All Your Wips Are So Interesting! Please Add Me To Your Taglist :)))

Me decaying in bed writing my wip in front of the fan in summer, August.

thank you for the follow! just wanted to say hi since im a bit newer to the non fanfic side of writers on tumblr, and also that all your wips sound super interesting but especially yellow houses. in my brain it's giving little miss sunshine/moonrise kingdom/fantastic mr fox vibes but like slightly spookier

Thank you! That’s very kind of you.

Yellow Houses does have that type of whimsical vibe, so that’s a very cool connection. The project is currently shelved while I revise my current project, but I’ll get back to YH eventually. It was a neat little book. It’s been years though, so I don’t imagine I’ll be happy with it now.

Posting a link to my veryyy old wip intro for Yellow Houses below in case anyone is interested in reading what it’s about. It’s like a dark comedy/mystery set in a uni town with a bunch of art kids™

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Wip Intro: Yellow Houses

I should start by saying that this project is shelved. I’m currently too busy to devote it the time it deserves while juggling uni and anoth

I want to read this :oo

[TRANSCRIPT/TAGLIST AT END OF POST]

W.I.P. (re)Introduction:

TINY FLEA

[OLD INTRO]

GENRE/S: Speculative, horror, dystopian pandemic, soft elements of sci-fi & supernatural.

SETTING: The fictitous town of Tiny Flea, New South Wales, Australia; 2024.

AUDIENCE: Adult.

POV/TENSE: Third person limited (multi POV), past tense.

STATUS: First draft.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Horror themes (incl. psychological&body horror); violence and gore; bugs/parasites; murder/death; alcoholism/smoking; unreality; paranoia; religious themes; portrayals of bigoted beliefs; discussions/mentions of abuse; references to grooming & coercion. (Note: may be updated later).

CONCEPT: In the year 2024, a parasitic disease breaks out in Tiny Flea, a fictitious town in NSW, Australia. In an attempt to control the spread of the parasite, the town is closed off from the rest of the country. The story follows several perspectives, showcasing how each person deals with their newfound circumstance. Some band together in order to survive, to try and restore order and to discover the true nature of the parasite. Others, however, have more sinister intentions...

SYNOPSIS:

Returning to his hometown of Tiny Flea after serving a twelve-year prison sentence, thirty-six year old Gavin DeRossi is eager to redeem himself. However, any hopes Gavin had of going back to a normal life are dashed when he finds his hometown in the grips of a parasitic pandemic. Worse still, both of his parents, the people he considered to be his only allies left in the world, are dead—killed by the mysterious brain parasite which plagues the town.

Banding together with a ragtag group of survivors, Gavin is determined to save the town of Tiny Flea by learning more about the true nature of the parasite. The answers he finds, however, are far more bizarre than he ever could have anticipated...

TRANSCRIPT 1: In the eyes of Gavin DeRossi, Tiny Flea had been aptly named. Hovering somewhere between being classified as a town or a city, the place he had grown up was a blood-swollen parasite. It had latched onto the surface of his youth, sucking dry his aspirations and potential, leaving him nothing but a bloodless, lifeless host for the countless memories it had left him with. But oh, how he’d missed it.

TRANSCRIPT 2: Gregory wasn’t entirely sure what Graham’s condition was. Lying on his back on top of the bedcovers, he didn’t look obviously unwell. He wasn’t injured. He hadn’t thrown up. His face, however, was contorted in pain. He struggled and thrashed about in a pathetic sort of manner, like a weakened animal making a last-ditch effort to fight off its attackers. It was his eyes, however, which told Gregory that his father-in-law’s death was at hand. His eyes, normally a lively grey, were dull, staring lifelessly ahead at nothing. His body protested against his fate, but Gregory recognised that his eyes belonged to someone who knew that they were facing death head-on. He had seen those eyes once before.

TRANSCRIPT 3: He checked his wound one last time before going to sleep, and was satisfied. It no longer looked inflamed. Without a doubt, it would heal without much trouble at all. But the wound had already done its damage, regardless of whether it was infected or not, regardless of whether it healed cleanly or left a ragged scar. Unbeknownst to Craig, the larvae had already begun to move beneath the skin.

TAGLIST (ask to be added or removed): @aetherwrites @ljscrawls @chloeswords @avi-burton-writing @kitblogsthings @ravens-and-rivers @writerlywonders @alicewestwater @bookpacking @theelectricfactory @ryns-ramblings @alexsidereus @kowlazovdi @ezrathings @sunwornpages @bijouxs @pamsdrabbles @melpomeny @peepos-prose

Hi! I know Yellow Houses is on the back burner project wise, but damn if I'm not curious about it! Could you tell me a bit more about the university that Ellen attends? Anything really from how it looks to the types of classes they offer to they types of unhinged students you'd see milling about?

Happily! Thank you for your interest.

Yellow Houses takes place in a “college town”, where you only have a handful of locals. The university is an old rickety building shaped like a cylinder. It’s not aesthetic to say the least, blocky with lil AC units jutting from the windows, etc. The vast majority of the students are in the environmental resource management program.

Excerpt:

Half the town was made up of rich college kids who enjoyed nature photography, skiing, shot-gunning beers before noon. During the winters they jumped in the lake in negative forty weather. There would be an ambulance parked up the street if Henry Baker were to have a stroke again; ready to drag him out of the lake by his blued, freckly legs.

What's your short story writing process?? I love your works <3!

hello anon + thank you so much!! it mainly happens in three stages. i’ll try and break this up so that it’s easy to read, i’d also recommend checking out this post where i talked about my titling process as that’s something that also plays into the way i write my short story.

NOTE: i’m a pantser and i pants all my work. this process is super intuitive and tends to differ slightly for each story. for me i learn more about the story as i go and i’m just as in the dark as the characters.

1. THE IDEA. this comes from literally anywhere, and can be of any form: the main concept, theme, or aesthetic, maybe an integral image or aesthetic, maybe a specific title or lexicon. i’ll be exampling here to make it make more sense:

for saltwater, the story came first. i’d had this initial idea of a couple drowning in the ocean after one of them drives them both into it.

for it’s gene magic and/or turpentine, it was a vague concept that formed the idea although it has zero impact on the plot since i veered away from said concept.

for geometry of the holy moon (1 am), it was the aesthetic, the setting and the lexicon [specifically the word ”yearning”]. i was inspired by a conversation i had about desi mythology and singing to the moon.

for cranium, i wanted to write something in second-person and wrote the first line, ten followed though with my instinct.

for helium throat [although this doesn't really count considering that this is a revamp of an older story] it was the exploration of a character relationship + dynamic.

getting the idea for me is very intuitive, and it happens at a pace i can't fully keep up with so for most of the time when i get an idea i put it into my ideas’ doc and save it for later. i’ve talked about this before but having an ideas’ doc is a lifesaver because you will have inspiration ready at hand and it can be super organised too! [mine is divided into plot, pov, form, theme, character, titles, verbs, concepts, etc.]

2. THE FIRST LINE / PARAGRAPH. once i get the idea, and i choose to draft the story immediately, i write out the first excerpt / line. this can be a hit or miss. sometimes [like with helium throat and gene magic], the first paragraph lets me understand the voice + tone, and i’m able to draft the rest of the story in it. sometimes, like with gothm, the first line doesn't fully explain it [this may be because it isn't where the story’s meant to start, sometimes because it just feels wrong] and in this case i either scrap the paragraph and start over, or i keep it to add to the story at a later point. this first excerpt is important to me as it helps determine how the rest of the story’s going to go, helps me get a slightly better understanding of the aesthetic and the voice, and at how rich / sparse the prose style will be. [so for gothm, i knew it would be a very thick and dreamy prose style while with gene magic it would end up being short and punchy]

3. THE DRAFTING. this one’s going to get so vague, but basically i then just,,, draft the story! i always keep a notebox kind of thing for each one where i put in anything related to the story [so scene ideas, the wordbank, particular aesthetics, etc]. i refer to this as i go on drafting. when i’m at the beginning, i still don’t fully know what the story will be about but the more i draft the clearer this becomes. most of the time, the ending clicks for me first, and then the rest of the writing process involves me building the gaps between the current scene and the final one. sometimes, i’ll get a scene idea that will completely shift the story from the point it was going. a lot of times, i’d start adding in a specific detail which i’d end up making much more plot relevant later on. i always refer to my general ideas’ list while drafting as sometimes a random, seemingly unrelated concept or word can help me in uncovering the short story. my drafting process is hard to pin down as it’s rather different for each short story but it usually involves me stumbling around a bit and trying to make out more of the story until something clicks or becomes clear and i finish the rest with an exact understanding in mind.

and this is the gist of how i write the first drafts of my short stories! i’ve only just started editing them, and in that department i have no insight [and i’m suffering there too yikes]. but i hope this was able to help!!

Ask awayyy 💌

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I'll be like waw I just wrote a paragraph of such striking, such specific, juicy prose—then I'll read a sentence by Nabokov where he described a man running to catch the bus and I'll be crushed forever

Ok, but who else is drooling over this prose???

HOUSE PLANTS, CHAPTER 20: GLASS, DIVERTED

DISCLAIMER: this is my original writing, do not use / repurpose / plagiarise the excerpt in any form or way.

hello i was feeling very proud of this chapter— wrote this at one am, too! what a vibe!! who needs a stable sleep schedule anyway!!!— and wanted to share it + also you guys have never actually gotten a full chapter excerpt before so enjoy!! also this is one of the vignette chapters™ so that’s why it’s so short + is told in present tense and in the fictive present. i hope you like it as much as i do! [transcript + taglists under the cut]

Keep reading

Out of Context Line

Thanks @glasshouses-and-stones for tagging me! I've been busy with my studies, but writing. Planning on making an intro post about Liquor and Locusts when I have time, oddly it's gotten some interest after years in my asks. But for now here's a random excerpt from a chapter I'm revising this afternoon.

Tagging: @orphanheirs @tildeathiwillwrite @defeatistwriter, and anyone else who wants to join. Happy Saturday :)

Foreshadowing, agreed! But also—

Queue those random eating scenes and insufferable monologues. Can’t forget the matching character’s mood to an ornate object or cloud pattern.

I’ve come to realize that I’m an underwriter. Hbu?