How To Write Creepy Stories

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

How to Make Your Characters Almost Cry

Tears are powerful, but do you know what's more impactful? The struggle to hold them back. This post is for all your hard-hearted stoic characters who'd never shed a tear before another, and aims to help you make them breakdown realistically.

The Physical Signs of Holding Back Tears

Heavy Eyelids, Heavy Heart Your character's eyelids feel weighted, as if the tears themselves are dragging them down. Their vision blurs—not quite enough to spill over, but enough to remind them of the dam threatening to break.

The Involuntary Sniffle They sniffle, not because their nose is running, but because their body is desperately trying to regulate itself, to suppress the wave of emotion threatening to take over.

Burning Eyes Their eyes sting from the effort of restraint, from the battle between pride and vulnerability. If they try too hard to hold back, the whites of their eyes start turning red, a telltale sign of the tears they've refused to let go.

The Trembling Lips Like a child struggling not to cry, their lips quiver. The shame of it fuels their determination to stay composed, leading them to clench their fists, grip their sleeves, or dig their nails into the nearest surface—anything to regain control.

The Fear of Blinking Closing their eyes means surrender. The second their lashes meet, the memories, the pain, the heartbreak will surge forward, and the tears will follow. So they force themselves to keep staring—at the floor, at a blank wall, at anything that won’t remind them of why they’re breaking.

The Coping Mechanisms: Pretending It’s Fine

A Steady Gaze & A Deep Breath To mask the turmoil, they focus on a neutral object, inhale slowly, and steel themselves. If they can get through this one breath, they can get through the next.

Turning Away to Swipe at Their Eyes When they do need to wipe their eyes, they do it quickly, casually, as if brushing off a speck of dust rather than wiping away the proof of their emotions.

Masking the Pain with a Different Emotion Anger, sarcasm, even laughter—any strong emotion can serve as a shield. A snappy response, a bitter chuckle, a sharp inhale—each is a carefully chosen defence against vulnerability.

Why This Matters

Letting your character fight their tears instead of immediately breaking down makes the scene hit harder. It shows their internal struggle, their resistance, and their need to stay composed even when they’re crumbling.

This is written based off of personal experience as someone who goes through this cycle a lot (emotional vulnerability who?) and some inspo from other books/articles

a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!

‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!

Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕

Seems like the silliest question ever but every idea I have seems so unoriginal. Do you tips or exercises to get the creativity going?

Getting the creative juices flowing…

I do! I have plenty of pep-talks and resources for this sort of thing, so I’ve organized them here by method (prompts/playlists/advice/inspiration/etc)

Articles

Coming Up With Scene Ideas

Coming Up With “Original” Ideas

How To Turn A Good Idea Into A Good Story

How To Motivate Yourself To Write

Reasons To Improve Your Lifestyle

Tips & Advice for Aspiring Authors, Writers, and Poets

Healthy Forms of Motivation

How To Have A Productive Mindset

How To Fall In Love With Writing

Writing Through Mental Health Struggles

Why “Burnout” Is Oay - The Creative Cycle

How To Actually Get Writing Done

Playlists

Things To Listen To When You’re Working

Classical & Instrumental

Ambient

Sad Scenes

Chase Scenes

Epic Scenes

Fight Scenes

Angst Scenes

Fun Montage Scenes

Climax Scenes

Calm Scenes

Resolution Scenes

Romantic Scenes

Action Scenes

Science Fiction

Our Day Will Come

Contemporary Poetry

MORE

Prompts, Prompt Lists, & Writing Challenges

Dark Quotes & Prompts

Challenges For Different Types of Writers | Part II

Angst Prompts

31 Days of Prompts : January 2018 Writing Challenge

20 Sentence Story Prompt

Dramatic Prompts

Suspenseful Prompts

Sad Prompts

Romantic Prompts

31 Days of Horror : October 2019 Writing Challenge

31 Days of Fantasy - December 2020 Writing Challenge

Fake Relationship Alternate Universe Prompts

Assassin Alternate Universe Prompts

Soulmates Alternate Universe Prompts

Advice & Pep-Talks

Restarting Your Writing Passion

On Hating Your Old Stuff

Depression As An Inhibitor

Dear Writers Who Are Hesitant To Start Writing

“All First Drafts Are Crap” – My Thoughts

Getting Back To Writing After A Long Hiatus

Wanting To Finish A Story You’ve Fallen Out of Love With

Getting Motivated To Write

Getting Burnt Out Near The Finish Line

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

i'm AWARE this is a stupid hill to die on, but like. trope vs theme vs cliché vs motif vs archetype MATTERS. it matters to Me and i will die on this hill no matter how much others decide it's pointless. words mean things

hey, don’t cry. one half flour one half yogurt knead into dough and fry for easy flatbread and dip in balsamic vinegar, okay?

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

6 Simple Ways to Practice Your Written English Skills

For a lot of language learners, writing in English is often easier than speaking in English—or so they think. Usually, that just means that people…

For a lot of language learners, writing in English is often easier than speaking in English—or so they think. Usually, that just means that people find it easier to get grammar right when writing, but they don’t pay attention to fluency or readability. Those are vitally important if you’re thinking of going on to further education in an English-speaking country, or you want a job that requires English. Here are six ways to improve your written English.

1. Read lots

Even without physically writing, you can improve your writing skills. By reading as much as you can, you’ll develop your vocabulary and understanding of how English is used. We don’t mean that you should be studying syntax and sentence clauses—simply read for pleasure and you’ll pick things up subconsciously! You could start with the English version of your favorite book, or work your way through these classic novels. And by the way, if you need extra encouragement, Joseph Conrad, the author of Heart of Darkness, didn’t speak English until in his twenties and went on to become one of the most celebrated English novelists of all time!

2. Write how you speak

This doesn’t always apply, but generally you can improve the fluency and readability of your writing by simply writing how you speak. That doesn’t mean writing lots of slang words and uh, eh, and er. But think about how people use simple English when they speak and how natural it sounds, and aim to give your writing the same easy flow.

3. Learn new words

It goes without saying that to write with more confidence and fluency, you need to expand your vocabulary. If you haven’t done so already, start a personal dictionary. Any words that you come across that you don’t know, write down and translate, then test yourself on how many of them you can remember, and start using them in your writing and conversations.

4. Make writing a daily habit

As the saying goes: practice makes perfect. So the only way to improve your writing over time is to keep doing it. Even just 5 or 10 minutes a day, if done every day, will really help you improve your written English. You could keep a diary in English, or write a blog about your experiences learning English and living in a new country, or even start writing your social media posts in English.

5. Form follows function

There are lots of different types of written English—diaries, essays, CVs or résumés, poems, short stories, tweets, and so on. It’s important to consider what type of writing you are doing and its purpose (its function). Also, think about who will be reading it and what you want them to do. When you know the function, you can adapt the style.

6. Check for mistakes

The last thing you do when you write something is carefully read it to make sure it makes sense and you haven’t made any mistakes. Always, always proofread your work.