"Are You Letting Yourself Be Led By Fear Or By Love?"

"Are you letting yourself be led by fear or by love?"

In a 2021 musical film called Tick Tick Boom, Michael asks his friend Jonathan this question. Two years later, in the early hours of the morning, I ask myself the same thing and the answer is always the same: fear.

I think that for a long time, I lived out of fear for my emotional well-being, my mental health, and my physical safety. I've come to realize that I am no longer in danger. I've come to realize that I cannot dwell on what I cannot control. I've come to realize that I have more power than I thought, but my answering isn't changing.

I thought that if I healed, then I would be fine. But I am not fine. I am directionless.

- @annetries-towrite

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And i know it is a silly reason and many people like me do end up surviving but those "people like me" are barely thriving, barely breathing because there is no other way, because they havent caught a deadly disease yet, because killing yourself is a disgrace, because they had a responsibility to bear they didnt ask for but was born for.

And yes my very self cant end my own life too because the hope strangles my throat, loosening its grip just to let me breathe oxygen enough to survive, so ironic how the very "hope" which is keeping me alive will eventually be the murderer of what I visualised myself to be, living but not living enough, yet I have no choice but to keep breathing, because that is what my body knows to do, but this conscience demands meaning, humanity, and this heart can beat if it is supplied with love, affection and appreciation.

I will always love you but I cannot look at you

creemore, ontario david herzog + should have known better, sufjan stevens

I'd care if the person I reblogged this from committed suicide.

Reblog this from anybody. literally. ANYBODY. even if you dont like them or even know them that well. YOU COULD SAVE THEIR LIFE.

If it doesn’t impact the rest of the story, you didn’t raise the stakes

              I recently went back to a chapter at the midpoint of my novel and changed a huge detail of it because I thought it didn’t raise the stakes enough as it was. Because of this change, I had to go through every single scene and chapter beyond that point and edit it to fit in and make sense. It was annoying, but that’s how I knew I achieved what I wanted to.

              Raised stakes change everything about a story.

              If your characters can continue on as they were, then you didn’t really raise the stakes at all. This heightened pressure or danger has to be heightened enough that their lives as they know them are different now.

              Consider this: at the midpoint, you introduce a mutated form of a monster your characters have been facing that’s more deadly and intelligent than its predecessor. It’s a super scary scene, but after that, your characters go back to their safe house to talk over how best to kill it.

              Suddenly, this new monster doesn’t feel as much of a threat. It’s just another element of the same threat they’ve already been facing.

              To properly use this element as a way to raise the stakes, it should take away something the characters rely on—safety, allies, powers, etc. Something they can’t get back, and don’t get back for the rest of the story. They now have to adapt to new circumstances, and things will never be as easy for them again.

              So maybe instead, they flee to their safe house only to discover that it’s no longer safe—the monster is smart enough to get through their hidden entrance and corner them. Now they’re stuck out in the open, taking turns keeping watch and slowly deteriorating to sleeplessness and stress.

              That’s a delicious steak.