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you deserve softness.

you deserve kindness.

you deserve stillness.

you deserve patience.

you deserve love.

you deserve respect.

you deserve care.

you deserve laughter.

you deserve intimacy.

you deserve hugs.

you deserve kisses.

you deserve flowers.

you deserve it all.

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Nintendo Still Life Paintings made by Lizustration

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Everything about this feels peaceful.

Photograph by Hyun Joo

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(via)

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“Never apologize for how you feel. No one can control how they feel. The sun doesn’t apologize for being the sun. The rain doesn’t say sorry for falling. Feelings just are.”

— Iain S. Thomas, Intentional Dissonance

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You're so golden.

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“Don’t you dare fucking touch my heart unless you plan to stay.”

— Unknown

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サイバーパンク

CYBERPUNKED🤖👾

DO FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM@kami_uchiha_itachi

FOLLOW ON TWITTER@Kamiuvhiha100

FOLLOW ON TUMBLR@kwmi_uchiha_itachi

DO LIKE AND SUPPORT FOR MORE ART WORKS

(◍•ᴗ•◍)❤♥╣[-_-]╠♥

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Ready to edit, format, or publish your book? We offer editing and coaching services! Send a DM or go to https://kiingo.co/services

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The more immersed I’ve become in the world of writing and the writers community, the more I’ve learnt. And that learning has been as much in terms of grammar, style and genre as it has been about the many logistics of being a writer.

I get a sense that there are a lot of misconceptions around what being a writer is like. I sure keep coming across them when I talk to non-writers and see the surprise on their faces when I talk about what my experience has been like.

In truth, I love the writer’s life, with all of its joys and infuriating moments. But I do also think that there’s a lot people don’t tend to realise about it…

It can take a long time.

When I tell people it took me three years to write No Pain, No Game, they’re often surprised. If I’m honest, I used to think that it mainly took me that long because I wasn’t very disciplined back in the day. But, as it turns out, even when I’ve been working at it diligently, my second book will likely have taken me a good couple of years by the time it’s published.

In fact, when I published No Pain, No Game, I had this grand idea that I’d release The Dhawan Brothersexactly a year later. I’m not entirely sure where that arbitrary deadline came from. I suppose I liked the symmetry of releasing a book a year on or around the same date. That timeframe, rather than invigorate me, ended up discouraging me, because I just couldn’t fit everything I needed and wanted to do with the book within a year. I’d set myself up for disappointment before I’d even started.

I see other writers release a book a year and I’m in awe of them, because that just doesn’t seem to be me. I need time and space to be able to create.

And that’s just it. Writing (for me at least, and for others too, I’m sure) simply takes time. Some pieces will take you less time than others, but ultimately, you can’t really escape it. It’ll take howsoever long it takes you to write the right story.

…and that might be longer than you or anyone else might imagine. And that’s ok.

It can feel lonely.

It doesn’t have to be, but it can feel that way at times. I imagine that a lot of writers love their craft partly because it gives them that sense of independence and all that me-time—my guess is a lot of us tend to enjoy being alone with their writing, without it necessary feeling lonely.

But, as with everything one does by themselves and that relies only on their own abilities, there are moments where it can vacillate from being contentedly alone to feeling a little lonely.

Anything can trigger it. A scene that’s not coming out quite right. A character that’s got us stuck. A plot hole that’s leaking so badly it’s making us question the whole story. It can be something that’s writing-related, something that has nothing to do with it, and anything in between.

Before I found the writing community on Instagram—before I knew that I wasn’t the only one to go through such phases—I used to try and ride those waves as best I could, mostly aiming not to drown in them.

Now, when I feel a little isolated, I pick up the phone and ping a fellow writer, and I share what’s going on. They may not have the right fix for my plot hole, but knowing they can relate to my struggle makes a whole world of difference.

It can be discouraging.

I used to get to the end of a draft and all I could see would be how much still needed to be done. In my work as a beta reader and editor,I’m always mindful that, by pointing out areas for growth and improvement in someone’s manuscript, the writer on the other end risks only hearing one thing: that they’re so much further away than they might have thought from the finish line.

What I always tell writers is what I’ve trained myself to focus on in these moments: that the work left to be done on a story should be exciting.

That the distance left to cover before a book is ready is where the story gets polished and gets a chance to shine.

That all these things we didn’t get quite right in the previous drafts are as many opportunities for us to learn and grow as writers. To improve. To fine tune our tale until it’s the best it can be.

We can look at a mountain in front of us and wonder how we’ll ever get to the other side, or we can rub our hands together and smile, because we know the view from the top will be more than worth the climb.

It can feel vulnerable.

Writing is such a personal endeavour. It’s the act of pouring your soul out on paper and channelling your inner most desires, fears and insecurities. At its core, writing is very much like therapy: you get unlimited sessions during which you give everything you’ve got on the page. It can be healing in so many ways, but the fact that it’s so vulnerable is also what makes it scary. Sharing our writing is sharing layers of ourselves that we may not often show others.

It’s no wonder letting someone else read your work can be daunting. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in saying that showing your writing to anyone feels like handing over a piece of your heart and praying no one crushes it.

The reality of it is, whatever you write, and no matter how good you are at it, there are people out there who are bound not to like it. The most cliché of all examples is that of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter: as successful as it was (and still is, over a decade later!) there are people who hate it so much they go around burning copies of it on the street. True story.

So let us be vulnerable. Let us pour our hearts out into our work and let us accept that, just like with everything in life, we won’t everyone’s cup of tea. And that’s ok. These people were never meant to be our tribe anyways.

It can be a lot about NOTwriting.

My biggest misconception about writing? The one that definitely caught me unaware? The fact that writing can actually be, well, a lot about NOT writing.

It’s one thing to write, and it’s quite another to let the world know that you have something to say. If you don’t let people know your work is out there, it’s unlikely they’ll ever find out about it.

In comes social media, marketing, networking… All these things that are not actual writing but still very much all about your writing. A large portion of my time leading the ‘writer’s life’ has been focused on building a social media presence, nurturing a network, and putting my book out there in front of the right readers.

And that, my friends, takes a lot more time, effort and energy than one might think.

It is a pain sometimes? Yes. A hundred times, yes.

Can it be avoided? Afraid not! Not if you want people to find out about you and your work (or unless you can afford the luxury of hiring someone to do it all for you—hashtag: life goals).

…Why bother, then?

And here comes the Catch 22 question. If there are so many sides to writing that are painful, vulnerable, scary and cumbersome… why even bother with this whole writing thing?

Great question! I’m glad you asked.

And I’ll tell you why:

We bother because we love it. We do it all because we can’t not do it. Because there’s no way in hell we can go too long without writing. And I’m not talking about the word count you clock in every day or every week. I’m talking about the writing you do even when you’re not physically writing—when you’re washing the dishes whilst fixing plot holes, when you’re in the shower designing your next main character or when you’re about to go to sleep and the perfect idea for a great scene occurs to you.

We take it all in our stride, the good, the bad and the ugly, because there’s no way in hell we can picture our life without it. We put up with the annoying bits, the terrifying bits, the downright eye-roll-worthy bits because writing isn’t something we merely do: it’s who we are.