a very overdue request for a friend.
Two job-hunting resources that changed my life:
This cover letter post on askamanger.com.
A job interview guide written by Alison Green, who runs askamanager.
useful
Alison Green’s advice works.
Alison Green got me all my interviews from 2012 onward, I am reasonably sure.
Alison Green is basically my life guide.
Mine too - she was my most visited website for the first few years of my working career, and I cannot emphasise enough how much her advice helped me navigate how to behave in a work environment. You name it, she has an answer for it. Definitely a life hack.
I don’t know what’s better: Blair asking a guy she just met who is possessed by a psychotic alien force about her love life, or that Sartorious is actually offended by such a wasted request. 😅😂
I say the offended part.
Commenting fanfiction is the easiest thing in the world once you start doing it.
I leave a comment on every single fic I read. Sometimes when I read published books I go and leave a comment somewhere the author can find it. Granted, I literally majored in ‘leaving comments on fics’ (English Education), but once you start doing it it just becomes second nature. Now you’re gonna go to the Ozymandias school of leaving comments:
Beginner: This is a second/third/fourth Kudos
Advanced: This is my second/third/fortieth time reading this, I still love it so much. Here are a few new things I noticed. I like the way you personally do x, y, z compared to other authors I’ve read (in this ship/genre/fandom).
Beginner: Just list what you did to read this fic. “I stayed up late reading this”, “I read this on a crowded train”, “this kept me company while sick”.
Advanced: X,Y,Z parts made me get butterflies, and I had a physical reaction to this part of the story, I squealed outloud when characters did x,y,z. I blushed at this part. I laughed out loud here. Whatever.
Beginner: Short answer: you won’t EVER annoy the author (unless you’re needlessly mean) But to start, be generic, you don’t have to spill your soul in the comments section. “I liked this” “I enjoyed reading this” “nice fic”.
Advanced: This really meant a lot to me that you wrote this. This is something I feel like I’ve always wanted to read. This fic hit me in all the right places. Etc.
Beginner: My beginners go to is to highlight a line, put that in your comment and say “i liked this” or to identify basic emotions you had while reading and comment those “this made me happy” “this part made me sad” “i almost cried” “you made me laugh”
Advanced: “Highlighted line” This line made me smile because it has to do with character development/it’s really romantic/it’s so unique/it’s moving. Sometimes I don’t highlight a line at all, I just talk about the stuff I’ve noticed were unique to the fic. “I love the way you did this particular thing with this character”.
This? This is an amazing post. This is the Captain Awkward of commenting posts—it addresses all your fears directly and gives you actionable scripts for each one.
Hey! Some of this can apply to responding to works on writeblr, too! Wonderful advice for if you’re stuck on a comment but you really want to leave one (and you should, if you can!).
What people think why i became a bookbinder: Oh she wants to explore her artistic horizon with those pretty leather bound books of hers. She even gives them out as gifts to her friends. It most likely helps her with anxiety or maybe she just wanted a more special costume made notebook.
Why I actually became a bookbinder: I just illegally downloaded and printed out several of my favourite fanfics and books and started binding them into books cuz I love reading them but looking at screens for too long gives me headaches.
op youre fucking big brained oh my god
If you want to i can send you a link to some of the Tutorial videos i started binding my fanfic books.
PLEASE SEND ME THE LINK I WANT TO DO THIS SO BAD
PLEASE SEND LINKS OP PLEASE I BEG YOU
@laughuntilourribsgettough @starduststyx upon request: A tutorial playlist for my personal favourite bookbinding methods
2)Japanese Binding
3) Belgian Binding
4) Coptic stitch binding
5) Case Bookbinding
Do other writers ever get this like, hyper-specific dialogue exchange drop into their brains and you know exactly where these character are standing and what they’re doing and how they’re saying these words but that’s all you get. You don’t have much other context and this specific moment that exists only at this time in your headspace??
Reblog this and tag the loot someone would get from you if they murdered you like right now.
1. No one said I would make it look like a normal murder
2. I laughed really hard at this
3. All anyone would loot from me is a nice silk robe and a TON of body jewelry. 11 pieces of titanium or gold I guess.
This, in a nutshell, is what I did to get a book with my name on it.
NOTE: This is just my personal way of making the words go. Other people have different ways to make their words go. In the world of words, there are no right answers. There’s just lots and lots of tea/coffee/tear stains.
When I get an idea for a story, I open up a document, label it “Brainstorming,” and start making a bullet list of events that consist of the plot.
It has to be an idea with tangible weight. A stray bit of dialogue or something vague like Halloween, that doesn’t give me much to work off of. Halloween creatures living on the same street where it’s Autumn every day- now that’s something I can build from.
What kinds of creatures are they? What do they do? What do their houses look like? The best ideas are the ones that spark more.
This is the easy part- and the most challenging. Easy, because there’s literally no bar. I just sat there and typed. But it’s a huge mental challenge.
When I was in first draft mode, I wanted that story out. I thought that by making it such a rough, far-away version from the concept in my head, I was only delaying the day where I’d hold it in my hands. Turns out, that’s what got it to take on physical form in the first place. So I quieted down, grabbed my laptop and some hot tea, and typed.
After I finished draft one, I printed it all off and highlighted the scant amounts that were passable for the next phase. Dialogue, descriptions, setting- anything that didn’t look like it was up to par was scratched out and omitted.
I call the above pictures A Slow Descent Into Madness.
On a fresh document, I rewrote the story altogether- and it make a difference. I was coming up with things I hadn’t even thought of previously. And it was surprising how much better the plot was than the first time around. But it was still rough.
My method was to start with the bigger, more obvious issues and work my way down. Any plot holes I found were noted, and my outline was constantly under revision. I cut out entire scenes and made mental notes on ways they could be fixed/replaced.
This is where I started cutting chapters in half to make the story flow better- but I didn’t bother writing in usable chapter titles. Instead, I improvised:
These were dedicated to correcting the smaller, less obvious plot holes. This was the point where the story finally started to look close to what would become the final version.
With the story line looking how I wanted, I then moved on to sentence structure. That one song that looked terrible? Rewritten. Over-the-top descriptions and excessive prose? Gone.
This is where I had outside help. Besides this useful tool, I had two people check for spelling issues and the overall story. Once it was in decent shape to be made public, I asked for some additional help.
My betas were in the age range that my novel was geared toward, along with a couple of teachers and parents (as it was middle grade). I gave them the full manuscript, along with seven basic questions like “Which characters were your favorite/least favorite and why?” and “Was there a part of the story that didn’t make sense?”
I gave my betas three months to read a 42,590 word story, and by the end they gave me back the review sheets.
After I read over the reviews, I let the comments sit for three days so that I could proceed with a clear head. I smoothed out any flaws, scanned over the MS twice to make sure everything was right, and that is how I got to the end of writing my first novel.
Next comes publishing- which is a different beast entirely.
I hope you all know that I read the comments and tags I get for this post and they make me so happy. I’m glad that I could help even one person get the idea out of their head and onto paper. Which brings me to the news that a part 2 is in the works where I tell how I wrote my second manuscript (with a little more info on how to publish traditionally). Until then, happy writing!
Galar Corsola or:
How to talk about the impact of climate change + the trash in our ocean: Nintendo style
