The Flower That Blooms In Adversity Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All. 

the suffering never ends

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir Characters: John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Carson Beckett, Ronon Dex Additional Tags: Fluff and Humor, Halloween Costumes, Dialogue Heavy Summary:

Elizabeth Weir knew she never should have let John Sheppard pick their costumes for the Halloween party. This story fulfills the Sparktober 2021 Bingo card prompts for “Off-Duty” and “Halloween.”

How to Get Motivated After a Long Break

I haven’t written in a while. I had some life stuff going on and I forgot how difficult it is to get back into writing after a long break. There’s a manuscript waiting for me to edit it and another story idea waiting for me to flesh it out. What’s the best way to approach this?

First, make a list

Start by getting everything in order. Grab your favorite notebook (or designate a new on to 2016) and starting listing what you want to work on this year. Is there anything you need to finish up? What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish by 2017? These plans don’t have to be anything grand, they can be small steps toward your goals. Be realistic and know your limits.

Focus on tying up loose ends

The first thing I’m going to do is finish up the novel I’m in the middle of editing. Do you best to finish projects first before moving on to something else. Engross yourself in that story again and try to continue where you left off. Try to reread what you already edited to familiarize yourself with where you were going. It feels great to finish things. It will get you motivated for your next project.

Get yourself excited again

It’s hard to work on something that doesn’t motivate you. If it’s been a while, try to figure out what excited you about that project in the first place. Reread old notes. Look over your story and focus on characters. Why do you like them? What motivated you to write this story? Try to tap back into your excitement and get back into the same mind frame you were in when you were writing.

Toss stale projects

Sometimes a story just doesn’t work. You lost your passion for it and you’re unable to get a back. The story feels old and it doesn’t speak to you anymore. That’s fine. Not everything is going to stick and you need to know what you should move on from. If you’ve stopped writing because you’re just not excited about your story, maybe it’s time to move on. However, if you’ve stopped writing because life got in the way, there’s a chance you can still motivate yourself to work on that story. The decision is up to you.

-Kris Noel

If Marvel movies were written by women

-Peggy Carter’s funeral would have been more than 3 minutes long.

-Tony Stark would have given a eulogy to Peggy, having grown up admiring her, his dad’s colleague of many years, a tremendously strong female role model (the woman who approved Pepper’s hire, of course).

-Steve Rogers would not have put the moves on Peggy’s niece within a day of burying Peggy.

-Black Widow would have gotten her own movie by now.

-A big part of Bucky’s backstory/flashbacks would have been told through Natasha’s viewpoint, her memories of either working with or against The Winter Soldier in Russia and the East. 

-Pepper Potts would have been in Civil War, speaking for herself.

-Wanda’s grief over her brother would still be very present.  Her feelings of loss and mourning would be front-and-center for her character.

-Black Panther’s woman bodyguard would have had more than one line. 

-Natasha would have told Steve that she was at Peggy’s funeral in part because she didn’t want him to be alone, but also in part to pay respects to the great Peggy Carter.

-There would be way more women in these movies.  There would be women of many ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and nationalities in these movies.  There would be many scenes of women talking to women.  There would be many more scenes of women talking.  And doing.  And feeling.  And being. 

When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the blond,” “the magician,” “the older woman,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene. 

If your only reason for referring to a character this way is to avoid using his or her name or a pronoun too much, don’t do it. You’re fixing a problem that actually isn’t one. Just go ahead and use the name or pronoun again. It’ll be good.

The conversation

This website goes into more detail about using multiple POVs.