Disenchantmcnts - Manic Pixie Dream Girl Starter Pack

Dear internet,

Please give me all the advice you have on writing cover letters. Like, the closer you can get to literally just writing a cover letter for me, the better. Ok bye.

easy hack if you're scared of a blank page or need word count encouragement

I have a hard time writing on that big blank document. Even if it already has paragraphs or pages of work, it still feels incredibly daunting when I first start.

I manage the page setup on Google Docs to help me out.

Not only do the words fill up the page faster, the size I use is roughly the size of a paperback. It's exciting to visualize what it could look like published.

It helps me to have visual encouragement, rather than a document that looks more like a school essay.

Here is how I set my document up in Docs under File > Page setup

I change "Paper size" from the default to "Statement size". I also change all margins from the default to .5 inches.

[call it good] writing

self editing tips (first pass)

you want your work to be awesome. i want your work to be awesome. i would love to help you make your work awesome. but sometimes, the first step is doing an initial pass over your draft before passing it off to """""professionals""""" like us. so here are some tips to get that party started...

print your book. you can print it out onto a bunch of sheets of paper and staple them together, or, if you don't mind spending $9 or so, you can get barnes and noble to print it into an actual novel for you! i highly recommend the latter. it helps you view your work as an actual book, not a mess of computer words.

set up the atmosphere. put on some nice ambient music, get yourself a nice coffee or tea or whatever drink you like, light a candle! make your editing workspace feel awesome.

don't change anything during your first pass. this is part of why i recommend printing it! i just want you to take notes, baby. highlight things in different colors if you want. jot down notes if you want. use transparent sticky notes, annotate onto the page, whatever your vibe is. but don't actually change anything right now.

compliment sandwich. after every editing session, write down one thing you think is working from what you read in that session, one thing you want to change or improve, and one more thing you're happy with.

keep a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. this isn't a bad version that isn't up to your standards and is therefore hopeless. this is a moving part of your book's journey! this is step one. you can't get to step two without acknowledging the value of step one and thanking it for its time.

give yourself breaks to read, listen to music, or watch something with similar vibes to what you're going for. for me, this looks like reading books in the genre i'm writing in, watching shows with characters i really love, listening to music that fits the vibe, or reading poetry about the emotions relevant to my work.

log your progress. maybe write a checklist of every section/chapter so you can check parts off as you finish your first pass. this helps you feel productive, like you're really Doing Something even if you only edited six pages.

second pass tips coming soon! for now, happy writing, and please feel free to send us messages if you have any questions :)

The next time you're building a character profile, ask yourself these questions to dig a little deeper into your character's inner workings.

What do they wish they could change about themselves?

What is a negative trait of theirs they have to overcome?

What is their most hidden secret?

What keeps them from achieving their goals?

What's their most prized possession and why?

Happy writing!

The way I personally stay true to the story I started down on is to give myself permission to not teach anyone anything. I’m not writing a manual. I’m not delivering bromides. I know that a lot of people do take enormous pleasure and relief in lines or phrases or ideas from stories that ring true to their own lives, but it’s important for me that I tell a story and that I’m not writing Chicken Soup for the Necromantic Soul. It is getting harder and harder again, especially for authors from marginalised places or backgrounds, to write works where the takeaway isn’t ‘this is to succour all my marginalised people’. For anyone on the female-identified axis this is especially hard because it seems to me that most books by anyone female-adjacent have an expectation that they will comfort the uncomfortable and discomfit the comfortable etc., whereas a guy can just tell an adventure story and be done with it. This ties in with an idea that I think <is prevalent> nowadays that good art is moral and bad art is immoral: i.e. if a story is bad it actually has to be because the lessons are bad, and if a story is good it must somehow be beautiful on the moral scale. We go looking for why the art we love is moral even if the art we love is a donut. I think this is the pressure of capitalism on time – that everything has to double or triple up in benefit compared to the time we take on it: if we’re prepared to waste eight hours on a book we had better be able to tot up at the end how that book was also feeding us in some way. That’s brand time we just used.

I am writing for my younger self and it would be disgusting of me to try to teach her anything.

Tamsyn Muir, Interview with Ciara Seccombe, 2/5/22