I Used To Hate This Tip, Too, But Then I Realised That Maybe We Should Not Take It That Literally. If

I used to hate this tip, too, but then I realised that maybe we should not take it that literally. If you are Britsh, you might not know much about the highschool-system in America, but you probably know some things about friendship. You know how a first love feels and you know how hard it can be to share a school with people who have bullied you for years. Or maybe you don’t know that, either. But you sure know what humiliation feels like. We have not attended executions, but we have seen scared people and we know suspense.

‘Write about what you know‘ does not have to be about facts. It can be about feelings, about insights and moments of understanding. You can make your readers believe the most fantastic things and experience the most amazing events, because you can base the sensation of casting a spell on the electricity you felt when you touched an escalator in the shopping mall. 

Maybe all this dogma means, is that you don’t have to make everything up. One of the truest thing I ever knew, is that I feel safe as long as I am the only one in danger. That does not mean I have to write about a college girl with insecurity issues. I can write about a Chosen One in the middle ages. But he will feel real, because I wrote him based on something I know

You know what it would be like if we all only wrote about what we know?

BORING AS SHIT.

You’re British and want to write a highschool AU set in America? Sorry, you can’t, even if you research you might get it wrong. You’re an artist and you want to write about geologists? Nope. Not for you. You’re writing a zombie apocalypse AU? Not if you haven’t lived through a zombie apocalypse. You’re writing a space AU? You better be an astronaut (even if you’re an engineer or technician you might get something wrong about spacewalking!!!). You’re writing meta about elf biology? You’d better be a fucking biologist or you might get something wrong.

So do some research online and write your AU. If someone who knows more about that thing offers to help you, great! If they don’t, you can do it anyway. You don’t need a Stamp Of Approval™ in order to write your stuff.

And if someone is rude about it because it doesn’t fit their standards? Oh well, too bad for them.

Here is an aesthetic for Noah, composer and murder suspect, by @thewriterandthestoryteller. I hope you like it! 

Please do tag me! It’s the one way I don’t feel annoying for talking about my work.

tag me!

hey, if you see this:

could you please reblog this if you’re okay with being tagged in tag games? 

What kind of author are you; the “I write a lot of conversation” kind of author or the “I can’t help to put too much description”. 

Hey everyone! 

I’m aware I have been invisible for a while, ignoring tags and messages and neglecting any requests. That’s because my life is a mess and so is my mind, and there has been very little room for anything but direct, pressing matters. 

However, I am soon leaving for a two-week holliday and will still be free from university after. I hope this will help me clear up some things and get my thoughts back in order. I will be back online when I return to the country in a fortnight! All the love, and have a great summer!   

Kalliope hands covered in paint, dungarees, sitting cross-legged, pencil tucked behind an ear, teasing smile, delicate shoulders, collarbones, lakes, romantic paintings, fingers in soil, bobbed hair, stretching your arm from the window of a driving car, picnic baskets, footsteps left in sand  

Josepe scraps of paper, oil-paintings  leather notebooks, rolled up sleeves, lost pages, leaning against tables/walls, crossed arms, family pictures, yellowed meadows, mountains seen from above, learning something new, inside jokes, bearhugs, broken marble statues  

Paco skateboards, sunburnt shoulders, dirt under fingernails, running against the wind, smiley faces, fireworks, screaming from a mountaintop, toothy grins, heat, trembling hands, throwing your arm over a shoulder, trespassing, scratches, drawing on tables 

Mikel soft voices, birds, cast down eyes, freckles on tanned skin, skipping stones, lists, a dog licking your nose, drawn up knees, ropes, overgrown walls, looking through a keyhole, early mornings, holding hands, old toys, licking quick to catch the melting ice-cream, swings  

Alba sunflowers, standing akimbo, loud voices, balancing on a cliffside, brooks, brand new clothing, thistles, writing in books, being first in line, sunglasses, believing in the supernatural, braids, stubborn silence, pressing your hand against the window, medaillons

Dores polaroid pictures, feminist texts, dog-ears, combat boots and pink skirts, wispy hair, do-it-yourself, standing wide-legged, myths, holding the hem of a shirt, lightning, buzzing ventilators, biting your nails, forgetting pot plants, daydreaming, Shakespeare quotes, sarcasm

Imanol bare feet, dusk, ramshackle piles of books, cats, waltzing, talking to yourself, faltering record players, antique shops, corduroy, answering questions, fingerprints, collecting gifts, straying from your point in the middle of a sentence, pinecones, memories, rising early