Lol I realized having chapter folders with scene docs could actually be helpful for having different versions of the same chapter without having a mess of a document. It’s also helpful to write on a clean page without the mess of all my other writing, without the need to open a separate document to still have access to it.
I wrote another chapter, another experimental chapter, but progress!
I got the 3 month contract with the potential of it being extended! 
I start next week so I’m spending the rest of this week catching up on errands, video games, and hopefully some writing before I’ll likely be burned out for the next 3 months. 
I’m going to continue using Scrivener to see if writing on blank docs for chapters is really the way to go. 
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CONGRATS ON EMPLOYMENT 
I’m happy you got the job and I really hope your contract gets extended too! 
So, not much of an update, but I did do something book-related recently!
Share: One of my online-turned-real-life friends was in Chicago for a trade show, so during his stay I took him around town. Some of those spots included four local bookstores: after-words in River North, Myopic Books in Wicker Park, Open Books West Loop, and Pilsen Community Books.
We didn’t spend much time in the first one since our table at a restaurant was ready earlier than I expected. We spent some more time in Myopic Books, which he remarked as looking “not up to [fire] code.” When we dropped by Open Books, his first comment was this: “This looks way more up to code than the other one.” 
We hit up Pilsen Community Books with another friend. Unlike the other three, this one sold only new books as far as I was aware. They also had a bathroom that I spent a long time in because I, uh, didn’t eat enough fiber 
One of my write night friends also had a birthday a few days ago, so I bought a gift card from Open Books for him. I gave it to him over a group lunch, and I’m happy to report that he liked it!
Yassss whoooooo
@stella_vigo @LordOfTheRiver Thank youuuu! 
New Bethany aesthetic board that I can’t wait to post on IG because it’ll look cool. Too excited about it, so I’m sharing it here
I had this character called Scorvius who was somehow a man, a cat, and a nine tail fox. The third version of him barely appeared in the story. So, I decided, since the nine tail fox only appeared in the story three times (or was it two, idk), I would take it away from Scor and make it a whole new character.
What is Foxwood doing without a fox character, right? XD Every collection, series I write should have one, I think.
I decided the royal rats of Wodeland had vehicles like the deities of Hindu mythology. The Mosspetals had a nine tail fox creature who doesn’t have a name. I decided to make it some kind of plant-fox-druid, botanical-rot-fantasy type of thing.
When Bethany finds it, it looks really creepy and rotted, but over time, reconnecting with her, it starts to heal as her magick develops, or something like that.
Share: I can’t believe I’ve forgotten to post this, but two weekends ago, a friend and I recently visited one of the most recently opened libraries in town: the Chicago Public Library branch at the Obama Presidential Center!
I didn’t take more pictures inside the library since it was packed and I was too busy walking around. It was smaller than expected but still quite neat!
I will say that I did not expect to see this on a display shelf 
Ask: Have real-life relationships affected the way you write existing character dynamics (whether romantic, platonic, familiar, or otherwise)? If so, how?
As far as I’m aware, the romances in my stories aren’t affected by whatever’s happened in my life. I didn’t see or write their relationships differently even after getting a boyfriend (and later on going through a breakup). I guess a large part of it was because the dynamics between my characters were very different from the dynamics between my now-ex and I, so it’s not like my relationship was any similar to theirs.
On the flip side, the way I’ve written friendships and dialogue in general has changed. I don’t know how to describe my dialogue back then as anything other than awful and maybe “too nice” or “unrealistic” 
but once I entered college and started expanding my circle, my interactions with other people colored the way I wrote interactions in my stories. There’s already one stretch of dialogue that I finished a few years ago that I already want to re-write to make it sound more natural.
The way I write characters, mainly male characters, has changed as I’ve become older and because of my SO. He also has a lot of male friends that visit and after hearing them vent about their girlfriend/wife woes, it’s made me more careful so I write male characters that don’t just feel like a man who I’ve given feminine traits to. Unless it makes sense for that character. But mostly my writing has changed because I’ve come to understand men more over time than I did when I was younger. Obviously there are exceptions, but men show affection and think differently than women do, so I just want to make sure when I’m writing relationships that the traits for both genders, whether good or bad, feel more realistic.
At the same time, sometimes having a character that is a fantasy is the point. That he/she doesn’t have to conform to the same gender norms we have in real life. I also feel like my friendships with women (I have a handful of amazing close female friends, but most I’ve had bad experiences with) has caused me to write female friendships different too. Not out of spite, but because sometimes women that seem like they’re friends, aren’t, and it’s not always obvious because the signs are subtle. And those subtleties, if it makes sense for the character I’m writing, I’ll use those experiences to write that character. I have one character like that in the novel I’m currently writing. She’s part of the friend group and on the outside, she seems like the main character’s friend, but not really.
not consciously, I don’t think. when I edited my novel from 2018 last year, I noticed that I felt differently about some things, but I couldn’t say that one specific relationship has influence any specific characters.
however 
since having my dog, I started wanting to write one into my stories. last year, I wrote a puppy into book 2 of my series, and this year, I started the first draft of book 3, and I really enjoy finding ways to write the dog into the story 
a lot of his behaviours are inspired by my own dog, or other dogs I’ve met
omg, noooooooo 
I’ve already watched one full review/rant, and watched part of Rachel Oates’ review. That reminds me, Amanda of Swell Entertainment did a review, I should watch it
Yes, I noticed that my romances tend to be friendship-first, and friendship heavy in my writing. Building connections comes first.
It doesn’t reflect any particular relationship, but it does reflect what I value in a romantic relationship. Friendship and connection is more important to me because I don’t get the “feeling hot about someone“ and don’t have any physical, romantic reaction to someone.
Being Ace, I don’t get the “hot guy“ thing. Like, looking at their jawline like so many romances and feeling some type of way about it XD I understand what a conventional “hot guy“ is and can say “yeah, that guy would probably be hot guy category“. For Between Roses, Eryn isn’t Ace, so that led to me writing a very stereotypical teenager attracted to a conventional “hot guy“ XD I only did that for the supposed romantic scenes, and put more focus on their connection.
No one has said anything about the romance being bad. No one has said it was great or swoon-worthy either. So, I guess it was fine? 
I’ll take it
But for Alive At Dawn, I purposefully avoided writing people falling in love. I thought, if I have trouble, why not just not write that? I decided to write about people who have been married a long time, a guy who is looking for companionship rather than romance, a bad marriage, and a guy who is widowed, and see how I would do with that.
This made me realize that since I’ve always been someone with only a few close friends, my characters often have only a few close friends as well
I can’t think of many characters with a huge friend group 
Maybe Scotch, the fox hybrid, is the only one with a bigger friend group. There’s four friends, but out of the four, only one best friend.
Um. Most of my characters have attachment issues and horrible parents, does that count? 
Generally I write my problems into characters and it’s like therapy lol. So I can’t say whether irl has affected these dynamics. I can only say that the characters themselves have the same wounds as I have had in my life, so they are essentially thought experiments in how that part of myself interacts with the world.
Oh, and I almost NEVER write parents as the good guys. Ever. I’m too salty to do that
I have been writing! Chapters that won’t end up in my books, but related, so does that count? I find that Scrivener is helping me just write something contained. It feels like when you write a one-shot in fanfiction. I think not having to write in a messy doc full of the noise from the chapters around the one I’m trying to write is somehow… helping? 13 days left of my trial period.
Also a good sign that despite this new job tiring me out, I’m still finding it in me to write. I’m physically tired, but the creativity is coming back. That last job was really toxic. Good riddance…
Meant to reply earlier but my laptop was in a repair shop for over a week 
This is so true. Even though my circle has always skewed more male, I feel like my grasp on male-male friendships has improved much more in the last few years compared to before that. Like how they show affection by mercilessly bullying each other
This hit too close to home
Awwwww that’s so adorable! 
now that you’ve mentioned it, I hardly write pets into my own stories I’ve only ever had a pet fish who lived for a few months, but outside of that I didn’t really have any pets. I guess it didn’t help I grew up in an apartment, so we weren’t really allowed pets.
I currently live with a relative who has a pet dog, though! 
One of my friends joked that it was “the most ghost-written book to ever be ghost-written”
I’m not ace but I sorta feel this? More like what other people find hot, I don’t find hot. Like when people were going feral over Captain America having a beard in Avengers: Endgame, and I was like, “he looked so much better clean-shaven”
And yes to the whole “friends first” thing! I can’t imagine wanting to date someone I don’t really know. The things I physically feel when staring at hot guys is not enough to override my wish to befriend someone before thinking of dating them
I have side characters with an implied huge friend circle, but yeah same, my stories tend to focus on a smaller friend group rather than a huge cast 
Felt! I sometimes write my own struggles and stuff into my characters, but only if it really fits them. I have a character who was a piano prodigy with perfectionism, so guess what demons I gave him?
I also have a … very squeezed way of relating to ppl, so it impact it a lot too?
(I have no clue what having siblings feels like because I was never the sibling but the third parent, if that makes sense?)
