To-seeking - Ej's Inspo

List of Interesting Latin Phrases

A list I made just to satisfy my vain cravings for resonating mottos for a secret society I'm working on. Enjoy!

abi in malam crucem: to the devil with you!

ad astra per ardua: to the star by steep paths

ad augusta per angusta: to honors through difficulties

aegis fortissima virtus: virue is the strongest shield

amor vincit amnia: love conquers all things

animo et fide: by courage and faith

arbitrium est judicium: an award is a judgement

aut mors aut victoria: either death or victory

aut vincere aut mori: either victory or death

bello ac pace paratus: prepared in war and peace

bibamus, moriendum est: let us drink, death is certain (Seneca and Elder)

bonis omnia bona: all things are good to the good

cede nullis: yield to no one

cito maturum, cito putridum: soon ripe, soon rotten

consensus facit legem: consent makes law

data fata secutus: following what is decreed by fate (Virgil)

durum telum necessitas: necessity is a hrad weapson

dux vitae ratio: reason is the guide of life

e fungis nati homines: men born of mushrooms

ego sum, ergo omnia sunt: I am, therefore all things are

pulvis et umbra sumus: we are but dust and shadow

quae amissa salva: things lost are safe

timor mortis morte pejor: the fear of death is worse than death

triumpho morte tam vita: I triumph in death as in life

tu vincula frange: break your chains

vel prece vel pretio: for either love or for money

verbera, sed audi: whip me, but hear me

veritas temporis filia: truth is the daughter of time

vero nihil verius: nothing is truer than the truth

vestigia nulla restrorsum: foosteps do not go backward

victus vincimus: conquered, we conquer (Plautus)

sica inimicis: a gger to his enemies

sic vita humana: thus is human life

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! Also, join my Tumblr writing community for some more fun.

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

Reference: <Latin for the Illiterati: a modern guide to an ancient language> by Jon R. Stone, second edition, 2009

do you all see my vision here

favourite things about first drafts:

square brackets with notes to self mid-line like [does this make sense with worldbuilding?]

ah yes, Main Character and their closest friends, Unnamed Character A and Unnamed Character B.

bullshitting your way through something that you probably definitely need to research later

also square brackets to link up scenes. [scene transition idk] my beloved

the total freedom of word vomits

"I'll fix that later"

the moment when the world and characters start to gain a life of their own

pieces falling into place as you write that you were uncertain about before you started

the accomplishment of Made A Thing

PLEASE do yourself a favour and check out this wikipedia-styled template for google drive, made by @ Rukidut on twitter

I decided to try to sort my ideas and whats canon regarding my ocs with this and ITS PERFECT. IT ALL FEELS SO CONRETE. and i sure as hell AM Going to continue to use this with every single OC I have until google drives is set ablaze- Just!!!!!!!!

Also; link directly to the doc, just copy the file and you have your own lil template!!!!

On Love and Community

@princes-heels // ? // @inkskinned // mitski, my love mine all mine//@littlespoonsokka // @boymiffy // @2aminhouston // ? // @theviralwitch // @noodle // @criterioncollectiongirl // @fatsoupy // ? // @mjalti // george saunders, congratulations, by the way// @jb-blunk // @ponchopeligroso // @headspace-hotel // everything, everywhere, all at once(2022) //@cheruib // ? // ? // @tordenvejr

Soft-Feeling Latin Words & Phrases

Another list of Latin phrases, this time with soft/warm meanings. It is 2:39am as I make this list.

a te pro te: from thee for thee

ab imo pectore: from the bottom of the heart

volat hora per orbem: time files through the world

coelum versus: heavenward

concubia nocte: at dead of night

crepusculum: twilight or dusk

crescens luna: a cresent moon

cum corde: with the heart

labores solis: an eclipse of the sun

in horam viviere: to live for the moment

in rerum natura: in the nature of things

in tuto esse: in a safe place

ingens aequor: the vast ocean

inter vivos: among the living

januae mentis: inlets of knowledge

jenuis clausis: in secret, with closed doors

littera scripta manet: the written letter remains

lux mundi: light of the world

lux vitae: light of life

meo voto: by my wish

mox nox: soon night

multis cum lacrimis: with many tears

ningit: it is snowing

occidui temporis umbra: a shadow at sunset

opinio vana: an illusion

osculum pacis: kiss of peace

papilio: butterfly

par pari refero: tit for tat

per vian dolorosam: the way of sorrows

philtrum: a love potion

pluvia: rain

res rustica: a rural affair

ros marinus: rosemary

semel et semper: once and always

silva: wood or forest

sinus urbis: heart of the city

As always, happy writing!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! Also, join my Tumblr writing community for some more fun.

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

Reference: Latin for the Illiterati: a modern guide to an ancient language by Jon R. Stone, second edition 2009.

NaNo Alternatives

Okay, real post time (but keep those boops booping) - You want to do NaNoWriMo tomorrow, but you don't want to go anywhere near the main organization and their website. Here's a list of alternatives you can try:

Rogue Writers - International group launched to provide an alternative for writers. Their website has challenges, free tools, and more.

myWriteClub - Word tracking tool.

Novlr - A writing app designed to help you meet your writing goals.

WriteTrack - Word tracking tool.

Shut Up and Write - Find in-person or online groups to write together with!

NoQuWriCo - A November writing challenge with tools, tips, and encouragement to make it through the month! (Thanks to someone letting me know - this is a Christian alternative. Try another if that does not appeal to you!)

Writing Month - Write. A Month. Do It.

Your local library - If you did NaNo events through your library, chances are they're still doing it this year. Make sure you check in with all the resources you've used in the past, as they're likely still around.

Whatever you decide to do tomorrow, good luck! And remember, if you want to still use the NaNo website but don't like their AI policies and the rest of it, just don't give them money! Laugh to yourself, evilly, as you update your word count. It's very validating.

(Now back to booping.)

how could someone get started writing poetry? what are the skills to build and how can i build them? i’m scared i don’t have anything to say…… how can i find my voice?

An excellent and very common question! I can’t lay any claim to being a big poetry maven at this point—it’s been quite a while since I’ve written any, or even seriously READ any—but I can tell you some things I learned and some things I think, and I hope that will be at least a little helpful.

The first thing to note is that finding my voice and something to say was, in my experience, inseparable from living my actual life and thinking for myself. I was writing poetry from the age of 12 or 13, and only now, 18 or so years later, do I feel like I have anything of importance to say. And that only sometimes. It may work differently for other people, but that’s how it worked for me. I would advise you not to worry about your voice for now. The thing I was doing early on is PLAYING with language, trying things out, imitating writers I admired. Take the pressure off yourself!

As for the skills you need to build, the most important one by far is perseverance. Any artist will tell you this. You won’t write masterpieces straight out of the gate; no one does. You have to learn not to be discouraged too much if you look down and your writing and feel nothing but horror. That is a universal experience, and you won’t be able to write well if you can’t push through it somehow and keep going. The rest of the skills you need you can learn by imitation, constraint, trial and error, etc.

If you want specific instructions, see below. These roughly correspond to the way I learned to write poetry.

The first thing to do is to read a lot of poetry. Find an anthology with broad coverage and generous aesthetic guidelines, one that brings together a lot of different kinds of poetry. Flip through it. Read at random. As you do, some things will enchant you, some things will baffle you, some things will make you wonder why people think they’re good, and so on. Zero in on poems that really affect you, and note the poets. These will be your foundation.

Then, read more deeply in these poets that interest you. You’ll find as you read that each poet has patterns, tricks and maneuvers they do over and over again. Note them. And note the conventions of poetry in general—how line breaks are used, what rhythms keep emerging.

Once you have a good idea of at least how your favored poets work, try out their tricks for yourself. Write about anything at all, but try to follow your poet’s motions. As you do this, you’ll discover the interactions and tensions between form and content, and you’ll start to learn why certain topics in poetry take certain forms.

A helpful thing to do when writing anything is to set yourself a rule or two. Write against challenges—write in established forms, or confine your vocabulary, or whatever you like. This will focus your work and allow for creative leaps that would never have occurred to you if you were just trying to summon something out of nothing. Free writing can also help with this—if you’re forcing yourself to write nonstop for a period of minutes, something about the stream of consciousness can unlock unusual and striking connections.

Once you’re doing all that, the next step is just to live your life. But live it observantly, with an eye toward everything—your own feelings, physical objects, images, sounds, patterns. Absorb things. And while you’re at it, tackle some nonpoetic task or project that forces you to really think. As much as poetry is associated with feeling, what a great poem really is is the track of the poet’s thought laid down in as appropriate a form as possible, so that you think along with the poet as you read. Without thought, there is no poetry.

The synthesis and end of all these steps is not only writing poetry, but appreciating, understanding, and loving it. All of these things feed and fuel one another. It’s an engine you have to build within yourself. And if you’re successful, you’ll have enriched your life as well as your art.

I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. It’s fine to discover kinds of poetry or poets that you don’t care for, or dislike, or hate with a burning passion, so long as you understand what it is they’re trying to do.

Writing Realistic Characters - part 2

- Journal from their perspective. It can be hard to write compelling, realistic motivation for characters if you don’t understand them yourself. By journalling from their perspective, even if the content of the journal isn’t included in your story, you’ll essentially be thinking as the character. This should help you understand who they are and how they make choices and react to things, like a real person would.

- Answer “character questions”, but be careful when using lists found online. The internet is full of lists of questions for writers to answer when building characters, but not all of them are actually that important or useful. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what a character’s favourite colour, animal or day of the week is (unless it’s relevant to your story… but it usually isn’t). When looking for question lists online, or making your own, focus on questions that have to do with your character’s personality, such as how they’d react to a situation or which values matter more to them.

- Make character charts! I can’t stress this enough — character charts are incredibly useful tools for writers and I don’t know what I’d do without them. They’re a great way to keep track of important information about your characters in an organized way that’s easy to access when you need to quickly check a detail. I’d also strongly recommend making your own charts, not using templates online (I find it a lot easier to stay organized when I’m using my own organizational system). If you need a place to start, though, I normally create charts with 4 categories: role (protagonist, antagonist, etc.), name, identities (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.), and description (just a brief few sentences about them). You can also make personality charts with things like their greatest flaw, greatest strength, story goals, etc.

- Come up with a few detailed memories/anecdotes from their past. Think of them as mini-stories you can drop into your main story to build a more realistic life around the character. These don’t have to be crucial to the plot, and should be brought up in a natural way, such as in conversation with another character or in the main character’s thoughts. For example, your MC’s best friend might compliment her necklace, and she tells them how her sister gave it to her as a birthday present before moving away. You can also use these anecdotes to drop in important information in a non-obvious way. Continuing the example above, the MC could mention that her sister has the same design necklace, but in green. Later, this becomes a clue, when she finds the green necklace outside the villain’s lair.

- Keep a record of their backstory. This one doesn’t really need much explaining… Just keep notes of your character’s backstory as you come up with it so you don’t risk inconsistencies, which tend to break down realism. 

- Remember that the reader can’t see what’s in your head. Your characters may be fully developed, realistic people in your head, but that makes it easy to forget that your readers don’t automatically understand them the way you do — they only know what’s on the page. Asking other people to read your work can help you understand how your characters come through to an audience, but if you don’t want to do that, just re-reading it yourself is also helpful. If you do the latter, though, go through an entire chapter at a time, the way a reader would, not small sections.