Writing Tip O' The Day:
Don't fake something you can easily look up.  Let's say, the timeline for an abandoned property if you're including flashbacks or looks into the past.
The result of this: Lots of research and wracking of the brain.

*explodes*

A must have for writers

Just bought this a few days ago, a small late Christmas present to myself.  For writers, and any other type of artist out there, inspiration strikes randomly.  It could strike in the wee hours of the morning, waiting in line at a shopping center, working out, any where any time. So, a simple solution:  keep an inspiration journal with you.  Something small like mine could fit easily in a purse or bag, and be carried with you to your bedside at night.  I've already jotted down a few pages worth of ideas!  Got mine at Barnes and Noble.. they have such cool designed fancy small journals for the picking.  This one is Edgar Allan Poe inspired, complete with one of his famous awesome quotes.

Anyone else have something like this?  I recommend it. :D

What my writing skills have boiled down to.

Writing again after a too-long hiatus. These are the things I've discovered:

1. Not writing in a long time tends to dull the senses and makes your story have less personality. (Especially in comparison to rereading what you've written in the past.)
2. Writing the in-between parts of a story where nothing really happens, the "fluff" as I call it, is incredibly boring.
3. On a different note, writing a character of a different nationality is fun. Especially if you make her a bitch and get to Google French swear words.
4. Picking a job for your character is just as difficult as getting a job yourself.  Tedious stuff.  I'd say, of all the things I write about and end up changing, setting a job for my main character is the worst.  They're all probably screaming at me from their little universes that I'm the reason they're all currently unemployed.
5. (Not a new one to me) Having to constantly backspace to correct all the "colours" and "favourites" to exclude the "u's" that I've made the habit of using since highschool.
6. Reread #2.
7. Reread #4.

Hey, at least I'm finding the humour in it. (Ha! Look, a wild U appeared!) :B

Oh man.

What your character COULD look like

Since I'm sharing this everywhere else, mine as well share here, too.  I'm offering up a cheap price for commissions. Commissions of original characters.  Got a bit of spare cash on you and are a writer?  How would you like to see your character that's in your head, on the screen in front of you?  I can do that. (Well, I can try.)

Check out this lil guideline I set up, with three fictitious characters on it I made to show a bit of diversity of skill.  Well, the last on on the right is sort of based on my main character in Welcome to my world, he said. That's beside the point! Onwaaaarrrdd:

 

Clicketh for full details.

I can do three types, as advertised, but the most compelling is the coloured one. That one is fun to do. :)  The shading one is also pretty nice, I like how images look in full shade and black and white.  Payment is through my paypal.  Don't worry if you don't have one, its super easy to make. :3

If you're interested, email me at Octipuff(at)gmail(dot)com, and my paypal is AutumnHallow(at)AOL(dot)com.  Just replace them at's and dot's with real ones, got to avoid them phishies.

OR, if you want to just be a kind person, you can re-post this page and spread the (potential) wealth! <3

Settings... elude me.

There is something that I've been pondering these few weeks, about the story I am writing 'The Monocle'.  It is quite intimidating when you're considering writing a story set in a different place and a different era.  You have to make sure you don't modernize it, that you don't mix up the old with the new and confuse your readers.  You have to make sure you have the right realistic facts in place, and so on.  So, as I said, it's intimidating. And quite a dedication.  I can't say that I know enough about the era I want to write in (shortly before the turn of the century, Victorian Era), and I want the story to feel like you're reading into a world not just a town, so I need to know tons of facts.  (Am I rambling yet?)

So, I humored the idea of making it modern.  But then I fear that it would be too much like my other story '"Welcome to my world," he said.' (which needs a better working title, btw).  Y'know, modern day, angels and demons and stuff.  And, if I do that, the 'monocle' bit is going to have to change.

Then, it lead to another bit... combining the two stories?  Or, writing in an era that isn't quite real? Like Steampunk.  Has a lot of Victorian Era to it, but is still fantasy, which leaves room for liberties. I could do something like that.

Well, these are my musings. Perhaps stuff like this shouldn't be so publicized but if anyone has any complications similar they'd like to share, or an opinions, I'd love to hear them.

New Blog & What makes a story scary

First let me point out that I am no genius of html.  Mostly I just dabble in what's already on this blog until I see some drastic change, like my very curvy header for example.  So I went with it.  Honestly, I wanted something more along the lines of what Barbara Canepa has on her blog, but I'm too chicken shit to write her and ask her where she got her codes. o______o Alright! Changing the subject now.


I've discovered a sort of bandwagon going on over at a YA site, still learning about it but they have a lot to let you ponder about.  I read their guest author response for this Friday's question: What makes a story scary?  Mike Mullin had a fantastic answer, if you want to read the whole blog go here.

He talks about what I've been saying about movies for years.  It's not the things they tell you and show you that are scary, its what they don't.  Its seeing a dark room or hearing a noise, not seeing a monster clearly in the day.  A certain  movie comes to mind in terms of how it shouldn't be done: The Boogeyman.  I saw previews for it years ago and I thought it'd be really good.  The whole counting thing, the creepiness of what would happen when he reached five, shadows moving and closets.. creepy!  Until you saw the monster.  Totally ruined it.  It was a buzzkill, how they showed you the face of the terror that's been lurking in the shadows this whole time.  I believe a good example of describing what proper fear is in a definition would be the Dementors.  They're faceless, they will transform into whatever you fear the most.  I love the idea that fear is the unknown.  That it is when you are not presented with solid evidence of something scary, its when you're left to your own imagination.  Now that is scary!

 Alright, kinda creepy.

Lost it.

Okay, now I know I've trailed away from books, but a show just crossed my mind that used to scare me so bad!  I'd say the only Buffy episode that made me have nightmares.  Yes, they show their faces but they attacked another very realistic fear.  They were called The Gentlemen.  Whenever they arrived, to cut out your heart, they would take away your voice.  Do the whole thing with you silently screaming and strapped down.  I get a slight chill still thinking about it, very scary is the thought that you could be so close to help but are so utterly helpless.  That episode also had a good back story of the screaming princess.  Well-rounded tales like that really satisfy.

Nobody smiles that much unless they want to kill you.

Re-Inspired

  Writer's Block... sometimes I think it's a fictional character.  Like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Something that we so naively believe in without needing much proof or detail.  Then one day, we hear something that tests our belief in it.  After that, its difficult to go back to what you thought you knew.

So, what does this have to do with writer's block? Here's the thing.  Do you remember the first time you heard the phrase?  Unlikely, which is my point. Well, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just most of it's qualities I'd like to believe are fictional. You can get it, and it may linger, but here's the thing you didn't hear the first time around: you can fight back.  If you sit there and wait for inspiration to strike, then you may be waiting forever.  The thing you need to do is sit there in front of your computer and just force the words to come out.  Just jump back into the grind until it (inevitably) feels easier.  I remember the last time I did this, I wrote a few short paragraphs of a story about a sandwich. A SANDWICH.  And I actually really liked it.  Sometimes I think you'll surprise yourself with what you can write in random circumstances.

Now, I can't say exactly that it was writer's block that caused my sudden lack of updates.  Sometimes life gets in the way and that is exactly what mine had done. And I had to say goodbye a few days ago to my beloved laptop of nearly ten years, Batman.  Okay, well, I name a lot of things Batman. But, my lappie Batman was the most important.

When I was around 8 or 9, I had begun begging my father every holiday and birthday for a laptop.  I could do nothing but dream of sitting at the base of a tree under it's shade during a bright sunny day and just write. Write, write, write until the sun set.  I kept this up for years.  And years.  Finally, and I believe I was 13, I got a laptop for Christmas. And I had been writing on it ever since, up until a few nights ago. :/ Sucks to say goodbye to the fella, since its pretty much been with me half my writing obsession.

But a good thing is that I can combine, for the time being at least, my art with my writing on my main computer.  Reading through fellow bloggers tips n' tricks, I learned that some writing programs use a tablet (Wacom, like the one I draw with) function where you can write literally right on top of your writing with a red pen! How cool is that?  I've never been so excited for revisions. ;)

I have a lot to do. A lot of planning and plotting and sorting before I can start my first official draft.  This means, more blog posts.  This blog is a bit of my baby, I look at it as a portal out to all of you from the most fragile part of myself.  I feel a sense of direction and inspiration when I write here.