Warning: Politics Ahead

I watched most of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, because I wanted to stay informed. There were many things I took away from it, but the biggest one was watching how the two sides regarded one another. It was like watching two groups of people that had lived in completely separate worlds that hated each other. It saddened me to see them like that, but not unexpected.

On social media, in politics, and in many more settings, people have an “Us Against Them” mentality. I can’t explain why, because there are an uncountable number of reasons. Each person has their own reason for thinking this way, and while I can’t judge them for it, I can offer an alternative.

That’s what Stand Tall Together is about: unity. A way forward that doesn’t put us at odds with one another. I’m sure I’ll say this many more times, but that’s what writing means to me. Watching the world and thinking “What if it were this way?” I wrote about the world I wanted to see while I watched two groups of people refuse to get along.

Everyone is important. Everyone can contribute. And if we all stick together, life’s struggles aren’t as daunting. If we all try to go it alone, it’d be like a group of dancers performing individual dances without practice. Everyone will run into one another and get hurt. My actions affect the world around me, just as much as the world around me affects me. That’s just as important to remember now as it was a few months ago, even more so. Trusting the world when the world’s let you down can be hard, but facing life together is easier than facing it alone.

Remember: We stand tall together.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

Before one begins to write a story, one must know what one wants to write. As I realized Girl in Red was coming to a close, I started taking note of all the random story ideas I was having.

But even having several ideas didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. Few made it past the initial “pop into my head” stage. Only one of those (“Idea 1”) had lasted much longer than that, and the more I looked at it, the more I didn’t like it. I eventually scrapped that idea, but another came to mind back in September 2019. It’s since changed a lot, but there are two methods that shaped this.

Write What You Love

The first method is simple: write what you love. If you wouldn’t read the story you’re writing, you shouldn’t be writing it. That’s the philosophy I had with Girl in Red: Even if no one else enjoyed it, I did.

It’s easy to know what you enjoy. Just ask yourself: what are your favorite books, movies, TV shows, or other content medium of choice? Anything that’s caught your attention that forms a narrative can help you here. You don’t have to analyze one book or movie; I can’t tell you what my favorite movie is, but I can tell you the top five. It’s the same with books and TV shows. For each type of content (books, movies, etc.), make a list of your favorites. It doesn’t have to be long, just give you a sense of what it is you enjoy. You don’t have to do this, but I’ll reference it later.

That’s the easy part; the hard part is understanding what it is about them that you enjoy. Is it the characters? Something about the plot? What about that book had you saying “this is my favorite”?

Of course, visual media isn’t as helpful here. For example, RWBY is one of my favorite shows, but part of that reason is because I enjoy the visuals. When you start to analyze what you enjoy, if you realize that the visuals are the only reason you enjoy something on that list of yours, then it won’t help you here.

If you want to dig deeper than just your instincts and vague recollection of something, there’s a website you can use. Before you do, set yourself a timer for 20 minutes. The moment it goes off, close every tab you opened in that time. I tell you this because the site is TV Tropes, and its very easy to get sucked in and lose track of time. Look up your favorite content on there and read the list of tropes (Again, 20 minutes, tops). A “trope” is like an ingredient for a story, and the point of this is to understand the ingredients you enjoy in a story. When you read one and think “Oh! I loved that part!” then that’s part of that content that you enjoyed. I didn’t use TV Tropes when I was working out what I wanted to write, but I did start looking harder at my favorite movies and books. I did something else that helped me figure it out as well.

Look Over Your Past Work

I’ve mentioned before that writing every day is helpful. One good use of this is going through whatever it was you wrote and figure out what stuck and what didn’t. Especially look at the snippets you wrote that got you to keep going. What about it did that?

Once I had a spark of an idea in my head, this is what helped me flesh it out. I kept looking it over until I had something I could use. This also helps you understand what you like to write and don’t like to write. A few examples that I’ve found from writing Girl in Red:

• After a scrapped idea from Crimson Caster, I learned I don’t like world building
  • This is the reason Idea 1 fell through: too much world building
  • At the same time, I did enjoy the little bits of world building I did with Hermione and Luna’s plot lines in Crimson Caster
• I enjoyed writing romance a lot more than I thought I would
  • The cutesy scenes in Amber Abandonment with Neville and Luna were some of my favorite parts of Girl in Red
• I don’t like dealing with a large cast of characters
  • I found a good rhythm for it with Crimson Caster, but many times, I’d leave a few characters hanging around doing nothing
    • I especially noticed this in Amber Abandonment with Ginny
• After reviewing Scarlet Sociopath, I learned I don’t like writing too much action sequences
  • I do still enjoy them; the third task in Cherry Champion is one of my favorite scenes
• I like darker writing (plot and humor), so long as there’s a light at the end
• I don’t like straight comedy
  • I prefer drama with comedy sprinkled throughout
• Having an overpowered main character was fun at first, but got old quickly

In Conclusion

It was harder than I thought to find something about which I was excited. Even looking back at Girl in Red, if I were to write it again, it’d be a different story. There were several times I wanted to stop, but the idea of what would happen next kept me going. It changed a lot along the way, but so did I.

It’s important to write something you want to read, otherwise it’ll ruin the writing, and you’ll burn yourself out.

Remember, this is your writing. It’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Advice #Planning

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

As I write this, I’ve just finished the last chapter of Girl in Red.

Back in college, I was the assistant DM for a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. The DM asked me to create a Wizard that would craft the equipment for the party. I asked “Can it be an Artificer?”

That was the first version of Rose. She blew up half of a pirate ship in her first session.

Near the end of college, I had the idea to write a story of a campaign with four characters: A Monk, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Bard. For what would become Exalted, I needed someone to craft their equipment. Why not use Rose again, giving me the opportunity to flesh her out the way I had originally wanted?

That was 2014. Around Christmas that year, I began writing the full story of the Exalted, although that endeavor faded when I got tired of needing to look up rules for everything they fought. But as I was reading fanfiction, something a friend of mine got me involved in, I began to wonder how they’d handle Hogwarts. As I wrote that story, I found myself weighed down dealing with five new characters, so I shelved that and tried one.

I wrote the first chapter of Girl in Red in May 2015, and began sending them to my friend, the same friend that got me started reading fanfiction. She became my only audience member for the next year, and would later become my beta reader.

I published the first chapter of Girl in Red – edited from the original – in May of 2016.

Since then, I’ve written over 930,000 words, 190 chapters, one per week for close to four years. That’s nearly 5000 words a week. There were times I wanted to stop; times I asked “can’t it just end here?”; and times when I couldn’t stop writing. I’ve learned a lot over the course of the series, as is evidenced by the different writing styles of the first book compared to the last one. I’ve discovered planning methods that work for me, and different writing habits, both good and bad.

But now the question stands: what next?

That remains to be seen. I’ve got different ideas for original work, so that’s going to take priority. I don’t see much fanfiction writing in my future, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas for it. Any updates will be posted here or on my Archive of Our Own page.

I’m going to miss these characters. They started off as their canon counterparts, but they’ve grown into so much more. An important part of life is knowing when to move on, and that time has come.

Before I close the book on Girl in Red, I want to say thank you to everyone who’s supported me. Every comment, every kudos, every reader, it all keeps me going.

There’s a block of deleted comments in the first book of Girl in Red, a tangent from a reader that had little to do with the story. His last comment contained the phrase “I will here murder your motivation to write.” Three years later, nearly to the day, I’m still writing. That’s due in part to all the support I’ve gotten. I read every comment, I smile at every kudos. I can never thank you all enough for all the support over the years.

Happy Snowy Time, everyone.

Update: If you enjoyed reading Girl in Red, check out my web serial, Skwyr Court

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

Growing up, Bill Cosby was a household name. Not only that, but he held special significance to my family and I.

I’ve seen Bill Cosby as Himself many times, and the jokes were told throughout my house. Many of them spring to mind as I’m writing this.

Then we found out what he’d been doing. We saw the man behind the stage, and suddenly, the jokes had a sour taste to them. They were so ingrained in my family, that I didn’t know how to think about it.

I shied away from his jokes for a while. They’d been tainted, enough so that I didn’t want to repeat them.

While in a writing workshop, we were given a prompt to write a poem of gratitude towards someone or something horrible. Bill Cosby was one of the first things that popped into my head.

That poem became Thank You for Sharing.

I still don’t have an answer. But I know that someone’s actions can’t take everything they gave me away.

For now, I’ll continue to look to people like Fred Rogers, a man that was just as good off screen as on, and hope that other people can follow his example. I certainly try.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

Another common problem among writers is writer’s block. When you sit down to write, ready to go, then stare at an empty page until you give up.

There are many, many different tricks I’ve found to deal with writer’s block, enough that I couldn’t possibly talk about all of them. Instead, I’m focusing on one: write the good part first.

There have been several chapters of Girl in Red that I’ve sat down to write, and, as previously mentioned, I’ll get nowhere on them. I’ve usually got some idea of what I want to happen, I just don’t want to write whatever part on which I’m stuck.

My solution for this is to pick a different part, even if it’s a different chapter, and start writing it. You can work your way backward from there, or skip it entirely with a few lines of exposition. Maybe you realize that the story needs to take a completely different path. This has happened to me many times, which is why I recommend this.

The example I think of is chapter five in Neville Longbottom and the Cherry Champion. I was stuck on that chapter for a month (this was back when I was far enough ahead that I could afford to be stuck for a month). I kept trying to get the transition into being at Hogwarts for that year right, but I kept getting stuck.

I finally went back and started imagining what the conversation between Hermione and her parents would be like. For context, during the World Cup, instead of running away, Hermione ran toward the group of Death Eaters, getting herself a Cruciatus Curse for her bravery/foolhardiness. As I wrote the scene, I realized that there was no way Hermione was going to be allowed back to Hogwarts, given how I’d been characterizing her parents.

Not only did I finally get a chapter written, but I’d just altered the course of the entire book. Now, when I think of writer’s block, I think of that chapter and what it became.

Like I said in Finding Time to Write, it’s important that you keep writing, but when you force yourself to write, it comes out in the final product. Writing the parts you enjoy first gives you the energy to write the parts you don’t like.

Remember, this is for your writing. It’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Advice #WritersBlock

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

This story begins on Monday, November 11th, 2017. I called my Uncle Rick for his birthday, to say hi. Despite being my godfather, I’m not close to him. He moved away when I was young, and has moved around since. He came to a point where he realized how distant he’d become from his family, and wanted to reconnect.

Friday, I found out that he’d had a stroke. We don’t know when it happened, but it must’ve been within 24 hours of me talking to him. I still remember him having a funny moment where he couldn’t remember my brother’s name. I chocked it up to him getting old. My dad, Rick’s brother, agreed, and reminded me that it wasn’t my fault.

Over the next several months, the family worked to get him the care he needed. He lived in Texas at the time, while most of us lived in New York. We thought it best to move him here so we could better watch over him. My parents said it wasn’t a good idea for me to visit him yet; he still wasn’t himself. So I waited.

Flash forward to Sunday, August 12th, 2018. I saw the move Grave of the Fireflies, and, as I’ve said before, I would later describe it as having “no happy moments, only slightly less sad moments.” From this, I learned what foreshadowing is like from the perspective of the characters.

The following day I received news that my mom’s brother-in-law, my Uncle Tommy, had been hospitalized. They’d had to operate on him twice, and he’d been put under.

On August 18th, I went to see one of my friends perform. I remember another friend asking me how my uncle was doing and responding “which one?”.

The following weekend, August 19th, I went to visit my aunt in the hospital. I was at an art festival near by, and thought I’d check in while I was there. Until I got there, I figured everything would be fine. Every step I took closer, it felt more real. My cousins and aunt are some of the strongest people I know. I’d never seen them upset about anything before that day. When I saw them struggling to keep it together, it hit me that this was bad.

Over the next week, my Uncle Tommy showed signs of getting better. He hadn’t woken up, but he was responding.

That Saturday, August 25th, I went to a writing workshop. It was on erasure poetry. Despite knowing that I was in a workshop, my mom gave me a call. We were doing free-write, so it wasn’t a problem for me to step out. I knew something had happened. I tried preparing myself for the bad news of Uncle Tommy. But that wasn’t why my mom was calling.

Uncle Rick had passed away.

I returned to the workshop, looked at the source material I was supposed to be using, and ignored it. I couldn’t focus on that anymore. Instead, I wrote the first draft of what would later become Never Fading.

From the workshop, I got in my car, and gave myself the time it took to drive to the hospital to clear my head. Being there wasn’t about me; it was about my family, and they needed me more than I needed them.

The following Friday, I took the day off and went to visit my aunt again in the hospital. Up until then, it seemed like he was doing better.

I found out when I got there that he’d taken a turn for the worse. We were gonna lose him.

The following day was my Uncle Rick’s funeral. I drove 30 minutes to the hospital, sat with my aunt for about 15 minutes, then drove 45 minutes to the funeral. I read the final draft of Never Fading.

Sunday, my last remaining uncle held a gathering at his house, a sort of celebration of Rick’s life. Once again, I drove to the hospital to sit with my aunt and cousins, then drove an hour to my uncle’s house.

Monday was Labor Day. Everyone had the day off anyway, so we all gathered at the hospital and took Tommy off life support. I stayed until 9 that night, after my parents and brother had gone home. When she came out, my aunt asked what I was still doing there. I replied “This is where I’m needed”.

While my aunt was sitting outside the hospital with one of her friends, she said a butterfly had flown around them and landed on her hand. After it flew off, she said “That’s Tommy”.

Tuesday, I went to the hospital again. While sitting in the waiting room, I wrote Butterfly Wings. I wrote the last line in my notebook, then my cousins’ friend ran in and said something had happened.

Uncle Tommy passed away.

I took the rest of the week off from everything. I didn’t trust myself to work, and I couldn’t focus on writing. That was one of a handful of times that I didn’t post a chapter of Girl in Red on Saturday morning.

Uncle Tommy’s funeral was September 15th. There wasn’t much; my aunt didn’t want a big ordeal. I read Butterfly Wings.

I post my poems after I read them locally. I go to an open mic every Monday, and Tuesday when I can make it. I posted Butterfly Wings on October 29th of this year, Tommy’s birthday, after I read it. Likewise, I posted Never Fading on November 5th, reading it as close to his birthday as I could.

As hard as that was to go through, it taught me something valuable: writing helps. I already knew, but not to the extent I do now. More than that, it helps other people.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

Many writers will tell you that the best advice is “sit down and write”.

I tend to agree with this; my own writing has improved significantly over the years because I’ve stuck with it for so long. However, that advice is like saying “practice makes perfect” or “you’ll learn eventually”. It goes without saying.

First, you’ve got to find the time. This is where a lot of people have difficulty. I can’t offer you a perfect solution, because such a thing doesn’t exist. What I can do is offer you what’s worked for me.

Carve out a time for yourself. For me, this is first thing in the morning. I wake up, then write for an hour. Do this every day, and you’ll eventually improve.

It sounds simple, but it’s anything but. It took me a long time to get used to doing that, and I still struggle with it. It takes a lot of discipline to get right.

Why do it in the morning? Because I can’t rely on any other time, and doing this every day is critical. At least for me, habits are important. The more I do it, the more I get used to doing it, and I eventually stop trying to get out of doing it. Writing early in the morning means that I have time to write every day, uninterrupted, because no one else is awake yet. If I try writing after everything’s settled down, I’m too exhausted to write.

Another issue some people have is that the ideas don’t come to them when they want them to. There’s a reason for this: you haven’t started yet. When I sit down to start writing, chances are, I’ve got nothing in my head. But as I start writing, that part of my brain wakes up. Don’t worry about what you’re writing, only that you are writing. It can be completely unrelated to what you want to write, so long as you keep writing. Eventually, your mind will get used to it, and the ideas will start flowing.

You may notice that once you sit down to write, anything else is a better alternative. Remember that email you were supposed to write? Or maybe something else more interesting is going on somewhere on the Internet. I recommend shutting out distractions. I don’t allow myself to read emails or open up a web browser, even if I need to research something. If I reach a point where I’d need to look up something, I make a note about it in the text, and I keep going. It’s more important to keep writing.

Don’t let me fool you into thinking this always works. When I have to travel for work (not an uncommon occurrence), my schedule gets thrown off, and I start skipping this. Keep track of how often you’ve skipped your writing time, otherwise you’ll skip it all week and not realize it.

Remember, this is for your writing. It’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Advice

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

I have depression. It first made its presence known when I was in middle school, struggling to deal with the changes I was going through. It only got bad enough that I needed medication while I was in high school. Despite this, it’s still something I notice every day.

This being the case, it’s easy for me to write darker material. If not for the movie Grave of the Fireflies, I might’ve only written dark, depressing poetry.

Grave of the Fireflies is one of the many movies from Studio Ghibli. It follows the story of a boy trying to take care of his little sister in Japan at the end of World War II. I’ve described it as having no happy moments, only slightly less sad moments. I left the movie feeling far worse than I had when I’d sat down. At that moment, I made a promise to myself to work to avoid leaving my readers feeling what I was feeling.

I wrote Hikari before Yami. At the time, I was riding another roller coaster of emotion for no particular reason. I got myself out of it by forcing myself to think positively and allowing myself to get lost in a poem. That poem became Hikari

But I want people living with depression to know that other people are out there like them. Ignoring feelings of depression isn’t good for me, and it’s not helpful for other people to think that it’s only them. I took my feelings of depression and poured them into Yami.

I often read poetry around my town, and whenever I read these two, I always read them together, Yami first, then Hikari. Yami, or darkness, shouldn’t be the end of the story. There’s always Hikari, or light, and I wanted to reflect that in these poems.

(It has occurred to me that people going through the archive might read them out of order.)

Finally, I chose the Japanese names because I like the sound of them. That’s it.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

The chapter of The Cherry Champion that I posted today (Your Own Worst Enemy) involves a sensitive topic to many people, myself included. First and foremost, writing’s my outlet for such feelings, so no matter how lighthearted Girl in Red may be… at times, know that I take the topic very seriously. If nothing else, I’ve been there.

Neville had a choice: life or sword. He ultimately chose life, but not everyone does. Not everyone can. Sometimes, life just piles it on, and it feels like there’s no escape. In the first draft of the chapter, I had Neville remembering some words of encouragement that his friends said. He snapped out of it without harming himself, and that was the end of it.

Then I remembered my own experience with depression and scrapped it. When you’re falling into the darkness, you don’t look for the light. You look for reasons to be depressed, reasons to fall further into the darkness. It feels like no one’s going to save you, and sometimes, no one does.

I dealt with depression through most of high school, and those feelings felt like a weight on my shoulders. Time passed, and I moved on, but a few weeks before writing Your Own Worst Enemy, those feelings came back, but this time, I was ready for them. I sat down, and I wrote about it.

To everyone fighting depression, I encourage you to express yourself in some way. Bottling the feelings up inside only makes them worse. They bleed out if you do, and in my experience, it pushes people away. Sing, draw, write, act, it doesn’t really matter.

Most importantly, remember that there’s always someone who cares. For me, it was my family and some of my friends (although some were more hazardous to my mental health than others). Teenagers: The adults might seem like the enemy, but they’ve been there. Talk to your teachers, or your parents, or even your friends’ parents. Someone out there understands what you’re going through, and you’re not alone.

If you’re one of those people who cares, speak up. Let them know you care. I promise you won’t regret it.

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

At first, I tried adding references when I could. I’d see a chance at some reference from Frozen or RWBY and I’d take it because it made me laugh. As time went on, and I started having ideas of my own, I began to notice the problems with making references or doing a parody in general.

1. Not everyone gets it. This is the biggest problem, since part of the joke is tied to the original. Often times I’ll hear a saying or watch/read a scene in some form of media and think it seems great. Problem is, it’s great in the context of that other story. If someone’s never read/watched the other story, then they won’t get the reference, or feel the same way the original made me feel.

2. It comes off as lazy writing. This one’s not always true, but references can come off as lazy, i.e. “You’re not good enough to come up with something on your own, so you have to steal from other people”.

3. It doesn’t always make sense. I realized this one quickly, and scrapped any references I made that didn’t make sense for the time. If I wanted to have Rose quote something, for example, I wanted her to keep it in character. Of course, it can also be interesting to figure out why the character said/did it.

4. Anyone who does get it will compare it to the original. This is especially true with parodies. If I tried to mimic a scene, I can attempt to mask it, but anyone who has seen/read/watched/whatevered the original will most likely think “I liked the original better”. Why? Well if it’s good enough that I want to copy it, it’s probably better than my own work.

Unfortunately, some references are so tied in that I couldn’t remove them all. I like Rose’s character design, despite taking a lot from Ruby Rose, and I’ll never part with “Salutations!”, because in addition to being Penny’s thing (See my point? If you haven’t seen RWBY, you probably have no idea who that is), it’s also Rose’s thing and I can explain why she says it. Since the Exalted began life as actual D&D characters, most of them have references tied into their characters. Bowie and Carolina have them in their names, although Carolina’s isn’t as obvious.

“It sounds like this used to be a big problem. Why don’t I see more of these in Girl in Red?” Because I went through and cleared out most of them when I proofread each chapter. Sure, there are still some, but they just about disappear in year two. So don’t worry; I promise not to do anymore Frozen references. I’ve outgrown that. The bit in Girl in Red when Snape has a nightmare about Rose singing Do You Want to Build a Snowman? makes me laugh too much, so that got a pass.

There’s actually a scene in Chapter 10 of Scarlet Sociopath (Which, as of the time I’m writing this, hasn’t been posted yet) that made this really sink in. It was a short exchange between Hermione and Rose into which I mixed more references. What stood out was how amused I was by everything else, because the references didn’t entirely fit, and I kept thinking “The original was better”. I left them in when I sent them to my beta reader, who didn’t mind them at all, but they may be removed before I actually post it.

Moral of the Story: Try to keep references to a minimum. Instead of ripping off a scene verbatim, figure out why you wanted to in the first place. For me, it’s usually to do with how it made me feel. I then try to figure out if I can tie something similar into my own work. If I can’t, then I (try to) move on.

#Essay #Advice

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA