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Welcome to She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars, two brand-new anthologies that share a common theme – masquerades – but tell different types of stories – wlw in She Wears the Midnight Crown and mlm in He Bears the Cape of Stars. These collections are the latest titles from Duck Prints Press, the indie publisher founded by fans to publish original works by fan creators, and they’re crowdfunding NOW, only on Seed & Spark!

Curious about the collections? Well, here’s a sneak peek of the works of two of our creators!

She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: S. Z. Meriläinen

Biography: Satu Meriläinen grew up exploring the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, and foraging through pine forests in rural Finland. Now she lives with her wife and two dogs in Melbourne. She adores fantasy and science fiction with sprinklings of magical realism. In her spare time, she sings along loudly to any song she knows, cross stitches, bangs out a few sentences at a time, and plays video games badly.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

Story Title: Carved of Ice and Snow

Teaser:
Tendrils of ice had squirmed beneath it and were winding their way towards the stranger’s supine body. Siofra lunged forward and stomped her heels hard into the ice, shattering it below her heel. It splattered the floor with shards and mud from the tread of her boots. Muttering, she glared at the tendrils, which quickly slunk back to linger, uncertainly, by the door. To vent her frustration, she sent her kicked-off boots to thud against the door above them.

Despite her anger, the ice tendrils lingered. Siofra almost fancied they were wistfully waiting for a chance to reach for…

She turned to the stranger, moving closer to kneel by their side. Despite the heat filling the room, the snow that coated them was still intact. Siofra brushed it away with brisk swipes of her hands, hands travelling up the stranger’s body, fingertips trailing over powerfully built muscles. The stranger was, so far as Siofra could tell, a normal elvish—no, human, judging by the rounded ears—woman who wore a loose dress dyed in irregular starbursts of colour that shifted like sunlight off a flowing stream.

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: Maggie Page

Biography: Maggie Page lives in Texas with family, including her incorrigibly clumsy mom with a green thumb, two silly dogs who are also mother and daughter, and a fierce feline hunter. Maggie has previously published several poems and a piece of flash fiction with collegiate and independent journals.

When not indulging the urge to write, Maggie enjoys music, traveling, camping, dabbling in various art forms, principally watercolor and graphic making, and torturing her loved ones with her ruthless board game victories.

Story Title: Sincerely and Enigmatically Yours

Teaser:
“You’re all ready. Paid in full.” Felicia fussed with the card attached to the aubergine ribbon tied around the vase. “I do hope you enjoy them; be sure to pay close attention to the note.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

Felicia winked. “You too, dear.”

Stepping out the door felt like leaving another dimension. He carried his prize as if the plants harbored a little bit of magic and settled the bouquet carefully into his car. Unable to resist his curiosity, Marcelo reached for the card. Inside, he found a poem like those in the adventure stories he’d read as a child.

A rose for love is too cliché
to express what I would say.
These blooms for you instead convey
noble qualities you display:
You never do a thing halfway.
When others go, you always stay.
You take the time to savor play.
One final hint with no delay:
The liar wetly will relay,
“In company, I hide away
among the twins and scales that weigh.”

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She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: B. T. Fish

Biography:

(They/Them)

Kevin lives in Maine with his two dogs and his lovely wife. When he’s not writing, he enjoys birdwatching and foraging for mushrooms.

Like Kevin, this author also has two dogs.

Links: Twitter

Story Title: Tiger Lily

Teaser:
The bookstore is dusty, dim, and staffed by precisely one old man.

Tora notes how slowly he rises when they walk in, takes in the rheumy eyes and arthritis-enlarged finger joints and wonders if Arnaud has made a mistake. This can’t be the tattoo artist.

Except, apparently, he is.

“This is the one I mentioned.” Arnaud introduces Tora like a pet, touches the side of their neck. “I thought this spot would be especially intriguing.”

Tora tenses.

The old man smiles vaguely. “Of course,” he says, and Tora’s stomach drops. “If you want me to give her blood poisoning.”

Tora relaxes marginally, but Arnaud squashes their relief by tilting Tora’s head sideways to trace over their cheekbone, just beneath their eye. “Here, then.”

The old man steps around the counter, floor creaking with every step. He studies the place Arnaud indicates and frowns.

“If I agree to make the mark, you will let me decide where, yes?” he asks.

Arnaud lets go of Tora’s face. “It needs to be visible.”

“Of course.”

Tora doesn’t care where he puts it. They already know this tattoo is going to hurt like hell, no matter where it goes. The ink for these things isn’t normal.

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: J. D. Rivers

Biography: J. D. writes speculative fiction where they fall deeply and madly in love and find a dead body, not necessarily in that order.

She collects hobbies as others collect books and has an unhealthy addiction to watching competitive cooking shows.

J. D. lives close to the woods with her husband and the cutest dog in the world.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

Story Title: We drink the thunderstorm

Teaser:
Arell froze when the words finally made sense.

Murderer on the run! / Birthday party at de Borge mansion gone wrong / Secretary found dead / De Borge son wanted for questioning / Resistance pulling the strings? / Money offered for leads on whereabouts

“I don’t know what happened.”

“Bullshit.”

Arell flinched at the anger bristling down Tristan’s body. And yet that anger, that raw power – the danger that lurked in every one of Tristan’s movements – was also pulling him in.

“Is it true?”

“What?” Arell couldn’t make sense of the question. His mind was even more in tatters than he had assumed. The whole night was catching up to him.

“That Lorel is dead.”

*

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He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: Alex Ransom

Biography: Alex Ransom is a longtime fan writer and translator recently expanding into original fiction. Her favorite trope, as both reader and writer, is “Earn Your Happy Ending,” in which characters fight through perhaps inordinate amounts of difficulty to come out happier and more content on the other side. She is especially interested in the intersection between social circumstances, personal history, and the formation and maintenance of identity. Her favorite genres are space opera, fantasy, queer romance, and poetry.

As a child, Alex thought everything was better if it was more complicated and that the best answer to a yes or no question was usually “both”. Consequently, today she is bi/pansexual, trans/nonbinary, has worked a variety of jobs, and has three degrees in completely unrelated fields. When she isn’t writing or doomscrolling on the internet, she likes to travel, hike, and build marginally functional furniture. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her spouse and adult daughter.

Story Title: A Midwinter Night’s Dream

Teaser:

“So, Pluto; you’re requesting galley usage for” —Barnacle cleared his throat and quoted from Pete’s form— “’a team bonding and cohesiveness exercise with emphasis on work-life balance.’”

“That’s right,” Pete affirmed, although he suspected half those words were meaningless. Management jargon was not his forte. Pussycat from Heavy Equipment had helped him trowel it on.

Barnacle peered at Pete over his reading glasses. Tufts of hair stuck out of his comb-over and waved softly in the breeze from the Preway heater like the feelers of his namesake. An artificial ficus stood guard over near-empty in and out boxes, proclaiming either Barnacle’s efficiency in middle management or the decreased bureaucratic workload of winter on a remote research station.

“In other words, a party,” he said bluntly.

She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: D. A. Hernández

Biography: Mexican. In love with the world. Teacher. Daydreamer. Collector of fascinating facts and stories. I will tell my dreams to anyone who listens. Voracious reader (and occasional writer) of fanfiction since I was a teenager. My artistic credentials include juggling, match improv, stand-up comedy, and making silly poems and songs I can’t sing. Through my writing I wish to transmit hope, joy, and the courage to come to terms with tragedy and imagine a better future.

One of my horror stories, “Maneki Neko”, was published in Penumbria Magazine #54 Oct 2021 (in Spanish). This will be my first published story in English.

Link: Twitter

Story Title: Are you in love with the squid?

Teaser:

Once in the bathroom of their rented pod room, Squid let Emilio drop along with the overalls and cap. They allowed their face to relax, softening like putty as they reshaped it, rounder and with a wider nose and thinner lips, imitating the features of a chubby little girl with bright gray eyes and black braids, smiling from a worn photograph tucked in a corner of the mirror. At her sides, her parents smiled at the camera, gray-haired and tired-looking but still full of hope.

Squid vaguely remembered visiting the aquarium that day, a special treat after the first round of tests and experimental genome injections that both saved their life and doomed their little family. When GeoCorp had decided to retroactively charge for the treatment, Squid’s parents were pushed from lifelong debt into bankruptcy and eventually prison.

When Squid finished, the face staring back was still not their own. It was nothing but a mask, pasted on an empty puppet that could only imitate people.

*

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She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: Lyn Weaver

Biography: Lyn Weaver has been writing fanfiction for over a decade and original fiction for even longer. Her preferred genres are fantasy and horror, and her preferred tropes are ‘enemies to lovers’ and anything to do with identity issues. She won’t read a story if something bad happens to the cat.

Story Title: The Thing with Feathers

Teaser:

They say the masked Delvers who harvest the Dungeon’s riches become monsters if they stay too long or dig too deep, and that those monsters flood out of the Dungeon at night and kidnap women. That was why the tower was built so close to the gaping wound leading to the earth’s core: so you would learn to be grateful you weren’t down there. In your experience, the Dungeon is an ugly hole in the ground and the Delvers are your fellow prisoners. Precious few would choose to step into a pitch-black hole in the ground they might never return from, after all. Most of them are out there because they can’t live any other way. Or they’re simply being forced to, the way Nasha was. To top it all off, you haven’t seen a single monster. Not until tonight.

A soft thump rouses you from uneasy slumber. You sit up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, and freeze. There’s a woman on the windowsill. The windowsill hundreds of feet above the ground.

“Huh,” she says. “Three years of searching and you were just outside home all along.”

You blink. Then you shoot upright and stumble toward her. Her skin is grey in the moonlight, short wild hair reaching up toward the moon. Something about the shape of her isn’t quite right, but she’s the first person you’ve seen up close in three years. You don’t care.

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: Louise Long

Biography: Louise Long (she/they) lives in Cardiff and writes contemporary and urban fantasy. She also writes speculative fiction as J. L. George, and her first novel, The Word, is published by New Welsh Rarebyte. In her other lives, she’s a library monkey and an academic interested in literature and science and the Gothic.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

Story Title: Give Him a Mask

Teaser:
Tam’s shoulders bunched up; he forced himself to relax. “Most people round here are a little weird,” he said. It was true: the Pearl teemed with the arty kids, the queers and outsiders. “Lot of them don’t talk about their families much, either. Better off without them.”

Defensiveness made its way into his voice, and the stranger looked at him curiously. “Are you better off without yours?”

“They’re arseholes.” Tam sighed and pushed himself upright. Anna was beckoning him from the stage door. “I’d better go. Stick around and watch us, if you like.”

“Maybe I will.” The stranger took a half-step forward, held out his hand for a second, then let it fall back to his side. “I’m Emlyn, by the way.”

Tam could hardly give his real name. “Starry,” he said, after a moment.

Emlyn blinked at him. “Starry?”

“Starry Knight.” Tam’s cheeks warmed. “It’s a stage name.”

“That’s terrible,” Emlyn informed him, solemnly. But there was a twinkle in his eye, sudden and unexpected. It did equally unexpected things to Tam’s insides, putting a vertiginous, swooping feeling in his belly.

He grinned, suddenly reckless with it. “Wait ’til you see me onstage.”

Intrigued? You should be! But, if you want to read the rest of these stories you’ll need to back our campaign, running now through July 14th, 2022!

You Know You Need to Know What Happens Next – Back and Find Out!

Welcome to She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars, two brand-new anthologies that share a common theme – masquerades – but tell different types of stories – wlw in She Wears the Midnight Crown and mlm in He Bears the Cape of Stars. These collections are the latest titles from Duck Prints Press, the indie publisher founded by fans to publish original works by fan creators, and they’re crowdfunding NOW, only on Seed & Spark!

Curious about the collections? Well, here’s a sneak peek of the works of two of our creators!

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: Kit Alexander

Biography: Kit (she/they/he) has been creating stories since before they could even hold a pencil; they still have a time-worn copy of their debut short work, “Sally Plays Outside,” which they carefully dictated to their mom at the tender age of three.

Now, Kit—who’s all grown up, supposedly—lives with their partner, two dogs, and a cat, in the Appalachian Valley of East Tennessee. They still write just about every day, and have been published by TL;DR Press, Bandit Fiction, Lickerish Library, and others. They also volunteer with the Organization for Transformative Works, and have more fingers than can possibly be hygienic dipped in many fandom pies.

They simply have too many fandoms to name, but some of their most abiding obsessions include: Supernatural, Dragon Age, Hades, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Captive Prince, Black Sails, and Avatar: the Last Airbender. They mostly write fic, but they’ve also dabbled in creating fanvids and moderating events and fan spaces. You can find them just about anywhere on the internet under the name Venhedish.

Outside of fandom, they deeply enjoy reading, creating art, playing the ukulele, knitting, and about a hundred other hobbies that don’t involve leaving the house. They’ve somehow managed to keep a veritable forest of houseplants alive over the last two years, and that in itself is probably the most impressive feat they’ve ever accomplished.

Link: Archive of Our Own

Story Title: Slán Abhaile

Teaser:
The rest of the countryside is desolate. Even the scattered houses miles ahead are shuttered for the night; no smoke puffs from their chimneys.

It’s a surprise, then, when I finally descend back into the valley and there comes the unmistakable sound of music just ahead. A light, too, flickering warm and orange from a fire, spreads itself over the dark mud under my feet. It grows brighter as I draw nearer, like a beacon in the night.

I round the base of the next hill and see that a tent has been erected in the rangy grass off the side of the path. It stands tall, gleaming in the light of a massive bonfire that crackles even over the sounds of fiddle and drum. The structure is draped in silks, resplendent in deep blues and golds and delicate pinks. There are people gathered here, dancing and laughing and casting weird shadows against the fabric of the structure. Looking at them makes my head swim, and I realized that I must be even drunker than I’d thought. How had I missed the sight of this gathering from my vantage on the hill? How had the music not carried to me?

She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: Bunny K. Solomon

Biography: Bunny is an old-school romantic based in the UK. She is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing in London. This is her first formal publication.

Link: Personal Website

Story Title: Moon-Eyed

Teaser:

“Ada,” Elise repeats, and hearing her say it curls another shiver up the small of Ada’s back, a pleasant prickle of awareness. “You are a bookseller?”

“I am. And also printer, publisher. My father and I have a print shop on the street by the river.”

“A publisher?” Her eyebrows raise, intrigued. “Do you write?”

Ada does not, but she might try. “Would you like it if I did?”

Elise laughs.

Ada has seen boys court girls, deer-legged in their youth with eager, fumbling hands. She has loved girls as a boy would, loved them more, had them softening beneath her in beds of clover and drawn sounds from them like blood to the skin, the flush of pleasure, when the fallow fields lie empty.

She would love this Elise, too, if she would allow herself to be caught.

*

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She Wears the Midnight Crown Contributor Spotlight: Rascal Hartley

Biography: Rascal Hartley is from the southern United States, and when they aren’t busy hiking or collecting various bones, you can find them curled up in their favorite chair, writing. Their favorite author is a tie Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnegut, but the book they re-read every year is The Last Unicorn.

Story Title: Among the Stars

Teaser:

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Her voice is as rich and deep as the simulated rain falling around her, evaporating before it dares touch her skin. Lightning cracks, but not in the sky. It cracks somewhere between Ellix’s ribs as she stares at the woman before her.

“Sure,” Ellix replies, and the thunder sits beside her.

“Vodka,” the woman says, and Ellix holds up two fingers at the bartender. The woman smirks. “I thought vampires could only drink blood?”

“It’s more of a personal preference,” Ellix admits, propping her chin on her hand. “I’m guessing it’s the same with you.”

She turns her face so Ellix only catches the tail ends of her smile, and oh, she’s hooked. “Astrid,” the woman finally says, holding out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you…?”

“Ellix.”

“Ellix.” Astrid takes her hand and brings it to her lips, like something out of an ancient movie. “Tell me, Ellix, what is drawing you to Earth?”

“The humans,” Ellix deadpans, earning her reward as Astrid laughs. It is as ocean-vast as the rest of her, and Ellix finds herself leaning closer to the sound.

“Fair enough, keep your secrets.” Astrid’s eyes twinkle as she speaks, and Ellix silently thinks that her last sunrise had been millennia prior, but it looked a hell of a lot like this. “I’m just passing through.”

He Bears the Cape of Stars Contributor Spotlight: J. S. Lenore

Biography: From an early age, J.S. Lenore has always been passionate about books and storytelling, but it wasn’t until high school that she started writing her own stories. Starting with fanfiction, she shifted to original stories in 2013. She recently completed her first published series of books in early 2022. When she isn’t writing, J. S. spends her time making art, knitting, reading, and hanging out with her husband and two kids.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Facebook | Tumblr | Twitter

Story Title: Rings Around You

Teaser:
Staring out the windows on the promenade deck, the new person he’d become shrank into nothingness. Jupiter was a massive wall of twisting color, oranges and golds and the deep, terrifying bloody swirl of the Great Red Spot. It filled the window, blocking out every speck of space behind it, and Aki was more insignificant and anonymous in that moment than at any other in his life.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Aki startled at the voice, and then, as he turned to face it, his mind stopped. There wasn’t any lurching halt, no sudden stillness that caught him off guard. His every thought, every feeling, ceased as Aki looked at the man standing next to him. He stared out at the great wall of Jupiter before them, the colors reflecting on his face, the luminous glow of orange and red playing across the man’s skin so it gleamed like burnished gold. His eyes, a deep gray that sparkled like starlight, were wrinkled at the corners as he smiled. When he turned to Aki, his expression was warm with repressed laughter.

“It’s also a bit much, the first time.” His smile was like the sun flashing through the Kuiper Belt, a quick brightness that left Aki yearning for more. “But still beautiful.”

“Yeah.” Aki’s tongue was too big for his mouth. “Beautiful.”

*

Intrigued? You should be! But, if you want to read the rest of these stories you’ll need to back our campaign, running now through July 14th, 2022!

Don’t Miss These Awesome Books!

36 remarkable authors—18 for He Bears the Cape of Stars, 18 for She Wears the Midnight Crown—have come together for this project. These authors have been toiling away on their stories since February 1st, 2022, and we’re currently work with them on edits to get them publication-ready. We’re delighted to share their work with you!
Contributors to He Bears the Cape of Stars:

Kit Alexander (Archive of Our Own)

Jessica Black (Archive of Our Own | Discord: alocalband#6844 | Tumblr | Twitter)

Era J. M. Couts (Archive of Our Own | Tumblr)

Ma’at James (Twitter)

Stephen G. Krueger (Archive of Our Own | Etsy | Personal Website)

Tris Lawrence (Facebook | Pillowfort | Tumblr | Twitter)

J. S. Lenore (Archive of Our Own | Facebook | Tumblr | Twitter)

Louise Long (Personal Website | Twitter)

M. K. Mads

Maggie Page

Julia Perroni (Twitter)

Alex Ransom

J. D. Rivers (Personal Website | Twitter)

Tevye J. Schmidt

Veronica Sloane (Archive of Our Own | Tumblr)

Elliott Vale (Tumblr | Twitter)

Nina Waters (Archive of Our Own | Tumblr | Twitter)

Charlie Winter (Archive of Our Own | Twitter)

Contributors to She Wears the Midnight Crown:

Willa Blythe (Personal Website | Twitter)

Rebekah D. Cook (Personal Website | Tumblr | Twitter)

N. C. Farrell

B. T. Fish (Twitter)

S. Z. Fletcher (Personal Website | Twitter)

Mare Griffen

Adrian Harley (Twitter)

Rascal Hartley

Lacey Hays (Tumblr | Instagram | Twitter | Royal Road | Wattpad)

D. A. Hernández (Twitter)

Lucy K. R. (Archive of Our Own | Twitter)

Lex T. Lindsay (Goodreads | Linktree | Twitter)

Annabeth Lynch (Facebook | Instagram)

Sebastian Marie (Archive of Our Own)

Alec J. Marsh (Etsy | Instagram | Twitter)

Bunny K. Solomon (Personal Website)

Emma Victoria (Twitter)

Lyn Weaver

You can read about them—in their own words!—see select author portraits, and more, by clicking this link: https://duckprintspress.com/index.php/she-wears-the-midnight-crown-he-bears-the-cape-of-stars/hbcs-and-swmc-contributor-biographies/

Hey everyone! This is Aria, one of the resident fandom olds here to bring you a guest blog post this week. The topic is near and dear to my heart, so let’s dive straight into talking about that ever-ominous thundercloud - Writing Advice!

Writing advice is a tricky subject for many authors - what works for one clearly doesn’t work for another, and what’s essential for one genre might not even apply to another genre . (Certain authors can pry adverbs from my cold, dead hands.) It doesn't matter who is offering it, where, or when: it is an industry truism that writing advice is as varied as writers themselves.

With that in mind, I asked ten different authors for writing advice, in the hope to highlight just how different we all are, even when approaching the same question.

The question I posed to everyone individually (so no one would get worried if they gave the same answer), was as follows: What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing or what you are working on still holds true?

As I hoped, the advice is as varied as the authors are!

@nottesilhouette:

Hmm I think for me, the Universal Constant is that [my writing has] got to make me feel good. Not necessarily happy, because I've definitely written through tears before, but it's got to make me feel...satisfied, or give me catharsis, or lead me towards a goal I'm passionate about (looking at you, med school essays!).

Even if [my writing is] for school, getting things done feels good, and for creative writing, I want to feel like I've stretched my writing brain or accomplished something cool -- if I'm not getting that feeling, it's time for a break and maybe a new plan of attack.

Hermit:

"You can't think your way out of a writer's block. Most of the time you need to write yourself out of a thinking block.” - John Rogers

When a story is fighting me this is often the solution. Either the scene is going against the characterization, the characters are lacking agency/being too passive, or I went wrong three sentences back; the answer to getting the story flowing is to write it differently and see how that feels. Rather than try to force an existing scene by coming up with better justification for an OOC (Out of Character) passage or diving into a new research rabbit hole.

Shadaras:

I don't know where this advice first came from (it's one of those things that just gets passed around until it's from the general writer mindscape, especially in fandom spaces), but this is the advice I tend to ground myself in: "Write what you want to read." What that means can vary depending on context, of course, but it gives a guiding point to return to when I'm stuck.

The thing I want to read could be a specific character dynamic, or leaning into descriptions of the environment, or a plot beat I really want to hit, or even (in a nonfiction context) just the clearest explanation of an event/rule I know how to give. Writing what I want to read means that I'm going to enjoy myself more, and that means that I'm going to be able to write much more easily, and that makes it more likely I'll finish stories and be able to share them with other people - and then I can find people who like the same things in stories I do, and we all win!

Annabeth Lynch:

The most constant advice that I really try to keep in mind is that sure, someone else may have written it, but not you. Everyone has unique experiences, and that makes your writing unique. No one can write something the exact way you would. It's my favorite advice I've ever gotten, and I feel that it's always relevant.

@ts-knight:

Writing by habit is often easier than waiting for the muse. When I feel out of practice in my writing, I find that starting again is an uphill climb, but setting a daily goal helps me get back into the flow. That goal could be just writing at all or a certain (achievable) number of words. That way, I know I've reached the goal not when I've hit a certain quality of writing, but when I sat down at the keys. Exercising my writing muscles (even when I'm afraid to) makes the creativity flow so much better than avoiding the ominous blank page!

@mad-madam-m:

[My writing advice is] that you have to finish. And I don't mean that you have to finish everything that you write; I've got easily a dozen stories or more that are either unfinished or never made it past the first draft. But if you're writing with the goal of sharing your stories with an audience, be that via fanfic or original fiction or what have you, I really think one of the best things you can do is learn to finish them. This quote about it in particular is one that I've held close to my heart for years:

“Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don’t talk about doing it. Do it. Finish.” — E. L. Konigsburg

Sanne Burg:

I think my universal constant is that I write because I want to write, and I create for myself. That means not caring what other people think of the topics I write [about], as long as I'm behind whatever it is I'm writing. (It also means that I know when I'm forcing it and that I need to stop when writing becomes a chore rather than something for fun or a hobby.)

@theleakypen:

I think the one [piece of writing advice] that has been truest for me, regardless of what I'm working on, is that if something isn't working [I should] step away from it for a bit and go work on something else. Usually if there's a problem, I need to let it percolate in the back of my head instead of banging my head against a wall.

ThePornFairy:

Focus on the feeling. If you can write the feeling so that it's filling you from the tips of your toes to the hair on your head, then you're on the right track. People don't care half as much about the setting and wording as they do about the feeling.

When people say "step inside your character", I think what they mean is "let your character feel and feel along with them until feelings come out on your page and stab your reader's eyeballs until they're feeling right along with you." Everything else can be edited later, as long as you capture and express the emotions.

@tryslora:

Fall in love with your characters. If you don't love them, no one else will. And yes, this includes the antagonists and every single side character. And while you're doing that, remember that every single character thinks they are the star of their own narrative, so let them tell you what it is, even if it's not the main storyline. Let them come alive.

Wonderfully said, everyone! I’m going to add my answer to the question as well, because sometimes, I’ve needed this reminder far more than I’ll admit!

@arialerendeair:

Don’t be afraid to write badly. Or poorly, or lazily. (Take that, Mr. Adverb-Hater.) There is a freedom I never realized before in allowing myself to write “badly:” to overuse certain words, phrases, and even styles as I write my rough draft. When I remember not to focus on the minutiae of a story, I can focus on the bigger problems, and fix the small ones later. Once the words are on the page, they can be fixed, but they have to be put on the page first. Write badly, edit, learn, get better, and write again.

Writing advice as a topic is a mix of controversial and contradictory; all advice should be applied in moderation rather than treated as an endless stream of syrup being poured over a stack of pancakes. (And now I want pancakes…) It’s always all right if advice doesn’t apply to you - but understanding why the advice is given is important. There are other authors out there who might need the advice that isn’t right for you.

When I set out to write this blog post, I had two goals. The first was I wanted to highlight how varied writing advice and tips can be. The second one was for everyone reading it to walk away with one piece of advice that they could hold to heart because it fit them. I accomplished the first, but the second is entirely up to every author reading this.

The one consistent theme through all of this advice comes down to two words: Keep Writing. Whether that’s daydreaming about your story or putting the words down on the page, write.

Keep writing.

Last, but not least, I’ll leave you all with the same question, because I know there are more answers out there that we all would love to hear:

What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing, what you are working on, still holds true.

Stay sassy, everyone!

(a couple days late this time, sorry!)

Welcome to our latest Prompt-A-Duck masterpost, the weekly low stress prompt event run on the Duck Prints Press server for all of our authors and artists!

As an aside, we've made an AO3 collection where, once we get a spare few minutes, we'll be making sure all the Prompt-A-Duck fills can be accessed.

This week, we had one word prompt and one AU prompt to choose from:

1. sybarite: a person who loves expensive things and pleasure

2. “We had a really bad break-up three hundred years ago, but neither of us realized the other was immortal until we met today while shopping for groceries” AU. Credit: https://dailyau.tumblr.com/post/667209828751572992/we-had-a-really-bad-break-up-three-hundred-years

Results:

Sarnakh: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37418728

Lucy K.R.: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63091773 (CW: a dead vampire victim and mention of hunting pigeons)

Zylaa: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37357432/chapters/93218782 (CW: mild references to past sexual activity)

As always, if you enjoyed their work, please give our authors some love!