Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
[Image description: 4-panel comic. December 9, 2017. Panel 1: Sometimes I worry that nobody wants to read the things I want to write. Panel 2: But I want to read them. Panel 3: And I am a real person even if I don’t always feel like it. Panel 4: So I’ll keep writing.]
The 4 approaches to “orphaned etymology” problems in fiction
1. Obviously we can’t call it French toast if there’s no France so we’re just gonna replace it with something else.
2. The word abattoir sounds too French so it wouldn’t make sense for it to be here without a France. Even though we use English without there being an England.
3. This is called a Ming vase because when you tap it it makes a “Ming!” sound.
4. I am JRR Tolkien and every single word I write has a fictional etymology attached to it that I am translating into English for your convenience.
if you ever doubt your writing, be it your themes, or the reason behind it, remember that h.g wells wrote war of the worlds both as a commentary on colonialism and the horrors it brings, and because he fucking hated his neighbours and his 13 hour job, and wanted to write about the town in which he lived getting blasted to the fucking ground by lasers into an irreparable heap and all of the townspeople dying painfully
you, too, can channel your hatred for that guy that lives down the hall and blasts music at 4am into the one of the most influential science fiction stories ever written! fuck it! i believe in you!!
This is one of the most inspirational things I’ve ever seen
There’s this thing about being a young adult, where your childhood house isn’t home anymore but you haven’t quite gotten round to building your own yet. Maybe you’re in college and you don’t know when you’ll have to move again, so you tell yourself decorating isn’t worth the trouble. Maybe you don’t have room in your kitchen for a muffin tin or a crock pot, and you’re fine without it, really you are, but you’re craving food you don’t have the time or equipment to make. Maybe you haven’t figured out how to properly cook yet and you’re living off instant noodles and microwaved vegetables that fill your stomach but not your soul. Maybe you’re young and queer and lonely because you don’t want the same kind of family everybody else does and you’re afraid of being left with nothing. Maybe you’re homesick for your childhood room and someplace you’ve never been. You’ve never been there because it doesn’t exist yet, the place that will be your home, and you’re scared of how long it might take you to find it. If you find it.
You’re homesick for a place that doesn’t exist and you swear there’s a word for that, German maybe. But you don’t remember what it is.
your writing does not have to be good. your author’s note does not have to go on its knees for a hundred words before each chapter repenting. you only have to let the soft gremlin of your brain write what it wants.
writers will really have a doc titled ‘fic planning’ and then it’s just blank
writers will say “i’m going to write!” and then do something else with the doc open in the background
writers will literally put out the most heart-wrenching and devastating piece of fiction that’s a million times better than the source and go haha hope you liked :)
writers will have a life changing event happen to them (married, natural disaster, accident etc etc) and then still manage to put out an incredible fic and go ‘sorry this was 0.394838373 seconds late guys :(‘
writers will go ‘love writing!’ and then don’t write for 10 years
anyway i love writing and i love writers
now hold on a goddamned second
writers will complain about this post while continuing to not write
