I Still Believe That I Can Hear The Ocean When I Put A Seashell To My Ear. I Still Believe That The Moon

small joys

sitting in the sun

reading a book so good you can’t put it down

warm blankets

drinking hot chocolate on cold stormy day

lying in bed while it rains outside

starting a new journal

ice cream

going on long walks while you listen to music

scented candles

long car drives

sitting on the beach, watching the ocean 

Some aesthetic playlists for writing

For when you’re in an 80s teen montage

For when you’re in a jazz coffee shop in NYC

For when you’re on a quest to find the fae queen

For when you’re in a teen road-trip scene

For when you’re chilling on a spaceship hopping from planet to planet

For when you’re running along the roofs of renaissance Italy

For when you’re a farmhand taking his lunch break in the meadow 

For when you’re a high end classy ass art thief

For when you’re kicking butt with the beauty and sass of a k-pop star

For when you’re attending a coronation ball for the crown prince 

For when you’re going on an adventure

For when you and your best friends are trying to figure out life together

let me know if you want me to add more!!!

reeeeally been learning a lot about myself lately like oh. my life is actually just beginning

sun

tea, coffee

"what's your dream job??" Uhh to have 17 weird little hobbies that I don't have to be good at and hang out with friends. I get money via being the world's specialist little princess

Adding small moments of existence to your writing 

What I’m talking about is proof of life outside your characters in your world. Not in the sense of ‘talking to the cashier at the checkout’, but things like:

Graffiti etched into a desk your character sits in during an exam

Realising that someone has come along and arranged the cans on the shelf so the labels say something stupid

Dirty vans that have ‘wash me’ written in the dried mud

A coin that has been stuck into a piece of gum on a handrail

Little things that show the world still goes on despite whatever is happening to the characters. 

This helps make the world a world, not just a setting. There are other people with other lives doing stupid, funny, dangerous, things that in no way impact the protagonist. You don’t have to dwell on them, they can only be mentioned briefly in passing during the set up of a scene, but it will help create life within the background of the story and give the characters a chance to briefly think about something other than themselves/their situation.

god fucking forbid any of you are ever stateless homeless refugees struggling to communicate with strangers in a foreign language on a platform youve never heard of before, having to depend on the goodwill of a bunch of ignorant and callous people

i swear it is physically impossible for me to read a mary oliver quote without immediately having to hold back tears. "you do not have to be good" and "someone i loved once gave me a box of darkness. it took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift" and "i don't want to end up having simply visited this world" and "to love what is mortal against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go" and "it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world" and oh fuck it's happening again