WAIT I THINK I GOT IT

WAIT I THINK I GOT IT

The school had a certain power to beckon spirits into being. I thought they were a product of its bloody past; yet a century later, it staked its claim on a third innocent. And now with every spirit bridged, it beckoned me in their place. Time had stopped for me, as unmoving as my body, which had been made heavy by guilt and remorse. Nothing around me changed. Nothing new happened. If my spirit really did leave my body behind, I doubted I would even notice.

I'm not even joking about how much I worked on this. These are all the iterations it took for me to get the paragraph right

I began to understand what it felt like to be a spirit. Unable to do anything, unsure of when the nothingness will end. I had no idea how long I had been stuck in my room for, but with nothing to keep me company other than guilt and remorse, it felt like eternity. 

In the next day I had become a living spirit. I heard no sound, saw nothing except the dark sheets I laid my head on. I knew time must have been moving, but with the curtains drawn and nothing happening, there was no indication of it. Or I had stopped existing within time, stuck in this space with only guilt and remorse to keep me company.

This school had a certain power to beckon spirits into being. It coaxed a hatred strong enough to kill and lured the weak-willed to stay forever. And now, with every spirit bridged, it beckoned me in their place. I stayed as unmoving as time with nothing to keep me company except guilt and remorse. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. If I really did become a spirit, I doubted I would even notice.

I’ve spent the past several days writing and rewriting one paragraph. h e l p

Which character gave you the most problems in your writing?

That would be Kelsee. I had a clear plan for her while outline, but when I actually started writing, that all fell apart.

By now I learned how all my characters sound, but I still don’t get Kelsee. Everytime I write dialogue for her, I think she sounds so fake. That could work because a lot of her persona is fake, but I’ll still change it if I think of something better.

I think the biggest problem with Kelsee is that she isn’t that relevant to the plot because she’s meant to be an antagonist to my mc’s best friend. There’s only two scenes where I’m confident this works. One is near the middle where Kelsee is bullying Catalina in broad daylight and Daron finally calls her out on being a bitch. This is a major step for Catalina’s development because it gives her the confidence to stand up for herself. After this, Kelsee backs off a little until this second moment, when Daron and co sees her a few hours before Daron is attacked. She’s the obvious suspect and was the original culprit—when she sees that she’ll never steal Daron away from Catalina, she falls into a jealous rage. But I changed the culprit into Kelsee’s paranoid cousin when I realized it made no sense for Kelsee to attack Daron that one time and never again. Instead, Kelses poisons Catalina at the start of the second book.

I’m more confident with Kelsee’s character in the second book because she evolves from classic mean girl to traitorous megalomaniac. She has much more impact on the plot in the sequel.

Kelsee has also gone through more name changes than any other character. Originally I wanted to name her Jordyn and pitched it to a friend at the time. She wanted me to name her Clover, but I felt that was too on the nose for a plant witch. When I broke things off with her, I settled on Kelsee, which was the name of someone I worked with and admired back then. I think there were a few more names in between, but I can’t remember.

Sometimes I think Kelsee is fine and I’m just judgemental because I’m looking at her of the writer. I won’t know until I actually finish. But anyway that’s the character who gave me the most problems. Thanks for asking!

Just for fun…

OC Smash or Pass Tag

Thanks for tagging me @willtheweaver!

I think I’ll do Aria for this one.

Aria is really short (about 5’3) and muscular. She has short, unkempt blonde hair and brown eyes. She’s really into fashion and wears clothes that stand out every day.

Aria is an athletic person. She likes throwing axes and is strong enough to kill you with her bare hands (which she just might do). She has strong senses like an animal and can act feral at times.

Keep in mind that Aria is annoyed by most people and will most likely sass you. She also has a Southern drawl.

I’ll tag @alinacapellabooks @i-can-even-burn-salad and open tag!

Thanks for the tag @the-golden-comet!

Out of my two projects, my favorite is Spiritwalker. I’ve always loved fantasy and have been working on this story for so long it’s part of my life everyday now. In fact, I love it so much that it was the first serious thing I wrote. I told myself at that age that I’d never actually write a book but I loved the idea so much that I had to break that self-promise.

I love We Faceless Folk too and I think it’s so important to write, but I don’t have the same history with it and damn, it’s so heavy that it’s hard to write at times.

np tagging: @alinacapellabooks @sarandipitywrites

First ever tagging game!

Hi everyone! this is my first try at a tagging game, and for those I tagged, enjoy!

Tell me which fic of yours or your work in progress has been the MOST FUN TO WRITE (if you want to). Like, which one did you have a BLAST writing? why? Feel free to share, to rec, to tell us WHY they were fun, etc etc. (stolen from the tumblr tagging game search response)

I'll go first, my most fun work in progress has been my story "heaven will never be the same" because i got to try my hand at writing a fight scene for once and that was outside of my comfort zone. now i just got to get out of writers block to continue the story.

those i tagged, dont feel forced to do this, u can easily not do it, yet i would you to play my first tagging game

@thelovelymachinery @thecomfywriter @wyked-ao3

@mysticstarlightduck @an-indecisive-nerd @illarian-rambling

@afroduck @kind-lion @the-letterbox-archives

@applesapplesimrunningwithapples @leahnardo-da-veggie

@frostedlemonwriter

I just finished Gideon the Ninth and I have THOUGHTS

I’ve seen people talk about this book for a while but never about the plot, so I pretty much went in blind. I wish I knew before reading it that there is a glossary at the end. I was so confused for most of the book and would have gotten invested a lot faster if I understood the terms. That one was on me. My bad.

Okay so obviously there are some issues—every book has their own. It took me over a hundred pages to really get into the book because I didn’t understand the world or plot. I think more can be explained at the beginning. It’s such a fascinating world; Muir should give us much more of it. My other main issue is that sometimes there are paragraphs after paragraphs of dialogue and each line has a dialogue tag. There’s only two people talking. You don’t have to keep telling me who they are.

For a book I thought I wouldn’t like for the longest time, I was pleasantly surprised. Like I love it so much that I got on here to share my thoughts, which isn’t something I usually do. It’s not my favorite, but it sure is unique and entertaining.

I love the different houses and how they interact with each other. I actually wish we learned more about them. We understand the Ninth House, but what is life like on the different houses. I at least liked the little bits I learned about the fourth with the child soldiers. I also like that each necromancer has a different title because each house serves a different function. But seriously, how are you gonna casually write about princesses and give no details about what they do on their planets?

This book has some of the best character development I have ever seen. Especially with Harrow. She and Camilla were my favorites so I’m glad they made it to the end. I also think it’s really funny how there’s all these fantasy names and then there’s Camilla.

I like when Gideon gets more depth too. She went from seeing the fourth as bad teens to trying to protect them. That was one of my favorite parts.

I can’t believe Gideon forgave Harrow. I’m glad she did because I love them, but I have held grudges over much less offenses. I like that Gideon comes off as abrasive at first but the more you learn about her you realize she’s really compassionate. It’s amazing considering the environment she grew up in. Such a great character.

I LOVE the trials. I just love when people slowly figure things out, and this is also when I started understanding necromancy so I was really into the learning. I also appreciated that even though Harrow and Gideon hated each other, they made such a good team and that without trying, Gideon made such a good cavalier.

I often say I like the idea of enemies to lovers and not the common execution of it, but this book embodies that idea perfectly. Gideon and Harrow never become lovers, but the emotional growth they go through and the passion they have for each other kinda represents that feeling. They don’t need to be lovers for this trope to work. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for instead of just an asshole male lead who was never actually going to kill the female lead and they’re both attracted to each other from the start. Nah, these two despised each other and still worked through it. Other authors need to take notes.

The ending was so good. I loved Cytherea flirting with Gideon while fighting her. There’s something about evil characters having a soft spot for a character that is so appealing to me. I’m also an absolute sucker for characters from the far off past existing in the present. Give me this and I will love you forever.

Cytherea is actually a lot like the villain in my wip for the exact reasons I like her. The more I thought about it, the more surprised I was about how much my wip ressembled parts of Gideon the Ninth considering I wrote this stuff before reading the book. The houses are like my clans, the necromancy is similar to the spirits, and both sets of characters are shuttled off to a new location that is full of death. That’s probably like I like this book so much.

Also—the quote “And God said, ‘And I am not enough.’” is one of the best quotes I have ever read. It solely makes up for all the book’s flaws.

So that’s it. I hope Harrow the Ninth is just as good. I get scared to read sequels now because certain sequels are genuinely the worst things I’ve read. I also hope the next book goes more in depth with the worldbuilding. I’m excited to continue this series.