Tag: future writing reference

writerlyn:

The most important writing lesson I ever learned was not in a screenwriting class, but a fiction class.

This was senior year of college.  Most of us had already been accepted into grad school of some sort. We felt powerful, we felt talented, and most of all, we felt artistic.

It was the advanced fiction workshop, and we did an entire round of workshops with everyone’s best stories, their most advanced work, their most polished pieces. It was very technical and, most of all, very artistic.

IE: They were boring pieces of pretentious crap.

Now the teacher was either a genius OR was tired of our shit, and decided to give us a challenge.  Flash fiction, he said. Write something as quickly as possible.  Make it stupid.  Make it not mean a thing, just be a quick little blast of words. 

And, of course, we all got stupid.  Little one and two pages of prose without the barriers that it must be good. Little flashes of characters, little bits of scenarios.

And they were electric.  All of them. So interesting, so vivid, not held back by the need to write important things or artistic things. 

One sticks in my mind even today.  The guys original piece was a thinky, thoughtful piece relating the breaking up of threesomes to volcanoes and uncontrolled eruptions that was just annoying to read. But his flash fiction was this three page bit about a homeless man who stole a truck full of coca cola and had to bribe people to drink the soda so he could return the cans to recycling so he could afford one night with the prostitute he loved.

It was funny, it was heartfelt, and it was so, so, so well written.

And just that one little bit of advice, the write something short and stupid, changed a ton of people’s writing styles for the better.

It was amazing. So go.  Go write something small.  Go write something that’s not artistic.  Go write something stupid. Go have fun.

bluandorange:

sonickitty:

bluandorange:

you know what soulmate aus need? 

more shitty consequences

@krebkrebkreb and I came up with some fun ones, feel free to steal them for your own usage

so basically, in this bullshit universe, skin to skin contact with your soulmate has real and lasting side-effects. While you’re touching, you can get bits and pieces of the other person’s thoughts and feelings, the connection growing stronger the longer the contact lasts. When touching during sleep, you can share dreams! The effect lingers for a few minutes after contact ends. It’s pretty cool, right?

well it is until you spend more than a month without skin contact with your soulmate. Then shit starts to suck for you. ‘Lovesickness’ as its called, has four distinct phases;

phase 1 (roughly a month without physical contact)

  • mild headaches
  • fatigue
  • heavy limbs
  • light sensitivity
  • ‘skin hunger’; general longing for skin-to-skin contact
  • commonly mistaken for hangovers/beginning of a flu

phase 2 (roughly a week following symptoms of phase 1)

  • muscle and joint aches, primarily in the hands
  • tingling/itching sensation, also primarily in the hands, especially the palms
  • pain when making fists/flexing or curling fingers
  • dry mouth

phase 3 (roughly two weeks following symtpoms of phase 2

  • tunnel vision
  • extreme hot/cold flashes
  • fainting
  • nausea/virtigo

phase 4 (roughly one week following symptoms of phase 3)

  • general return to normal, if usually depressed
  • overall numb feeling
  • emotional malaise
  • lingering skin hunger

If at any point, you and your soulmate do skin-to-skin contact, this physical hell will end. The more advanced the phase, the longer the contact is needed for symptoms to clear up. Phase 1 takes a few minutes, phase 3 can take up to an hour of prolonged contact. Phase 4 is dubeous and reports vary from couple to couple, because at that point, you’re technically starting the entire cycle over.

You won’t have to worry about any of this crap if you never make skin-contact with your soulmate. If you do, even for a fleeting second, and then go a month without repeated contact, you’re in for some bullshit. Obviously, for some people the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but for others, its a fucking hastle that could fucking derail your entire life. 

would just be awful if it happened to your OTP, wouldn’t it?

My favorite part of this is “even for a fleeting second.” The Missed Connections section of Craigslist would be full of “hey if you’re the guy that brushed my hand as we passed in the crosswalk at Franklin and Park last Friday and now you have a flu, either you have really potent germs or we’re soulmates.”

and then there’s that motherfucker in your school who is convinced, every goddamn time they get sick, that they’ve found their soulmate

like, no Gerald, your immune system just fucking sucks