– Pablo Neruda, “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII” From The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, Edited

For years, I’ve tucked away the thirst to create in the deepest corners of my heart. I squeezed it into the corner until it grew cobwebs and dust; until it became lost under the mess of my unstructured days; until it became nothing but wishing thinking of who could I be.

Coming into a new city made me feel small. Honestly, I still feel small and an untalented mess as days fly by.

Why can’t I be as outgoing and creative as the others?

Why can’t I be as smart?

Then, I realized, it’s not that I can’t. It’s that I don’t allow myself to.

I love plans. I love creating plans. I love planning what to do. I love listing my plans. Until I woke up one day that plan is all I’ve ever done.

It’s about time I start doing. It’s about time I come back to my first loves. It’s about time I clear the cobwebs and dust covering my thirst to create. It’s time I allow myself to try even if I’m unsure of what to do. It’s about time I grow and leap.

I love so seriously. When I say I love you, I mean it with more of me than you can imagine. It breaks me when people play along, and I learn it was just a game to them. Don't get me wrong, I am all poems, and romantic notes, flowers, candies, inside jokes, personal little games, but if I give you my heart, it is all vulnerability and trust. I'm letting my walls down so I can give you the love and the me I feel like you deserve. I'm letting go. I'm holding on for dear life. I'm tired of being heartbroken because everyone wants to pretend to offer that kind of love, but nobody's actually delivering

No because pride and prejudice isn't "I changed myself for you so you would love me back." It's "your blatant rejection and disdain for me made me realize things about myself no one had ever been bold enough to tell me so I sat down and evaluated all my behavior patterns and why they came about and came to the realization myself that I had to work on myself. Also I don't expect you to love me now that I'm a work in progress, so I'm just going to do nice things for you because I don't like seeing you hurt." No wonder P&P fans refuse to settle.

“I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life, and start figuring out the one I have.”

— Holly Black

The Chapter Checklist

Here’s a checklist you can use against your chapters to make sure they’re hitting all fronts they should be!

This chapter checklist is a great way to avoid writing filler chapters in your novel, and to know that whatever you put in your book actually has a reason to be there.

My E-book: The Plotter’s Almanac, actually has all the theory you need on structuring a chapter, as well as a bunch of templates for outlines and chapter treatments!

You can grab it on its own as a set with my other 2 writer’s workbooks:

The Writer’s ToolBoox

Find it through [the link here] or below!

the-plottery.mykajabi.com

Writer's ToolBoox

The Writer's ToolBoox is a pack of 3 extensive E-books that cover the areas of: character craft, world building, and plotting. It comes with

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion.

Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

I really wish

that I was strong enough

to keep you at arm's length,

but every time we talk,

my elbows go weak.

- G.L. Angelone

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

A Little Jaywon

Ok here are some very quick thoughts on Jaywon. If you are here for Sookai and dont care about Jaywon, that is a-ok! See you next post 😘

When watching the main episodes of iland it wasnt apparent to me exactly how close Jaywon were due to all the antics of the show. I feel that iland just didn't showcase their friendship very well and they weren't together in the same team or even in the same building for a lot of the show so it was even harder to spot. Like yeah if you watch the footage of them from the iland big brother cams you see that they would follow each other into the same room, wait for each other and play together etc. but in the actual show it was harder to spot if you werent looking. We did see Jays goodbye where his lips touch Jungwons ear but like, that could have just been a coincidence, and then Jay was pretty aggressive about how he would break the iland egg to get Jungwon back if he got eliminated but you know, friend things. Looking back on compilations now of iland its so obvious that they were amazing friends, I just wasn't looking you know?

After debut I remember watching them snuggle on the bus and on the bed together and thinking, wait are these two good friends?! Haha. From there it became more and more apparent to me that the two were close. We saw that Jungwon was really the only one Jay would give an inch of affection to and it kept surprising me that Jungwon didn't care? Like when Jay pulled Jungwon onto his lap during that vlive I thought for sure Jungwon wouldn't have a bar of it but he was chill like what?!

The whole situation was so shocking for fans cause no one showed this kind of affection in Enhypen yet here we were. Jay was all over Jungwon in their monthly wrap up/goal videos and I just thought it was cute, they were friends, very normal levels of kpop skinship and Jay has an almost parental air about him so I didn't find it too interesting at that point. 

However as time went on things just ramped up and and up. I saw like a million moments of Jaywon acting really differently with each other when compared to the way that they would act with the other members. They were always together, doing things alone, always talking about each other and the other members' reactions to them were super interesting.

I feel that there is definitely something significant about their relationship. Are they actually together? I'm not sure?! 

Now as i am ever the one for evidence to back up my claims I wanted to put in some examples of behaviour that I have seen from Jaywon to make me reach the conclusion I have but I couldn't really put it in any sort of coherent manner so here is basically a list of moments and examples of things that make me go…wait what? Why?! There is so so much more but I can't be here all day! 

Jay posted photos of jungwon asleep on his lap, which was so shocking at the time cause i was like huh? Then there was more behind the scenes lap sitting and en’oclock lap sitting and a pattern emerged. Jay was not so subtly in the background of all of Jungwons photos for a long time (and still is occasionally). Jay bought Jungwon clothes, made  him a steak on his birthday and Jungwon bought Jay an airfryer for his birthday (and said that only Jay is allowed to use it). The members said that Jay always has his arms around Jungwon at home. Jungwons grandmother gave snacks to Jungwon to give to Jay, they both stated that they eat a lot of meals together and posted photos of their meals. Jay called Jungwon with his cutest puppy dog voice to be beside him for no reason during an interview and when Jungwon got there….nothing. Jay just wanted to sit with him 😂. Jungwon said that Jay is his favourite hyung in a letter to him for his birthday. Jay gave Jungwon a tickle attack when Jungwon was in his bed which was highly unnecessary! Jungwon said that he would take Jay to a deserted island with him and that he doesn't get bored when Jay is around. Jay said on social media that a photo of two little cats sleeping together was him and Jungwon. You could just feel the fond that they had for each other. Jay and Jungwon basically sat on each other and played fingers when they thought they couldn't be seen which was…interesting. In a team that relentlessly teases each other and doesnt let each other breathe Jungwon went out of his way to make Jay happy by giving him food that he likes during an en’oclock episode, even the members were surprised. Jungwon developed a preoccupation with jays chest and went on a few questionable touching sprees. Jay is crazy affectionate with Jungwon but when Jungwon does it back you can literally see him having a conniption 😂

Jungwon started mentioning Jay at every opportunity, even when it's totally unrelated and irrelevant to the conversation, even when Jay isnt even there. ‘Jay likes corn’ ‘Jay says avocado is nature's butter’ ‘Jay is good at stuff like this’ ‘Jay doesn't eat many vegetables’ ‘Jay doesnt like sour drinks’ ‘Jay likes pineapple pizza’, He's like a walking Jay encyclopaedia. Yet Jungwon is the leader?! The blatant favouritism is wild 😂. Jaywon said that they spoke on the phone a lot when they had covid, Jungwon going so far as to say that he called Jay too much. In Jungwons famous 4 hour vlive you can see him losing his cool when Jay doesn't answer the phone when he calls, then when they get on the phone together Jungwon doesnt stop laughing at any little thing Jay says. Jays ability to find an excuse to pick up Jungwon or give him tickles and pull him in closer is an artform, so subtle and yet not at all as Jay isn't like that with any other member.

Jay and Jungwon have gone on multiple restaurant dates together (at least 3 that I can count), they have taken Han river walks alone together, they have been on a shopping outing together. It's wild to me that whenever Jaywon posts about going out together alone that the fans literally say ‘finally, another jaywon date photo’ like what?! What ship has that much date evidence?!

Recently Jay posted a photo of Jungwon in his bed after he got home from his second case of covid, very cute. With Jaywon they have a consistent pattern of behaviour where they are almost always together and they are often physically attached.

Then there is the way that the other members react to Jaywon, just panic and disbelief mixed with whatever they can do to spar the duo on 😂In a vlive Jake pointed to jay and then jungwon and then jay again and did a heart behind their backs….like….what was that? Or Sunghoon spotting them canoodling, getting in the way of them on camera and then laughing at them. Niki takes couple shots when he can too. And the members make them say corny and confessing shit to each other on variety shows. This is all interlaced with their panic at the way the duo acts at times 😂

There is so much more and sorry that the examples are all over the place but yeah, as time went on I was just like wow these two really really get along. There is loads more to say and unpack about this but I really just wanted to knock out a few of my thoughts. Thanks for reading this mess!

1.1.24 - writing progress & new year's resolutions

I've recently decided to try and write a little every day: so today I sat down and put on a timer (I use this one) but I changed the pomodoro settings to 10 minute work time and 1 minute break (with a 5 minute long break). I wrote 1,3k in a sitting! This is the most I've written in so long.

here are some writing things I want to try in the new year: - keeping a writing progress chart - doing ten minute writing sprints with 1 minute pauses - having conversations out loud on a voice memo and retyping it later on - writing scenes in the order I feel like writing them and reorganizing them later - having a journal of random scenes that I can put into stories (keeping track of my random prompts) - keeping a word count diary

on the other hand, here are my writing (related) resolutions! - post consistently on tumblr, both with journal (like this one) entries and prompts - to try and keep writing even if it's bad. you can be a bad author, or you can not be one at all (though frankly I don't *really* believe this. but it's a resolution, so I'll try) - engage my tumblr community! (would anyone be interested in sharing their own prompts in responses to asks?) - this is The Year (like last year and the one before). I'm going to Write A Book. - stay in love with writing. even if it means knowing when to stop, or trying to start again.

but cheers to everyone I've met in 2024, who have come, and cheers to those who have stayed. I wish you the best creative year yet. until tomorrow!

k.