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May your characters be so interesting that you could hang out with them for hours. May your manuscript be easy and fulfilling for you. May you reach your writing goals or break forth with amazing new ones. May you find good books to read, and meet authors that inspire you. May you make new friends…

In honor of my post “Killing Your Darling Characters” being one of my most influential Writeblr “hits”. (Am I a “hit”? Funny, it’s more like a viral hit-and-run. Wow, how did I ever get to this point of sleep deprivation and puns.) Here’s a (brief?) list of characters you should try and let live to the end of…

In my experience, sleep and creativity… they’re both parts of an age-old paradox. Maybe it’s just the fact that I need caffeine to focus (and have since I was 16), but I digress. To be able to have enough energy to make art, write stories, sing songs, or even get out of bed to make…

I remember a time when I laughed at people who thought video games were art. Then I played a couple that proved me wrong. I remember playing a point-and-click game at age twelve that sent me spiraling down the crazy thought process of nihilism. (I know some people could handle that better than me, but…

It’s a bit like staring at old photographs in a scrapbook (or selfies from a couple years ago for those who never lived through the scrapbooking era). You see the subtle shifts, or the not-so-subtle changes. Maybe you started working out. Maybe you cut your hair, dyed in, then grew it out again. Maybe you…

It’s difficult. You work and work and work and somebody ALWAYS seems to be winning more awards than you. Their writing isn’t even that good… You think, mumbling incoherently to yourself as you stare into your mug of coffee, simultaneously scrolling through Twitter feeds. Feeds filled with people discussing how they got signed. How they’re…

Every week, I force myself to write a blog post for Tumblr by Monday night. Then, I need to send in 2-3 articles for my digital media magazine by Saturday. THEN, I need to update a 1,500 word chapter for Wattpad by Friday. Sometimes, like this week, I end up postponing to Tuesday instead of…

Shalom. Salaam. Peace. In a world where it seems we open the news and everyday see it. Hate, death, destruction. Remember this. That we treasure the time to love instead of the time to hate that hate only brings Anger, chaos, calamity. But love is: Healing. Love is: Fixing. Love is: Saving. And love is anything…

I remember my first villains. I made them extremely evil. In my stories, written fondly at age eleven, they had fangs and darkness in their eyes. Their souls were full of mud, and they made the Grinch look like a sweetheart. Originally posted by tigerlilykisses As I grew older, wrote more stories, I realized that…

So, when it comes to killing off characters, nobody knows the struggle better than a writer. (Notice I said characters, not people. Please ensure that I mean FICTIONAL people of IMAGINARY worlds. Murder is a big no-no IRL!) Writers search up these weird things all the time: how people act at funerals, what happens to…