forum Virtual Creative Writing Club, anyone?

Started July 06, 2019 by @ninja_violinist

tune

oh yeah, look at that inspiration come and go
this one i wrote literally like
three seconds ago
it ends badly because i suddenly lost all my inspiration but here we are:
~
elara was sitting on the crinkly paper lying on the bed in the examination room, waiting for doctor faust to arrive. in the meanwhile, she surfed twitter, reading through some old tweets from her favorite person - qing han, who went by the name qinni. her real name was no secret, although it wasn’t mentioned very often, just like the fact that she had a brother, ze han. it was such a pity that qing had passed away from stage four fibrosis sarcoma in her sleep on february 8th. although, to this day qing was still her biggest inspiration. she had fought so hard, to the very end, even when she knew she wouldn’t make it. just like me, elara thought to herself. strange how we find ourselves in similar situations, huh?

it was then that dr faust made his appearance. “i hope i didn’t keep you waiting too long. elara, right? hi, i’m doctor faust,” he said as he smiled at her.

his excuse for always making sure of her name was that he had a bad memory and a lot of patients. elara didn’t quite believe him, but it was okay. at least he got her name right every time. “yeah…” she said in response. “so… this heart condition i have now- is it bad? i haven’t done much research on it, considering i’m more likely to be told that it’s fatal when it isn’t if i just do a simple google search…”

dr faust nodded in understanding. “this isn’t as serious as your more concerning medical issue, although it should be kept in mind. it’s called cardiomyopathy, as you already know and it is a disease of the heart muscle. cardiomyopathy means that your heart has trouble delivering blodd to your body, and this can lead to heart failure. so yes, this can be serious in some cases, but since this is only a new symptom of friedreich’s ataxia, we shouldn’t worry too much about it now,” he explained.

elara stayed silent as she took in the new information. so, her heart was having problems now, was it? this was fun, she just loved hearing about new symptoms of her illness. “is there anything we can do to treat it?” she asked.

“yes, we’ll put you on an anticoagulant to help for now, please don’t hesitate to contact me if your cardiomyopathy gets worse,” dr faust answersed. “i’ll write up a prescription for you when we’re done with this session.”

“…okay,” elara said. it wasn’t as if she wasn’t on only about fifty different medications at the moment. they were mostly to control the pain and other problems stemming from that one lump in the middle of her body that the doctors weren’t sure what it was.

“also, is that lump giving you any more trouble recently?” dr faust asked.

what great timing, elara thought. “nothing that isn’t already normal at this point,” she answered in a bland voice. this was the same old, same old. nothing much changed at these appointments. really, they were just checkups. she never really expected anything new, to be honest.

“good, good,” doctor faust remarked absentmindedly as he started scribbling down elara’s prescription for aspirin, which happened to be a coagulant. when he finished, he handed the piece of paper to her and before sending her off he said, “well, times up so i’ll see you… in about a month or so? yeah?”

“yeah… a month…” elara echoed, taking the prescription. she got up to leave, not really thinking much about the situation. it seemed she was in that state of being where she couldn’t really process anything, nor could she really say much either. how strange… she thought to herself. maybe i should ask dr faust about that later…

after elara had gotten her prescription, she headed home. it was a long day, and she just wanted to sleep. it seemed that was all she really wanted, nowadays. everything was exhausting, and if she could have fallen asleep the moment she walked into her house, she would’ve, except she didn’t want to hit her head on the hard, wooden floor. so she forced herself to keep going until she finally made it to her bead and collapsed onto it face-first. “ugh…” she moaned into the mattress, before passing out.

{this seems like a good ending to this drabble- i think i’ll end it here}

welp, i kinda
did a lil thing about when she was first diagnosed
did a ton of research on this and still have so many unanswered questions sjklkjsdf
but i hope its okay

"We think you might have Friedriech's Ataxia," her doctor explained, searching Elara's face for any distress.

For the longest time, Elara couldn't move. She couldn't speak, she couldn't move, and she couldn't think. Friedriech's Ataxia… isn't that a degenerative disease? she wondered. I'm going to die, she realised, but it was all so hard to process and sudden that she didn't think she had fully processed everything yet. It was as if she was living in a dream, a bad dream. A nightmare, perhaps. It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, she repeated to herself over and over inside her head. Just a bad dream, just a bad dream…

After the fear had passed, the anger set in. Why has life done this to me? Why me, of all people? …why me? she asked herself over and over again. Speaking for the first time since she'd been diagnosed, Elara asked, "Why me? Why now?" She fell silent but quickly added, "…what can I do about it? What can we do about it? Are there any potential treatments? What can I expect in the future?"

Her doctor, Imogene Lake was bombarded with questions, but she wasn't surprised. This wasn't the first time she had to deliver news of a terminal illness to a patient. They tended to ask a lot of questions, in her experience. Skipping over the first few questions, since she didn't have an answer to them, Dr. Lake started pulling answers from her medical knowledge database.

"Well," Dr. Lake began. "As you know, you have scoliosis, but the curvature is very small so we won't correct it now, but if it does get worse, we will consider a brace to correct it. Physical and occupational therapy is a general treatment, as Friedreich's ataxia is a disorder that causes nerve cells in your brain to deteriorate over time, which may cause difficulty walking, a loss of sensation in the arms and legs, and impaired speech."

She paused here, trying to find the right words to answer Elara's final question. How do I tell my patient that she's going to deteriorate, slowly or quickly, and that it will only get worse from here on out? she asked herself. How do I comfort her when I'm so bad at confronting my own feelings? Dr. Lake blinked, bringing herself back to the real world. She'd just have to figure it out along the way.

"Friedreich's Ataxia is a degenerative disease, so things will only get worse from here on out," Dr. Lake started off, her voice clearly unconfident. "However, given that it took this long for you to get diagnosed, I think you should have a good couple years left."

What a pity that she'll have to die so young, Dr. Lake thought, feeling sorry for Elara. She's still so young and her life has barely started…

~timeskip~

It was several hours later- seven hours, thirty three minutes and fifty two seconds to be exact- that Elara finally processed her fate. She was gonna die. "I- I don't wanna die…" she whispered to herself. Knowing that her followers could have some advice for her, she turned to Twitter for help in her scary diagnosis.

artofjupiter
@artofjupiter
I've been pretty straightforward with all my aches and pains these last few months, as my longer time followers might be aware. You might also notice that the way I'm typing is different. It's because I want to make this tweet as serious as I can. I've just recently been diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia and I don't wanna die. Uhh, that's about it, I think. Kinda can't get over it, it's taken me about seven and a half hours for the impending death sentence to set in. Doctor says I have about a couple years left, but she's still not sure. Ahhhh I can't stop thinking about this- anyways, just a quick update for you guys.

11:28pm · June 16th, 2012

aaaaaaand insert noises of "i don't know where to go after this so ima just end it here" aha

now. not to brag, but today is Saturday and I am here, actually doing the thing I said I would do on Saturdays! much wow

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight
I am 100% here for this Idea? sure, the execution is still a bit rough but the image and the intent and the vividness are all there. this idea of being sewn up of outside influences, especially of people we love? brilliant.
honestly, I think the biggest… not issue, per se, but the thing I see that most detracts from the message is probably the structure? We switch from point to point very rapidly - patchwork quilts, grandmother, material of quilts, best friend, mother, fictional characters, radio, father, less positive patches, sponge, stabbing your finger, then sailor mouth, yellow to sunshine, and finally the conclusion. it's a lot and I think it needs to be said, but I also think that a more thematic structure might make it easier to follow?
for example, one thing that came to mind (random idea alert) might be moving from the impersonal to the personal? like obviously it's all personal because it's you, but there's definitely degrees of how you relate to it (like the difference between an artist on the radio and your significant other). idk. that's probably a bad example. but the idea is to look at all the things that you want to say and see if there's a pattern or a way that they could match up and fit together more smoothly. and I think once the progression flows more naturally, things like phrasing and vocab and line breaks and whatever would shift to accommodate.
idk that I'm explaining this very well. because obviously it's not uncommon in your poetry to leap from image to image and usually I don't think it's an issue at all! I just think in this case, specifically, the points and images you use can feel a bit disjointed, so the poem sometimes has this illusion of backtracking. when you're using a similar image to make a different point, or making a similar point with a different image, but it's not happening in the same space within the poem.
but yeah. it's all very subjective, of course, so as ever this is ultimately all up to you. like I said, I really appreciate the Idea, and I'm really glad you shared it!

@the-ghost-witch-izzy
hey, lots from you this week!! I really appreciate it and I've definitely read through all of them, but for the sake of not making this post the length of my senior thesis, I'm not going to go through them one by one if that's alright? I have some feedback on stuff I've noticed in your writing across the board, as well as a bit on romance because you mentioned you were looking into it. if you'd like me to look at a specific one in-depth, I'd obviously also be down for that if you let me know.

stuff I admire a lot about your writing:
-characterisation! I say this every time, but you have a very strong grasp of the kind of narration that makes a character feel distinct and unique and gives them a specific voice.
-you write such a variety of different concepts and scenarios, which I think is really crucial. working with different forms like first person, journals, third person, etc. means you're very flexible when it comes to picking the most effective way for a story to be told

stuff I'd recommend looking into:
-head-hopping. It's a very common struggle, but sometimes when you write in third person, it's unclear which of the characters we're following. because we get an insight into all kinds of information that a limited narrator wouldn't have access to, but it's not written from a more distant omniscient point of view. basically I'd be very careful about nailing down from whose perspective you're writing and what kind of information (personal thoughts and feelings of other characters especially) they'd logistically have access to.
-pacing. this is just something that comes with practice, I think, but good pacing includes figuring out when to slow a scene down and draw it out, and when to summarise relevant information so we can keep momentum.

and now, you mentioned that you wanted some feedback on how to write romance?
thing is. I'm like… supremely unhelpful in this area, because it's something I've avoided like the plague in my own writing and which I'm very particular about in the fiction I read. so I have ~Standards~ which are hard to define and probably not super rational, and which I doubt I could meet if I tried. but.

ninja's general romance rules of thumb: (not geared towards anything you wrote, this is just in general)

• healthy romantic relationships involve more than physical intimacy! if I need to see them kiss for me to realise that they're in love, I'm not buying it. (me, deliberately blasting The Mortal Instruments in a random writing critique? it's more likely than you think)
• pining, to me, is crucial if the relationship isn't established. but pining should also, again, involve more than just physical attraction - let them pine for the other person's personality.
• boundaries are Cool and Important and we should address them!! some people aren't immediately ok with being kissed or touched without warning. characters should be having these kinds of discussions before they start manhandling each other.
• I want characters to have ~chemistry~ but I am unable to fully identify what ~chemistry~ is. it's rather inconvenient.
• pls let them properly communicate with each other I'm begging you-
• intense possessiveness is a Major Red Flag
• relationships should definitely involve character development. but I get salty when a character's personality instantly completely changes once they're together with someone.

there are probably more, but these were the first to come to mind. what do y'all who actually write romance think? does anyone have their own set of ~Standards~?

this week's prompts:
[quick note that, in solidarity with everything that's been going on, I've decided that this week the prompts will all be the work of Black creators whom I admire and whose stuff I highly, highly recommend you guys check out for yourselves!]

music prompt:
"Telling Stories" by Tracy Chapman

image prompt: "Mwanamuziki (Musician)" by Mike Machira

word prompt: "In My Country" by Jackie Kay

walking by the waters
down where an honest river
shakes hands with the sea,
a woman passed round me
in a slow watchful circle,
as if I were a superstition;

or the worst dregs of her imagination,
so when she finally spoke
her words spliced into bars
of an old wheel. A segment of air.
Where do you come from?
'Here', I said, 'Here. These parts.'

ahhh tysm ninja !
not sure if i'll ever actually use those tips since i went back to avoiding romance after that but-
i'll try to keep those in mind aha

honestly the only tip I'm qualified to give is "avoid romance" haha

lol okay

t’sup, I went back and reread for you, Izzy, and I’m here to give you Unofficial and Unwarranted Love/Romance Writing Advice!

I’ve been in a couple relationships in my days, and I’ve also written a lot of Romance. I can sort of side with most of the stuff Ninja said, all things considered in the small bit of romance you gave us.

One thing I noticed, though, is the kiss. Dude, first kisses between couples are awkward. Especially if one, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if both don’t know how to give a smootch. Even if you’d liked the person for a really long time prior to the first kiss, you’re not gonna know for sure how it goes. It’s awkward and nerve-wracking. That’s ~Chemistry~. That’s what would help a reader understand that your charries are stupid teenagers that are just barely bumbling their way through life.

Also, no one opens up with a kiss. No one. Especially if they aren’t “official” yet or hadn’t prior talked about it. I know if I went in for a kiss while asking Nate out, we would be different for sure. I might not have even gotten the first date. I don’t like to think about it, though. Our first kiss was awkward enough :L

(moving on from that overshare)

As a demi-ace, I totally agree with the relationships are more than physical intimacy. Relationships, and love for that matter, is hard work. Even in the early stages of adolescence, preparing for a possible future in the relationship is really hard. Both teenagers have to be mature enough to understand the other’s boundaries, what they want in a relationship, and understand most importantly that being their own individual is key. The relationship should not get in the way of your future/dreams. That is absolutely, 100% something that I have established personally in my relationship, and honestly I’d love to see more of that in books.

And, dude, don’t be afraid to take your characters out on dates. Love isn’t dead in this generation. We have so many chances of using tech to find new places to go, new things to do together, and new places to see and explore. I personally love going out on dates, for it lets me connect and trust my lovely partner more. Knowing that we’re learning things casually about each other, without the stress of asking questions stripped from the internet take that genuine feeling of love away.

Ask if you got any questions, dawg. Sorry if mentions of my personal life made anyone uncomfortable :D

thankssssss
i'll probably ask you a buncha stuff if i ever decide to go back to romance

I don’t even know what this lump of words is but I haven’t posted in a while so have this ~ mess ~

I dance because I have to.
Dancing keeps me safe. If I walk they will catch me, if I run they will spot me. And so I dance. I dance because of other people. I dance because I have no choice. The world shouts music and I dance to it. And when I get so tired that I can’t move the music keeps going and I go with it. That is my last defense. If I stop the world will catch up and the world will hurt me again. There’s simply not enough left of me to hurt. The hurting will destroy what parts of me were spared. If the world catches me again, I will die.
I’m fighting to survive, it’s true, and yet dancing keeps the desperation out of the beauty.

I truly was beautiful once. I could stand still for hours and no one would see me because I was part of their beautiful world, a world that kept me safe.
Dancing is safe now. People don’t think I’m like them because I hold too much grace. I seem like a dream, and people love dreams. They watch what they’ve created, loving what I’ve become. They hurt me, and now I dance for them, because they’ve created what I am.
I don’t get love, but my dancing does. I don’t get to love what my dancing does.
My beauty has been marred.

My bloody feet step on their own now and I can only follow where they take me, because my body has learned to keep me safe through fire and flood. I’m not broken, not yet, because my feet are still moving and the music hasn’t stopped. It’s not pretty music, because it’s the music that scares me and hurts me and makes me keep on moving.
So I dance. I’m a very beautiful dancer.

Holy shit. That was amazing, Amber

Holy shit. That was amazing, Amber

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank you both!! It came from this random piece of music that shuffle picked out but I’m pretty happy with it :)

@amber_is_a_starchild
fjfhjsj this is so beautiful and winsome?? for some reason I'm getting a few Lindsey Stirling vibes (Lost Girls, perhaps?), idk. either way. I'm absolutely here for the concept and the execution - it's descriptive vivid and achingly sad, but also vague enough to wonder about the exact mechanics and whether it's maybe all just one big metaphor. it's in that time honoured tradition of "poetry but a little bit to the left" which I'm trash for

favourite line: "dancing keeps the desperation out of the beauty"

I couldn't think of much to criticise? So I'm going to be particularly nitpicky and wonder if the transition from "If I stop, the world will catch up and the world will hurt me again" to "There's simply not enough left of me to hurt" is as smooth as it could be? I feel like the content and tone shift quite remarkably there. so maybe a new paragraph would work better?
(wow. it somehow took me 4 sentences and 70 words to suggest adding a new paragraph break. you can tell I'm grasping at straws here)

thanks so much for sharing!! It's cool to hear from you again!

this week's prompts:

song: "Nina Cried Power" by Hozier

image: a tourist in front of the Erta Ale volcano in the Afar region of Ethiopia. photo by Eric Lafforgue [html has decided not to cooperate??? sorry about that. the link does take you to the picture in a new tab]

words: from "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[I'd highly recommend you look up the context for this poem as well if you're interested, because the writer's life and circumstances do add entirely new layers of interpretation.]

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

i am alive! for those of you wondering, at least. anyway, i've got a page or two of a quick writing drabble for y'all, this time it's more hopeful and sweet than. ykno. gutwrenching. might have more later, who knows

!!!! My babies!!!!
First of all, even if he was briefly mentioned, Rhydar was spot-on.
Second of all, Carsyn was also and I love them so much. Her and Lily are both Babey and Lily is such a protective 'sister' to Carsyn, I love it

hghdfhre carsyn was insta-adopted and lily would now do anything for her

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight hey not to be dramatic but I would die for carsyn
this was so soft. so pure. so wholesome. I did notice some slight sprinklings of angst in there but all in all the ratio of angst to softness was very very enjoyable.
I don't have that much to say, tbh? I noticed in one line it says "They kay" and I puzzled about it for a bit so I'm pretty sure it's meant to say "The key". Other than that, I think there's my usual general points in prose - looking out for "was" and "ing" constructions. Nothing stuck out to me per se, not negatively. and it's probably fine as is. but for example, in the paragraph that starts with "Carsyn’s room was in the servant's building", every sentence has "was" as its primary verb. which isn't inherently wrong at all! there's just the danger of it getting repetitive.
but yeah. this was very soft and just what I needed today. thanks so much for sharing!

prompt time!

music: Waloyo Yamoni by Christopher Tin (definitely recommend listening to the whole thing!!!)

image: "11" by Drew Z

word prompt: "KKS XI: 544" [alright. ok. listen. this is weird. but I genuinely don't know what the proper title is? it's a translation of a historical Japanese poem, and this site classified it that way. idk. there's probably a central archiving system that I'm too stupid to understand and too tired to look up. so yeah sorry about that]

Just as the summer insects
Heedlessly their bodies
Treat,
So I, in the flame of a single passion
Do…

carsyn is actually kayla's character, and both lily and I share the same sentiment you do

I wrote it late and night and didnt edit so that would explain the typos, and I'll have to go through and look at the was and ing issues. thanks!!

*by Kayla Crocs means me

gay gay gay gay gay

Should I post my gay?

yes