M.C. Frank's Blog, page 431
September 29, 2017
Books + Christmas ribbon
Spent all morning making bows and...
Books + Christmas ribbon
Spent all morning making bows and packages
Things to Keep Out of Your Healthy Relationships!
(Alternately: how to identify problematic YA romances.)Written by yours truly, contributions from @jltillary, @theinkrepository, @time-to-write-and-suffer, and @sakrebleu.
Non-consensual physical intimacy, especially in situations where it’s portrayed as being done for the benefit of the victim or situations where the victim forgives the forced intimacy because they decide they like it after it’s already been forced on them. Examples:
Forcing a partner to accept physical comfort when they don’t want it.
Kissing a partner in the middle of an argument.
Framing consent as unnecessary simply because one person is attracted to the other.
Stalking the other person, even for their own safety.
Forcing the other person into some form of physical intimacy because they “liked it last time.”
Implying that it’s normal for a certain physically intimate act to hurt and/or their partner should grin and bear it.
Skipping over their partner’s preferred forms of intimacy in favor of what they want to do with/to their partner.When in doubt: Consent should be explicitly given!!
Non-consensual communication. Examples:
Physically stopping a partner from leaving in order to continue talking with them.
Bringing up a topic the other person has made clear they don’t wish to discuss yet.
Forcing the other person into conversations with people they previously showed they did not wish to talk with.
Manipulating the conversation so that the other person shares a secret, especially one that doesn’t affect their partner.Emotional manipulation. Examples:
Telling the other person to do something (i.e. ‘go away’) as a test, where the person is at fault if they follow through and do as their partner asked.
Blaming the other person for things beyond their control, especially “I wouldn’t be like this if not for you/your interests/your goals.”
Claiming they’ll die (or kill themselves) if the other person leaves.
Not wanting the other person to have friends of the same gender as their partner (i.e. a man not wanting his girlfriend to have any male friends).
“If you really loved me you would do x, y, and z.”
Demanding to be the most important part of their partner’s life, above and beyond their partner’s other responsibilities.
Cheating on their partner as a form of punishment.
Acting as though physical intimacy (or any other sort of intimacy) isn’t important, but then blaming the other person for not supplying it.
Acting distant or cruel until the other person does what they want, or because the other person didn’t do what they wanted.Demeaning actions and words, especially in instances where they blame the actions and words on internalized sexism, racism, etc as a shield, in instances outside of high-stress arguments, and whenever the character isn’t sincerely sorry for what they did or makes no point to change. Examples:
Stating the other person’s interests or hobbies are inferior or a waste of time.
Telling them they were look better if they did x, y and z.
Demanding they stop doing something or start doing something else based on their gender, race, etc.
Placing the other person in a subordinate role without their partner’s explicit consent.
Not sharing certain pieces of information because they believe they know what’s best for their partner and don’t need the other person’s consent to act upon it.
Bonus: Glorification of a partner simply for not demeaning the other person, (i.e. for acting like an average, decent human being,) especially when the partner in question boasts how amazing they are for loving their “curvy”/non-white/bisexual/not-like-other-girls/etc partner.
Please add more, if you feel so inclined!
entangledwordz:When the number of your incompleted stories is bigger than the number of years you...
When the number of your incompleted stories is bigger than the number of years you have been writing..
Or you could possibly live…
Win Signed Copies of No Vain Loss
Exciting announcement, everyone!I’m giving away a few signed paperback copies of No Vain Loss, my science fiction novel about a world where Christmas doesn’t exists and kissing is forbidden.
Synopsis:
A soldier is summoned to the North Pole, days before the year changes, told to fix the great Clock for a celebration. He has no idea what to do.
A girl, hunted for the crime of being born, almost dies out on the ice. She is rescued by the last polar bear left alive.
A library waits for them both, a library built over a span of a hundred years, forgotten in the basement of an ice shack.
The world hasn’t known hunger or sickness in hundreds of years. It has also forgotten love and beauty.
This is the One World.
The year is 2524.
Inspired by the short stories of Ray Bradbury, this futuristic young adult novel in three parts is set in a world where Christmas -among other things- is obsolete and a Clock is what keeps the fragile balance of peace.
Written in three parts, this is the breathtaking story of how two unlikely people change the world, and each other, one book at a time.
In No Vain Loss, the world is on the brink of the greatest war humanity has ever known. Lives will be lost. New truths will be revealed.
Recommended for fans of:
Hot soldiers (see Kdrama, Descendants of the Sun, and so on)
My True Love Gave to Me anthology, Christmas feels and aesthetic
Ray Bradbury-inspired scifi worldbuilding
YA dystopian/postapocalyptic novels
These Broken Stars series
Book boyfriends
A touch of existential issues Huxley-style
Star Wars-style action
Intense romance
Hidden libraries
Fight for survival
Forbidden kisses
Bromance
BearsReaders say:
Fast, Futuristic, Creative. -Yesha, Books Teacup and Reviews
My new obsession and yours too! No Ordinary Star reads like a love letter to humanity. -S. E. Anderson, author of Starstruck
This book is magic. -Alex Rowe, @captain.valour
I fell head-over-heels in love! -Drew C.
Oh, how I’ve already fallen in love with our two main characters, tin solider and match girl. -Rebecca RavenCurrent rating on goodreads 4.8 stars
Pages 230
Release date: 5 Dec 2017
Does it sound like something you’d like to read?
G I V E A W A Y
Preorder the kindle for .99 here: http://amzn.to/2gNO7zi and send me a screencap of your recept/confirmation (email here)
You will be automatically entered to win one of 5 signed paperback copies!Good luck!
September 28, 2017
"What monster sleeps in the deep of your story? You need a monster. Without a monster there is no..."
-
Billy Marshall Stoneking
(via
)
lux-deorum:
Me: I have a new antagonist!!
*five minutes later*
Me: I need a new...
Me: I have a new antagonist!!
*five minutes later*
Me: I need a new antagonist.
Them: wtf happened to the last one?
Me: He is my son and I love him how dare you suggest-
Books + struggle
How has your day been?
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#books #book...
Books + struggle
How has your day been?
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#books #book #read #reading #reader #page #pages #paper #instagood #kindle #nook #library #author #bestoftheday #bookworm #readinglist #love #photooftheday #imagine #story #literature #literate #stories #words
catsbythegreat:
writers need a lot of encouragement, and over the past few weeks I’ve been told a...
writers need a lot of encouragement, and over the past few weeks I’ve been told a lot of really cool things about writers that we deserve or that we should be thinking about in terms of our value. so if you’re ever doubting yourself as a writer, keep all of these in mind!
I’ll start off by saying that people want you. They want your stories and your ideas. Not everyone can write well, not everyone is good at telling stories, but everyone wants a good story to get absorbed in. You’re in high demand! Recognize the value in what you can do, and how valuable it is to other people.
Your time is worth just as much as the time of people consuming your work. Don’t let people waste it. After all, you need time to write, and they need that material that you’re providing.
Most writers aren’t confident, even really successful ones, so you’re in good company. But you need to believe in what you’re writing if you want anyone else to buy into it, otherwise it’s a waste of their time. Why waste time on something you don’t believe in? If you’re willing to spend a lot of time writing something, it’s because you see something great in it, you see something worth spending a lot of time on, and you think someone else is going to enjoy it, too. Remember that.
It’s really really really hard to finish anything long (and anything short, to be honest!). And then there’s redrafts and redrafts and redrafts. Keep pushing through to finish it, because it feels really good. And then edit it to make it better. Make it the best it possibly can be. Editing doesn’t mean that what you did was bad. Nothing is at its best on the first try.
Keep writing. You only get better at writing if you do it a lot, like with anything.
Sometimes people don’t always pay as much attention to the things we’re most proud of as we want them to. That’s okay. If you’re proud of it, you have good reason to be, and you accomplished something.
Alternatively, sometimes people pay a lot of attention to something you don’t really think is worth paying as much attention to for whatever reason. But they’ve clearly seen something in it that’s really resonating with them, and you did that! You got that reaction out of them! Congratulations!Writing is hard, but it’s also cathartic and incredibly rewarding, not just for you, but for everyone who reads what you’ve written. So keep on doing what you do, believe in it, and know that there are people out there who believe in you and want what you have to give!
"Books have to be heavy because the whole world’s inside them."
- Cornelia Funke, Inkheart.
(via acharacterstuckinthestory)
