optometrist is a family friend and is not asking any questions about the absolutely bizarre internal structure of the Kent boy's eyes

he doesn't generally need glasses for Superman work bc he's generally not looking at much up close! but there are a couple times he has to hold a bomb at arm's length to try to focus on the innards and it looks so much like what Pa does when he forgets his reading glasses that Kon almost bursts out laughing when he sees it

I have an appointment next Monday about starting HRT.

My name and pronouns aren't changing. My gender identity hasn't changed. I've just gotten worn down by the impossibility of being myself in a world that only wants to see me as "Cara's mom", and which reads me as female even when I'm wearing my pronouns on my fucking face.

I'm annoyed and sad that this version of me that I've worked so hard to learn to like is going to go away. I'm particularly sad about losing my voice. But as mad as I am about the impossibility of getting read as my gender, doing nothing is still a choice, and that choice is taking a severe toll on my mental health.

I'm looking for a new middle name that starts with A, because I wanted to make Agamemnon my middle name, but my husband doesn't want to have to write it on parenting forms and shit (which honestly, fair and reasonable), so it's going to be my SECOND middle name and I need a reasonable and normal Anglo first middle name.