Creating - Blog Posts

Helpful things for action writers to remember

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here. 

i repeat to myself as i sit on my desk; the gap between 0 and 1 is wider than 1 and 10, it's better to have something with flaws rather than nothing, i repeat and repeat and repeat. the gap between 0 and 1 is wider than 1 and 10. holding not perfect something is better than empty hands. it is. keep creating. the gap between 0 and 1

I LOVE CREATING!!!!!! CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE!!!! YOU DONT HAVE TO BE “CREATIVE” TO CREATE JUST DO IT!!!!!!!! NEVER US GENERATIVE AI!!!!!!! MAKE IT YOURSELF!!!! RAHHHHAHAHAHHHHAHAHHAHAHHAHSHSHAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly be pretentious as fuck about the stuff you create. Do a press release for your fanfic updates. Do a Q&A about your webcomic. Make fake merch designs for your OCs. Commission "official" book covers. Very few of us will ever get to a stage where something we've created Makes It Big but even if you have an audience of 5 people plus a shoelace fucking indulge yourself and pretend!! It's the only way to live!!

My hubby needs sexy nudes to use~

Help?

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.

The trust was as radiant as the sun, yet like a sudden eclipse, you cast shadows that blinded me, sweeping me into darkness.

And as the light faded, I stumbled through the ruins of my shattered faith, each step a haunting reminder of the warmth that had once ignited my soul.

May your day be filled with many moments that remind you of the magical creator that you are.

The first step towards your vision, is becoming someone who believes in it 🪐

Last fair of the season! Come out to the Castlegar complex and see all of the amazing vendors! #craftfair #craft #art #painting #tinyart #watercolour #watercolor #owl #ink #drawings #whimsical #birds #acrylic #mixedmedia #create #creating #show #winter #castlegar #soup

Creating away! The craft fair season always sneaks up on me way faster than I expect. One down and 2 to go! #tinyart #art #painting #ink #watercolour #watercolor #busybee #craftfair #craft #creating #messy #kootenaylife #kootenays #bc #nelsonbc

Getting so close! Only a few weeks away! Can't wait to see you there. #kootenayartisanfair #kootenays #kootenaylife #art #painting #watercolour #watercolor #tinyart #acrylic #mixedmedia #create #creating

Me, phone off, stylus put away, no notebook or pencils in sight: "man, I can't wait to draw my characters for the stories I'm writing!"

Me, stylus in hand on ibis paint: "ah yes, what a horrific abomination I've created today."

Me, listening to music, Google docs closed: "man, I've got so many cool ideas for some books."

Me, Google doc open on the screen, my fingers hovering over the keyboard: "this shit has so many plot holes that just reading it is a tripping hazard."

My new book just arrived, the last couple of days i've just been wandering around thinking about this. I'm looking forward to starting, finally!!! 😆 I read that this is a book about creative destruction, and decided i had to have it. Especially since i (the reader) is supposed to do al kinds of weird stuff

currently creating an AMV in my head about characters that will probably never actually be part of the stories I’m writing and therefore wouldn’t have any visuals that I could actually make an AMV out of

Hey can someone help me with any ideas for drawings