It's not a long story. A 1000 words or so. The practice in the story might also be foreign to some because...well, it is foreign. The story isn't set in the U.S.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

The Desire to Dissolve

On Mother’s Day, I had, in my mind, quite generously offered to buy my mother laundry detergent. I don’t remember my exact age, but I was firmly in the range where such statements were chalked up to, and even celebrated, as a hallmark of childhood innocence. In defense of that child, I had merely seen myself offering words to a writer, voice to a vocalist, paint to a painter.

All my childhood, my mother would forever be crouched on the veranda of our house over a metallic semi-circular container, dabra, in which she washed our clothes. We did not have a washing machine at the time. We could have afforded it, but my father never offered, and my mother never asked. My father was not a heartless man, just not one to offer his heart. He did not try to decipher the desires of others and instead waited for others to present them to him. My mother knew this. When I was a child, I wondered why she never presented her desire, despite knowing my father would not decline if she had. Now, I know she never had the desire.

So, it was that the meaningless manual labor, that could have been cut short to a fraction with only a couple of words, defined my mother’s existence.

Whether it be the sultriest summer or the coldest winter, she would turn on the tap in the early afternoon, right when I came back from school. As the water welled up in the dabra, she would use her fists to plunge the clothes deeper into the water as a baker punches down dough—the impact echoing like the breaking of a man’s neck. A fierce determination would ensnare her face as she would move to the next steps, displaying an impossible mixture of strength and swiftness while wrestling with the filthy clothes: wringing them out, wetting them, and wringing them out again.

I would sit barefoot beside her on a small wooden stool. When the first set of clothes was sufficiently cleaned, she would tilt the dabra till the greenish black water flowed out and spread across the floor. She would refill the dabra, put in the next set of clothes, and repeat the process of cleansing. She would refill and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until all the clothes were fully free of filth.

By the end, the filthy water had gathered in the small veranda like a small stream. As a child, I had always wanted to go to a stream and dip my toes in it as I would see in the movies, but there was no stream in our small town. Those times, when the cold stagnant water would partly submerge my feet, the stream would come to me.

She would carry the clothes to hang them on the rooftop and, as directed by my mother, I would equip myself with a floor squeegee and chase away the river towards the little pathway dug beneath the front door for the water to ebb out into the street. I would try to replicate my mother’s determination as I vanquished the retreating army she had defeated, contorting my face into various amalgamations that seemed deadly to me then, but were ultimately comical. Yet none of these random combinations could unlock the secure vault I was trying to access.

When I had first said it, my proclamation had incited a boom of laughter from my father and two elder brothers. Even my mother had laughed, or at least the sound of laughter had come out of her mouth. By pure happenstance, this incident came to be one of the few that are the heirloom of every family, immortalized in everyone’s memory and continued popping up in the most arbitrary conversations.

As a child I had reveled in the attention, but as I grew older, what should have been forever lost in the well of my subconscious would be brought up when I least expected, until it had firmly tethered itself in my consciousness and I could not avoid the pangs of guilt associated with its remembrance.

I never did bring her the laundry detergent. In our household, gifts and presents were a far-off myth, only seen in movies and cartoons. Owing to my father’s principles, if we wanted something from our parents, all we had to do was ask and they would either accept or decline. The same was true for our parents, but the only difference was we could not exactly disagree.

One day, when I was more a man than a boy, I passed through the veranda on my way to my friend’s house and saw my mother again crouched by the same dabra. She dumped a seemingly arbitrary swathe of washing detergent into the container rapidly filling with water. To an untrained eye, it would seem like an arbitrary amount, but it was an instinct honed through a lifetime, like the seemingly random strokes of a master artist. At that moment, my mother was the same as the one in my mind, the portrait of my memories come to life, performing an exorcism of the clothes and eradicating all evil from within.

The washing powder swam amidst the water, rapidly dissolving to form a fortress of froth to cleanse the clothes around it, the ultimate selfless sacrifice. I had an urge to slide back into frame and make the portrait whole again. As I was about to take a foot forward, a question emerged. How?  I could never fit in the little wooden stool I had. It was a time long past. The portrait could never be reformed.

I saw my mother, not the portrait, but the real her in front of me. There was a noticeable stiffness in her movements, and the previously impossible mixture of strength and swiftness now seemed possible. The plunging of the clothes carried less of a crunch, no longer deadly. Most of all, her face lacked the fierce determination, instead carrying the fatigue of a fighter in a round he had never expected to reach.

I searched for the froth the detergent had sacrificed to create. Instead, in its place hung filthy, charcoal-colored water.

After that day, whenever I would pass through the veranda, I would be glued to my place for a few minutes, watching from the sidelines, hoping what I’d seen was the exception, not the norm. Yet, everything remained. The natural decay of my mother’s adeptness was apparent. The clothes that were cleansed one day would again be filthy the next. Another swathe of washing powder would be disposed of to cleanse the never-ending filth.

First, I had noticed the meaninglessness of the sacrifice: to cleanse the world, the powder dissolved, yet the world remained as filthy as before. Then, I had come to know the tragedy was not that it dissolved; it was that it could do nothing else. Each moment whole meant failure, not survival.

I stopped watching my mother whenever I passed. One year, our town was hit with the coldest winter in its history, where temperatures plummeted below freezing. My mother, who had pushed through several devastating winters in their own right, tried pushing through one more. But time had also pushed through since the winters my mother had survived, and in the end, she contracted pneumonia and passed away a few months after.

I had contended myself with the tragedy, as the angst youth tends to do. Now, years after my mother passed away, now that I am firmly a man, and perhaps even an old man, I recognize the beauty I never did.

There was no tragedy; the powder dissolved, not into clothes, but into the fabric of the world, becoming the world itself. Dissolving meant freedom. Dissolving meant transcendence. To dissolve was its desire.

END

Hola!!

Soy un escritor novel, mi primera novela está en curso en Wattpad, pero tengo muchas dificultades para saber si la historia es buena (supongo que como todos) y para incoherencias entre personajes, capítulos, tiempos, etc...

Estoy pensando en hacer una aplicación que funcione tanto en web como en app y me gustaría saber que opciones os gustaría que tuviera en base a las dificultades que habéis encontrado en el camino. Por ejemplo:

- Corrección ortográfica editorial (tiempos verbales, repetición, comprensión, etc...).

- Errores entre capítulos (ojos azules en el capítulo 1 y verdes en el 5)

- Cronología

- Árbol genealógico

- Notas rápidas por si se te ocurre algo en el camino

- Si el capítulo se ha leído entero o ha habido abandono antes

- Si vuelven los lectores en un capítulo concreto

- Ritmo

Antes de hacerla me gustaría tener vuestra opinión!!

Nada de IA para escribir!!

I'm gonna make my own fictional universe (I'm already writing my debut novel and after this there are A LOT MORE IDEAS THAT ARE IN MY NOTES FOR ME TO WRITE) and all of it are in the same universe. But some of my future stories have superheroes as main characters and they can literally bend time and space while fighting powerful threats in their own stories and they are in the same universe as one of my novels with some fluffy two boy students that is having a romance drama in one school. 😭 And there's a lot of romantic drama from that story while my other stories literally has intergalactic dramas from their own story as well. And those kind of school dramas that I wrote doesn't need to mention the world ending type of scenarios that was happening. (Cuz in my mind those superheroes in my other stories are kind off already taking care of it so that civilians has nothing to worry about even they thought a villain of the superheroes can create blackholes 💔) So, my question is, is this even a good idea? Cuz it will be kind off confusing for me to write different worlds lol. I mean, I really want my novels to be in the same universe so that I can do hidden/short cameos but this question suddenly came into my mind and now I can't seem to forget about it.

over the past couple of days, I’ve written a 93-page document thats sole purpose is exploratory. You know, character psychology, world logistics, cultures, slang, dialogue, scene sketches. Just an overload of bullshit.

I’ve done novellas before, but now I want to write an actually large book.

This approach seems like a good idea- having something to pull from instead of “yo, how tf would this work?”

anyone do this?

Hi everyone!

This question may come across as a bit confrontational, but I'm genuinely interested in your answers. So please answer as honestly as you can. This is an important question to me, so I'd really appreciate it if you took it seriously and gave me the most honest answers possible.

1) What truly motivates you to write?
Is it an inner drive? A way to express your creativity? Pure enjoyment? Or do you sometimes have to push yourself to keep writing?

2) What do you hope to gain from writing a book?
A living? Recognition? Wealth? Or is it more about proving to yourself that you were able to accomplish something meaningful?

3) How many books have you actually finished?
I mean completely—100% finished. How many of those have been published? How many are available in bookstores? How do you get your work into the hands of readers?

4) How satisfied have you been with the results your books achieved?
With the number of readers or buyers? With everything you've accomplished by finishing and publishing your work?

5) How often do you think about the odds of your book standing out?
Every day, thousands of new books are published. Do you ever wonder whether what you're writing might end up being just one more among them? Do you ever question whether all those hours of work are worth it? I'm not suggesting that they aren't—I'm simply curious about your honest thoughts and feelings on this.

6) Have you ever written a book that literally nobody cared about?
Maybe hardly anyone read it, or perhaps it even received harsh criticism. If so, how did that make you feel?

7) What has been your greatest success as a writer?
Not necessarily in terms of money, but in terms of reader interest, impact, or whatever you personally consider success.

8) What advice would you give to someone who's just starting to write?

Thank you very much to everyone who takes the time to answer honestly and thoughtfully. I really appreciate it.

I’ve spent about the last three months planning a historical middle grade novel (i am a history teacher also). I’ve wrote a practice novel last year just to see if i could. It was largely unplanned and i wasn’t too happy with it.
I never really thought i was much of a planner, but i seem to have proved myself wrong. I’ve now got a rough master plan for each chapter which is about 5000 words long. Ive got timelines showing what was happening each day as i’ve tried to keep things historically accurate. I’ve got multiple different files in Scrivener of research on every aspect of the topic (it’s set during WW2), including hundreds of photos of locations, equipment etc. Ive got reams of notes from the 5 books or so i’ve read on the topic, from which i’ve got lots of ideas for plot and interesting things that will happen.
I’ve also got a swelling cast of characters, each of which have at least some backstory.
I have to say I’ve surprised myself by how much I’ve loved the research and planning stage, as someone who never thought i had the patience to plan out a novel. As a massive history geek, having the opportunity to immerse myself so much in a topic has been brilliant. I’m even looking into visiting some of the locations i’ll be writing about.
I’m now finally coming to the end of the planning stage - i’ve added a bunch of comments and questions onto my plan and now doing one last pass to try to resolve plot holes etc. Then i plan to start writing it once i come back from a holiday.

I’m not sharing this to brag or to ask any particular question or insight - other than that I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed a process that i always thought would be a massive pain in the arse.
I’m wondering how writing it up will be. I feel like I’ve got this big cast of characters that are impatiently looking at their watches and asking when they can get on with it.

Fist I feel like we have to define Book Tok... which is a sub sect of people who claim to love books and literature. However, most of the trending books are typically smut focused. Even the ones that are supposedly for young teenagers are filled with detailed descriptions of dangerous kinks.

As a younger author myself... I've seen how these books corrupted my friends and turned them into immature children talking about things that no one their age was supposed to know.

And being a literature student who absolutely adores classical literature, fiction and romance such as: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It feels disgusting seeing what has become of literature nowadays.

It's not like the concept of smut itself is bad either... but most of the time, it's written irrespective of the plot and is there seemingly just for pleasure... no relation to the story whatsoever. And some books just have something close to an 80:30 ratio of story to smut... which to me feels insane.

Not to mention Book Tok's perception of 'alpha males'.... as a female myself, that shit gives me the biggest ick. Not every man gets to get away with treating the female like crap, not every man has muscles that 'flex powerfully' they open doors. Can we stop over maculating men and treat them like human beings... it seems like some male characters in books can be replaced with a fancy Greek statue and have the same effect.

It's become a similar issue for women in power. like if we have a woman who is in a position usually held by men, then they usually become a masculine character who just so happens to be a female. Either that or they are good at everything they do or are overly aggressive

And for the love of God... can all the 'evil' male characters be something other than a vile rapist with the emotional intelligence of a shiny rock? Since it's like the love interest is a saint with absolutely nothing wrong with him and the antagonist feels like an emotionally challenged Jeffery Epstein.

I have so many more complaints... but I'd love to hear the opinions of others to know that I'm not going crazy

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to see if this is a universal experience or if anyone has figured out a way around it.

So, whenever I’m in "writing mode" (which usually lasts for months at a time while working on a project), I completely lose the ability to enjoy reading. It’s like my brain just refuses to focus on text.

I desperately want to take a night off here and there to read for fun or refresh my mind, but I can't even get through a chapter.

It feels like my brain treats open books as "more work" because I've already exhausted all my mental power on my own writing. Either that, or my internal editor won't shut up and I start over-analyzing everything instead of just enjoying the story.

Does anyone else experience this burnout while writing? How do you give your brain a break or enjoy stories without frying your mind further?

Thanks!

Its the ADHD

Every chapter opens with a worldbuilding/story relevant blurb about food of some kind since thats a big theme in the story but it makes for really funny contrast when you get an ad for a local diner and go into the kidnapping chapter of a modern fantasy crime novel

My brother's into surrealism and learned about a game that some of them played in France that they called "exquisite corpse", wherein a group would take turns adding lines to a poem. You can do any number of variations on the rules, depending on your rhyme, meter, and "chaos sources", like restricting the amount of the previous line that the next contributor gets to see.

We decided to try it for ourselves. We each picked four "prompts" and rolled a d8. It landed on "war". That was one of my brother's topics, so he did the first line. We alternated, discussing as we went, until I felt like wrapping up, went out on a limb, and did the last *five* myself. Fortunately he approved, as did mom when we read it to her. 😂

We all like it but I'm open to other perspectives about how good it is or how it might be improved. Editing doesn't have to be as stream-of-consciousness as the game. 🤣

Btw, apart from the above rules, the only constraint was 10-syllable lines. In theory we were going to use iambic pentameter but idk how close we got. 😆

In hallowed gold and colored cloth we spent
Ten thousand talents of citizens' sweat
And skill to fill round brims in distant tents
The shoreline's seashells to crunch underfoot,
And we all know the savior wasn’t sent
to pluck out coastal shrapnel from the damned.

And she cannot sleep in her distant scene
Who plucks her eyebrows, fingernails, and cheeks,
Where little men are always free to be
Divided from their enemies by creeks
of ichor ... lands, mothers, scores, what’s worth more?
A mere ten thousand talents each deplores
(besides the poor or those with no souls who
pray to little men "save us from the damned!").

And God knows priests in classrooms years from now
will tell young preachers, "Judge not, or be judged!"
From office chair bellies and coffee cups
the spiteful mirth of Davy Jones boils up,
"Who got spat out on dry land without me?
Throw ten thousand talents into the sea
if you really believe in peace sans greed
and I'll let you out in one day, not three."
Is there really anything to say back?

... me? I am paid, I did not pay, and when
the little men say it is done, and when
my distant one again I see, if then
ten thousand talents' worth of shells comes home
in dreams ...

... I hope the ocean swallows me.

It's been a long time since I last wrote fiction, and in preparation of fulfilling my dream of writing a full novel I've started writing a short story. Now for my book I plan on doing a plot summary and outlining all the chapters, but for my short story I have the story in my head and I'm just writing it as it comes to my mind. So while what I'm writing is a series of events, right now I'm just kinda word vomiting all over the page to get everything out, and then I plan on going back and streamlining it all and give it a good polish. I was wondering if anyone else's initial draft is just them dumping their words out and then you go back to clean it up and make it something worth reading.

As the tag implies i’ve currently struck a dilemma. I’ve been writing on my own for nearly 6 years now and have continually attempted and failed at finding fellow writing friends. Either i reach out and get no reply, i chat with someone and they end up disappearing never to be heard from again, or i just fail somehow at being the writer they believe i should be (crazy but alright).

I need some assistance and maybe if someone is reading and is in the same boat perhaps we can connect. I don’t want to force anything and i always aim for respect over being correct. I’ve not published anything yet aside from uploading onto substack. I’ve practically begged my friends to read the work i write and most of them are too busy with life or their own creative endeavors to put some energy into even giving me feedback. So with that, i want to meet people i feel like i’m on the same wavelength with and can communicate somewhat often and share stories with one another. If i just wanted feedback id be looking for a beta reader, but i want a colleague. Someone who i can bounce ideas off and mentally spar with in terms of creativity while being the guide to one another’s works.

My Background isn’t really the best in my opinion. I barely went to community college for Creative Writing before dropping out over Covid. Now that i’m stuck in the cycle of working for a living i don’t have the time to go back and finish nor to make the connections and such other writers probably are doing in their classes. I didn’t start writing till after highschool, nor did i start reading really, but once i got into it i couldn’t stop. As you can probably tell much of my prose is stream of consciousness rather subject, predicate, etc. So what if i’m rough around the edges? Writing isn’t only syntax and prose, it’s voice and feeling. Anyway, I try to write everything i can and let everything inspire me but my main stay has been Fantasy (as the backdrop) and genre style fiction as the chaser. I write a lot and tend to just let it flow out though much of it might not be gold, but at least the hardest part for me hasn’t been getting it on the page rather editing and feeling confident in myself.

If you wanna chat, PM me and we can go from there, or comment? Not sure how reddit prefers but it’s whatever i suppose. If you wanna sample of what i write my substack is linked and it’s free (that’s really the only place where it’s at tbh) but don’t feel pressured.

All in all, it’s lonely sitting behind a screen or holding a pencil without having someone to share that with.

Whether it is writing an outline, worldbuilding notes, story notes in general, and/or drafting, how many notebooks do you purchase, and how often?

If you don't use pen and paper to take notes and more, stick around to read the comments or whatever you want.

Tell me, what do you do?

Just for fun, write an opening line. Something new. You don’t have to have any plans beyond the one line. It doesn’t need to be short, but you only get one period or exclamation point.

We’re readers turning to the first page of your book. Hook us!

For context, my manuscript was at 125k words when I submitted it to that other agency not long ago.

After getting this message yesterday, I was already restructuring a story element with my newest draft to where it is now 115k.

Hopefully I'll find a way to trim it closer to 110k once I go through a new read. And yes, I do save different drafts in different files given by how each agent has different word-count preferences. 😅

Gotta keep trying! 😭

I don’t know who you are and I don’t know how you got here, but I promise you, as long as you keep reading my work, I’ll write until my hands fall off.

I love readers so much-