Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
I may have been late by a day but here is my response to the optional question for this month.
Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn’t around anymore? Anyone you miss?
Back in 2014 I began writing short stories that was fanfiction over my favorite shows or books. I created a lot of alternative universes where I pose “what-if” for my OCs as a form of trying to make a coherent story line or adding something to a side character that didn’t get much love. I am thinking back quite fondly to Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja, Harry Potter, or the Percy Jackson series that I never posted. However, I did show my friend who was quite supportive of me and we collaborated in Harry Potter, creating our own story lines during canon where we, well me, didn’t interact much with the main cast but I really wanted to write about the Hufflepuff common room so I made a character in that house to just mess around.
Is my go to line about throw away lines in books, movies, or shows. I used to write it a lot, I was interested in the emotional connection of characters or world building. I was more interested in the later and my friend was kind of egging me to write the popular ships, particularly in Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, and sometimes giving me pointers on how she wants something written. That was invaluable to me because I didn’t really share my writing to anyone, even to this day, but the two of use were tight before life got in the way where we can only meet up once or twice a month now.
I still share her my writings, this time it is over what I’ve written in my notebook regarding original works, and she gives her opinion and provides alternative motivations or “what-if” scenarios that I have included in my first drafts. She’s been a help for Wandering Affection and The Forsaken Tale because I know that the themes that are in there–the first is queer romance and that there is multiple mentions of self-harm–is something that some family and friends do not want to read. At all.
I know that she’ll be with me and I can text her for a meet up in the future where I show her what I wrote in a notebook, that contains scenes or chapters of one of the two manuscripts I am writing, that get tweaked once I put it on a Word document. As you know, the plan never survives contact with the enemy. In this case the enemy is a half empty Word doc and the plan is the story-line I wrote a day or week before.
Sit, Hydrate, and Write 