Hello! You can call me Akari. Currently fangirling over Cardfight!! Vanguard, YuGiOh Vrains, and a lot of other fandoms. In the process of creating a sideblog to dump all my writing in. Despite my username I rarely post anything related to YGO Zexal or Arc-V.
Translating the kanji (thanks to my mediocre Chinese abilities and Google Translate), 了见 (Ryoken) translates roughly to “Observation” or “Observer”. Am I looking too much into this or does Revolver’s IRL name match the role he could have played in the Hanoi Project?
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 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:
Problem: I can’t leave kudos again.
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).
Problem: I don’t know what to say :(
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.
Problem: I’m embarrassed to leave a comment (what if I annoy the author?)
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.
Problem: I don’t know how to express myself/my experience
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!).
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??
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.
1). The Idea
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.
2). First Draft
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.
3). Dissecting the First Draft
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.
4). The Second Draft
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.
5). Draft Three
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:
6). Drafts Four and Five
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.
7). Drafts Seven Onward
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.
8). Editing and Proofing
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.
9). Betas
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.
10). Final Adjustments
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!
I never see anyone actually getting any significant donations on tumblr and to be honest, tumblr is the worst place to ask for assistance. Use it as your last resort, it frustrates me to no end seeing people begging for help, reblogging the same post over and over, the same types of posts over and over, to no avail, when people are waiting to help you on a different part of the web GO TO WHERE THE HELP IS. IF YOU WANT DIRECT ACTION TO WORK STOP WITH TUMBLR AND USE REDDIT.
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF SATAN REBLOG THIS SO WE CAN START REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF DONATION POSTS THAT GET STUCK FLOATING AROUND THIS WEBSITE
This post has been circulating a bit and I’ve even gotten it messaged and submitted to me several times after I needed help, and I feel like it needs to be addressed. Almost none of these are of any use to people who need emergency funds. Here’s a rundown of all of the subs listed, just so people know:
r/legaladvice - Advice sub, moderated by cops.
r/RandomKindness - Strict rules against monetary requests.
r/Charity - Seems okay but doesn’t allow the use of paypal or cashapp.
r/care - Doesn’t have clear rules. Not very active.
r/Random_Acts_Of_Pizza - Very cool and helpful, but only for pizza. No requests for anything else. Must be 18+.
r/Food_Pantry - Great for anyone who needs groceries. No monetary requests.
r/RandomActsOfChristmas - Only requests allowed are for gifts to children under 17. Sub also will not generally accept users who are active in other charity subs.
r/RandomActsOfPetFood - No monetary requests.
r/almosthomeless - An advice sub, strict rules against monetary requests. Good for finding general resources.
r/homeless - Absolutely no crowdfunding or monetary requests. Mostly a place for homeless folks or the previously homeless to talk.
r/freelance - A place to TALK about doing freelance work. Absolutely no self promotion, advertising your skills, or requests of any kind.
r/povertyfinance - Full of useful advice. Does not allow requests or offers for donations.
r/thrifty - Not very active. Mostly “how to make extra money” type blog posts from other sites.
r/borrow - For borrowing money, as in you need to pay it back. Requires you to have a 1000 karma score and share photo ID etc for lender’s security.
r/gofundme - Only for Gofundme and other crowdfunding site links (not for paypal, cashapp, etc)
r/depression - Some advice about dealing with depression, mostly used as a place to vent. Could potentially be very very triggering for some.
r/familysupport - A locked, invite only sub.
r/transitions - For temporary housing. Pretty much completely inactive with only one post in the past year.
Almost all of these subs have requirements on how long your account needs to be active (anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months, usually 90 days) and many of them also have karma requirements (you need to have made comments on Reddit that gained a certain number of upvotes) - meaning most of them are 100% useless for emergency funds.
I don’t mean any offense but - “I’ve never seen anyone actually getting any significant donations on tumblr and to be honest, tumblr is the worst place to ask for assistance” - OP must live under a rock. I’ve seen people able to pay their rent, feed their families for the month, cover emergency medical/vet bills and more because of the kindness of strangers on tumblr. I’ve seen people raise literal thousands of dollars. Is it easy? No. Does it happen to everyone? No. But I have a miniscule number of followers (I mean tiny) and when I made a post about needing help I got a surprising amount of random kindness in a very short span of time. I’m sure OP’s heart was in the right place while making this post, but they’re literally just wrong. Go to these subs if you need advice or resources, but you won’t find magic money flying around Reddit any more than you will on tumblr. I’d argue you’ll probably find less.
Anyways, I run a blog specifically for charity posts over at @boostsignal if any of you need help getting traction on your donation posts, and I’m also still in a bad rut myself, if anyone wants to spare a dollar to paypal.me/ohwolves :-) Please educate yourselves before sending things like this to people who are desperate for help.