I Don't Know Who Needs To Hear This, But 'perfect' Writing Is A Trap. All Writing Is Subjective. What

IT’S GENE MAGIC AND/OR TURPENTINE: A SHORT STORY

the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on and neither do we: surrealist version.

GENRE: surrealism.

POV & TENSE: third-person limited, present tense.

SETTING: an apartment in an unnamed suburb, present-day.

TONE: satirical, resentful, delirious, wistful.

STAGE: completed first draft, 1807 words.

LOGLINE: after being called back from college upon her family’s death, july contemplates her situation by villanizing and blaming her dead family.

LITERAL LOGLINE: life got you down? your entire family dead under mysterious circumstances? don’t worry, your friendly shoulder demon’s got your back, just smoke it out!

CHARACTERS:

july is a college student who was called back in the middle of her course— something that she worked super hard to get into— to go vacate her now-deceased family’s home. she’s angry about this, because she feels robbed of her dream. as time goes on and the story progresses, july continues to detach from her pain over her family’s death and reality itself, subsequently leading to her unravelling.

hale is the shoulder demon. they’re a fun and sarcastic person, and secretly worries for july and her increasing detachedness. nobody knows why they’re here, what they’re doing, or even if they’re real in the first place.

WHAT GOES DOWN:

july is called back from college to attend to her now empty home following the sudden death of her family— mother, sister, grandmother— under mysterious circumstances. this is a source of dual emotions for july. on one hand, she’s grieving for them immensely, and this is signified through the various memories she has of them + her relationships with each member. on the other hand, she’s extremely annoyed by this, because she knew they would die together eventually— it’s implied to be something that runs in the family, and had happened to her father before— and the timing inconvenienced her.

july is,,,, pretty unhinged. a lot of surreal things happen in the story and it’s difficult to distinguish reality from her mind. she also has a friend in hale, the demon on her shoulder. the story chronicles the short period of time she spends in her home, trying to collect her thoughts and prepare for her own inevitable death.

EXCERPTS:

this is a very short story so i don’t want to share much, but here’s one little peek into the tone + style of the prose.

July scoffs again, but now it’s silent and nobody hears. The will features meaningless drabble, small talk and verbiage typical for her mother, and she’s tempted to rip it and swallow the pieces whole. [Why, she can’t say. There’s an odd craving in every object and she’s the only one who makes herself tick.] She concludes that the house is now her’s. How wonderful. Of course July would have traded her college room for a nowhere house any fucking day.

SPARE THOUGHTS:

this is the weirdest thing i’ve written. it’s high-key surrealism and plays with form and character a lot. july is an extremely unreliable narrator. there’s a lot of funky concepts—every speaker’s dialogue is formatted differently, she’s spying on her neighbours, there’s a demon on her shoulder— and while it’s been hard threading them in coherently and fluidly, i’ve never had more fun drafting before. it’s also one of my best short story titles, hands down. feel free to ask anything about this story because there’s so much meta i can get into. [general taglist under the cut]

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Ecstatic to say that I’m in that particular writing flow state again. You know which I mean—the one where time and space do not exist.

student writeblrs! what are your writing plans/goals for the rest of your break? my plan is to finish drafting/editing a climate change short story and submit it to some literary magazines and hopefully, hopefullyyyy.. draft chapter eight of my lit-fic novel which keeps. not. working. feel free to use this post for accountability! <33

So I edited another chapter of my wip that burned the heart out of me. Decided to do some sketches this morning of a cafe in Project Istanbul, some tea and mosaics. It was kinda therapeutic.

Novel Moodboard: Neon Chatroom.

A little preview of a moodboard for my shelved novel, Yellow Houses. Although this project is now shelved I'll be making an intro for it soon so stay tuned!

This sounds amazinggg, I would 100% watch :)

Church Mud - The Netflix Series

thank you @radwrites​ for the template!

Having both finally escaped the cult they were born in - and reunited after four years - twins Dorothy and Felix embrace their newfound freedom, navigate their trauma, and figure out who they are.

Y’all I cannot express how much this fake Netflix series lives! in my head! rent free! I think this story would be so cool as a series and if I weren’t a little terrified of screenwriting, I would 100% play with that as a form alongside the novel. 

The vibes of this came out a lot grittier than I imagine the story? That element is 100% there, but there’s also a very hazy, dreamy element to the story and I think it’d be very interesting to see how those intersect visually. My biggest fantasy for CM as a series is that it’d look like it was actually shot in the 80s and have an all 80s soundtrack (although there are some contemporary gems I’d be sad to cut out the OST). The only comparison I can really draw is Twin Peaks (which I’ve only seen like five episodes of oop) - but not in terms of content at all, rather the hazy vibe of floating between different stories with this growing unease and intensity - and perhaps some of the surreal elements too. Also this one shot is Major CM Vibes:

This isn’t structured exactly like the book - episode 2, Cadmium Yellow, is a combination of chapters 2-3 and also chapter 8, which is the first chapter in Dorothy’s POV. Because of the nature of writing split POV the split between Felix and Dorothy is obviously much “sharper”, but a TV series format would allow me to jump between them in one episode and still have clarity.

I also love the idea of a series for this story because it’d allow the POVs of the non-POV main characters (Beau, Jolie, Isaias) to also be included - hence the episode Pistachio Beach, which would be Beau centric and we’d actually get to directly see his backstory. As much as I love the twins as POVs and the story very much revolves around them, I’m definitely interested in the extra depth the story could get in this form. There are a lot of times when I wish I could add a chapter in Beau or Isaias’ POV but the idea of more than two POV characters is too much to handle lmao

I had so much fun with this, and I would 100% do another for episodes 6-10 when I write more content (ah discovery writer things)! I see my stories as movies playing out in my head and if anyone else does that you’ll know that not everything can be translated into words. So it’s really cool for me to imagine my stories in this format, because in a sense it’s the “truest” to what I see in my head.

Episodes 1-5

Everything Holy

Four years after his twin sister escaped the Christian cult they grew up in, nothing about Felix’s existence has changed. This is why he has to escape too.

Cadmium Yellow

Dorothy’s roommate, Jolie, returns to the city and brings all their repressed baggage with her. Felix struggles to adapt - but a new friend is eager to show him all of San Francisco’s colors.

Pistachio Beach 

Beau doesn’t sleep well. Troubled over a future he doesn’t know and a past he doesn’t understand, he has two coping mechanisms: call Felix; drive to the beach.

Cult Characteristics

The growing number of cults scattered across California is a growing cause for concern. When they hide in plain sight, it is crucial to know the red flags.

Revelations, Revelations

Felix hasn’t spoken to God in a month. Although he doesn’t find Him at the local Church, he does find someone with the same problem. Jolie has a proposal for Dorothy.

The next novel update should be coming soon! My goal is January 11th, because that’s Felix’s and Dorothy’s birthday so we have to celebrate ofc

church mud taglist - @kitblogsthings​​ / @bijouxs​​ / @ezrathings​​ / @isherwoodj​​ / @bookpacking​​ / @alicewestwater​​ / @svpphicwrites​​ / @avi-burton-writing​​ / @aetherwrites​​ / @radiomacbeth​​ / @sunwornpages​​ / @coffeeandcalligraphy​​ / @ladywithalamp​​ / @wolf-oak​​ / @keira-is-writing​​ / @jennawritesstories​​ / @cream-and-tea​​ / @bauliya​​ / @themillionthdraft​​ / @you-are-my-neverland​​ / @lasbrumas​​ / @occiidens​​ / @shaelinwrites​​ / @wri-tten​​ / @catgirlnya​​ / @nbnoyas​ / @oceancold​ / @august-iswriting​ / @write-like-babs​ / @hekat-ie​

This thunderstorm cured my writing burnout.

June 3, 1938 Virginia Woolf, “A Writer’s Diary” (1918 - 1941) originally published: 1953

These all sound amazing and I'm in loveeee with the titles you chose :ooo

So let’s talk about poems | Poetry Update #2

Hello!! I have successfully finished (1) semester in a poetry stream and am officially calling myself a ~poet, so let’s chat about some of the poems I’ve written recently! TW: A lot of my poems deal with difficult subject matter, such as suicide, animal abuse, death, sexism, murder, and captivity, so please tread with caution if these are sensitive topics for you.

1. the birds

About: After a woman’s suicide, birds flood from her neck.

I wrote this poem for a class, where our prof gave us 20 different prompts, and each line of the poem had to follow each prompt. In that order. You can read the prompts HERE if you’re so inclined to actually do this! This poem was originally called “Blessing of the Bird”, but in revisions, got knocked down to “the birds”. I actually prefer the original for its imagery, but it overall, was a horrific poem lol, and this version is certainly much better! It is a bit quirkier than the original, but I do like it!

Publication status: Currently seeking

2. TRANSCRIPT: orca’s coffin birth kills a man (2002)

About: An orca whale posthumously testifies on a recorded transcript, defending her innocence in the accidental killing of a man after she gave a coffin birth.

I also wrote this for my poetry class, and I really went wild on the concept! This poem arose quite bizarrely, but it is probably my favourite poem I’ve written to date. It is an incredibly sad, and I would say, disturbing poem, but it was fascinating writing a speaker who can’t possibly exist, but who feels so real at the same time. This poem was difficult because of the content, but I wrote it quickly because I was on a deadline. I think this poem has some of my favourite line breaks from my collection of work.

Publication status: Currently seeking

3. the drive-up microphone at burger king

About: A group of friends orders food at an underwater Burger King drive-thru with the body of a person they’ve (sort of?) murdered in the backseat.

This poem is so weird. :) I don’t even know what this poem is, but I love it. :) I wrote this in a night for a magazine’s very fast approaching deadline. I’m so happy I had that opportunity because this poem was born, and it’s so delightfully strange. I can’t wait for everyone to be able to read it!

Publication status: This poem is forthcoming in the next issue of carte blanche (I am SO excited and grateful)! Will post on here when it drops.

4. my body in the mirror of a gas station water bottle

About: A speaker watches her body in the reflection of a gas station mirror as it is scrutinized by men.

I started this poem back in July but didn’t finish it until November or so. It’s more lyrical in style, which is interesting to compare to my other work!

Publication status: Currently seeking

5. The last time I screamed I said water

About: A woman is held captive and bonds with her captor by eating salt.

I wrote this poem in 5-minutes in a desperate break from a really… boring take-home exam lol. It’s obviously very dark in content, but focuses really on this “salt ritual”, and is actually the name of the chapbook I am working on! This chapbook contains all of the poems I’ve written recently, including ones that have been published (at Grain and Augur ! <3) which means it’s very chaotic and varied but that’s how I roll! This poem actually stemmed from the title, which I’d had lying around in a document for a few weeks, and easily materialized from there!

6. we drink.

About: Champagne, the patriarchy, some murder & cannibalism vibes

I truly don’t know what this poem is about! But I wrote it tonight in 5-minute fashion like I apparently now do with poems! :) I actually really like it and wish I could explain what it is actually about but I :) do not know :) ! It’s very short, my shortest poem yet, but I really love her! Definitely works particularly with “the last time I screamed” !

Publication status: Currently seeking

That’s it for this update! When I write more poems, I will be back!

–Rachel

yess a bonus vid! 🤩🤩 my question is, as a discovery writer, what signals to you that a chapter isn't working? And do you rework them, store away in a doc--or scrap entirely? much luv, hope you're staying safe :)

Q&A - ask me questions!

Helloooo! I thought I’d do an end of year writing Q&A for a bonus vid in my YouTube channel. If anyone has questions, leave them as a reply on this post or send me an ask (make sure to indicate it’s for the Q&A)!