Tolstoy, Vladimir Nabokov (trans. Dmitri Nabokov)

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.

the painter’s mistress

The oak cottage has grown mushy in the rain, susceptible to mold.

The boggy air - a warm, wet rag, plugs my mouth 

as I sit and snap split peas into a Blue Black bowl, nostrils blaring 

at the stink of rotting leaves.

My hunched figure is molded from swirls of oil, greasy smears 

of Yellow Ocher, Permanent Mauve;

colors you’d so thoughtfully selected, seen in me.

Now, under coats of glaze, spotty like a bride’s moth-eaten veil,

I’m just a mute, colorless oval to you.

It’s needless to hide my bloated, decaying face;

you turned away before I could.

dreamy/physcedelic atmospheres, descriptions of cake omg, unlikeable narrators, flowery af prose, sexy skies, gritty alleyways with prowling raccoons, platonic love, sisterhood, isolated individuals who ramble about vague philosphical concepts and art,,,,,

attention writers

i’m very curious about this so reblog in the tags with the recurring things in your wips that make up your Writer Brand™

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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i’ve been a big fan of your work and always keep an eye out for your posts, very fascinating person you are, keep it up!

Thank you! This is incredibly kind.

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!

i don't know who needs to hear this, but 'perfect' writing is a trap. all writing is subjective. what we create today, we may see as flawed tomorrow. what we see as flawed today, we may see as perfect tomorrow.

writing is the act of transmuting the human experience through words. and the human experience? it's a messy, chaotic thing filled with rough edges and uneven lines and mistakes and failures. you can erase all of that. you can. but then you're left with something sterile and artificial. you've effectively squeezed the soul out of your work, and i can think of nothing less appealing.

this isn't to say don't edit your work. please do. but keep it within reason, and make sure you're moving forward and not backward. momentum is key.

don't sit on an idea for three decades waiting for that dance with inspiration, or that dynamite first line, or that eureka plot twist, or the words to flow like magic from your fingertips. because it won't happen. and if it does, it'll strike like lightning and disappear twice as fast. the only surefire way to finish a story is to start.

so write. for the love of god, just write.

along the way, things will fall in line. i promise. and if they don't? then they already have. the magic of art is that everything we create is a snapshot of who we are at the time of creation. it's like a time capsule of human experience, and there's a beauty in that authenticity-- in the mistakes we make and the wrong turns we take. don't run from them. embrace them.

let their lessons flow through you and channel them into something tangible. if it's hard, then start with one word and keep going. don't erase it. don't start over. don't let yourself believe your story isn't worth telling because if you don't tell it, then no one else will. and that'd be a damn shame.

so one word a day. one sentence a week.

whatever it takes.

it might be tough letting go of the idea of perfect. silencing your inner editor. your inner critic. it might be tough realizing that your story will never meet your standards, not completely, but it won't be half as tough as looking back and wondering where all the days, weeks, and years went; that in the pursuit of perfection, you forgot to ever write a story at all.

so leave perfect behind. readers don't want it. why would they? they can't possibly relate to perfect-- none of us can.

instead, give readers a window to your imagination, stormclouds and all. you'll be surprised by how many stick around for the rain, how many relish the sound of your thunder, and how many cherish the worlds that only you could bring to life.

SPACEMAN SPACEMAN WHAT DO YOU PLAN ON DOING NOW?

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collection of stolen books

    When I stole my first book, I was still a stubborn, puffy-haired little girl with knobbly knees and a deadened stare. It wasn't difficult or particularly dangerous, as I simply borrowed it from the library one day, with the intent to never return it.

     I relished the buzz of peeling the transparent tape down the spine, flicking off the bar code on the right-hand corner. I recall pulling out the slip of paper pocketed inside to skim through the stack of names, as I pictured who had once borrowed it. How they'd sat spraying ketchup on its pages, maybe wiping a stray booger on there as well. Something waxy was stuck between page forty-four and forty-five, that red stuff wrapped around cheese wheel snacks packed in children's school lunches. I remember it all so well. 

    I hate consumerism, in fact it’s my reasoning for stealing as often as I do, so one might question why I once stole from a library. There is no excusable answer, it’s simply what my roots are. The book in question still remains on my shelf, crouched between hardcovers wearing crisp, matte jackets, like an abused child. It smells of sweat, love and apples; a distinct, addictive scent that will draw you to it and make you feel like some sort of pervert. The rest of my collection, still ‘hot off the press’, reflective headers blaring, New York Times Bestseller,  have no such detail of warm, of endearment. 

Note: something fictional I wrote tonight while bored. :p

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