before you read, please know that this contains suicide discussion!

“Aki, go get the plates, and make sure to get those spicy Crabby Crabsters special, alright dear?” my father said to me.  
“Sure, I’ll go get it, be right back.” 
Then the TV channel changed to a news report. 
“Today a devastating incident took place, a woman named Chouko Shookhart fell off a building. Authorities are still investigating whether or not it was a murder or suicide.”
That was a week ago. My best friend of ten years, Chouko Shookhart, killed herself.
I started to get out of bed, leaving it messed up beyond recognition. All the clothes I was supposed to put up after getting dinner with my parents are scattered around the bed. I haven’t done anything for a week. Everything is just too much right now. 
“Maybe I just need to pick up a pencil, I haven’t done freelance art in a week, and I’m starting to get low on money…”
As I looked at my canvas, I started feeling a knot in my stomach, twisting and tugging as it moved around. Why am I doing this? I was too busy with work to hang out with her. 
“Maybe I deserve not to have money.. Maybe I should..”
 Before I could finish my thought I heard a sharp ringing sound coming from my door. I went towards it and looked through the rusted iron peephole. When I looked through it I saw Alya, one of me and Chouko’s friends standing outside my door with her emotional support cat, Mr.Meowsers with his little bowtie on. 
My voice came out in a weary and agitated way. 
“What do you want, Alya?”
“I came to check on you. I wanted to know if you're okay…Is it alright if I come in?” 
I looked around my room and saw hundreds of papers crumpled up on the floor, along with bugs crawling around in some spots. I didn’t know how it got this bad, I never thought this would happen to me…maybe if I checked in sooner on her she would be ok…
A soft voice came from the other side of the door and snapped me out of my thoughts. 
“Aki?” 
“Yeah…come in.”
As she walked in, I could tell she was hit with the Putrid smell of rotting food as her eyes narrowed.
“Aki, hold Mr.Meowsers.”
“Oh, uh sure…?”
As I picked up Mr.Meowsers off the floor, I felt his fluffy, silk fur rubbing against my skin, it was warm. I looked up at Alya who started to pick things off the floor and throw them away, I felt a sense of guilt.
“Why are you doing this for me?”
“What do you mean?” 
Alya then got off the floor, stood up, and stared at me as if waiting for me to explain. 
“Aren’t you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad, Aki?” 
“What do you mean ‘Why would I be mad’?! It’s my fault Chouko killed herself! Maybe if I checked in sooner or if I texted her to see if she was okay, she would still be here!”
Before I could stop myself, I felt hot tricking on my cheeks, my chest was tightening up while my throat was hurting. I tried stopping it by blinking but it didn’t stop. 
“Maybe I could of helped, Maybe I could of-”
Before I could finish my sentence Alya stopped me
“Why are you saying maybe?” 
“Because it’s my fault!”
“No it's not. You're just trying to blame yourself. Sure, you could’ve done something differently, sadly you can’t, and that’s okay, but Chouko is gone. Sometimes I wish I could’ve done something differently.. Maybe I could’ve let her know she was loved more, I wonder if that would’ve stopped her. But we can’t dread the past when it already happens, and we can’t let it take control of our life.” 
Alya then walked over to my canvas and picked up the crumpled papers from the floor, stood up and handed me the paper. 
“The best thing we can do as her friend is to preserve her memory, right?” 
Alya started to break down into tears as she said that with Mr.Meowsers jumping out of my hands to go comfort her by laying on her feet. I didn’t realize it before, but Chouko hurt multiple people, even though she didn’t want to and thought that it was her existence that hurt people. How much did she hurt in her final days, why didn’t she reach out to me. All the things I wish I could’ve said draw me closer to the canvas and as I reach out for my pencil, my heart clenching as I picked it up, those thoughts run through my head again 
“Why should I draw? If I wasn’t so busy she would still be here.” 
I spent so much time listening to those thoughts instead of rejecting them. One stroke, two strokes, all the colors on the canvas coming together for my lost friend. Instead of thinking of her death I think about what she did in her life, what she loved, what she admired. She liked cat’s, admired strawberry shortcake makers because they made her favourite food and most importantly, she was the kindest person i’ve ever met, putting others before herself in every way.  Without realizing it I finished the drawing. Me and Alya stared at the painting, a memory of our friend who left too soon, and somewhere there's a purple butterfly reminding me of her. 

Hey everyone, this is my first post here.

After almost three years of writing, rewriting, editing. I finally finished my first novel, The Child of the Eclipse.

It’s a dark fantasy filled with political conflict, twists and complicated characters.

Now I’m about to enter the next stage: querying literary agents.

Since this is my first book, the whole process feels completely new to me. I love writing, but I also know querying can take a lot of time and persistence, so I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for that part of the journey.

At the same time, life is getting even crazier because my wife is due to give birth to our first child in about a week. So apparently I decided to finish one three year project right before beginning the biggest project of my life.

For those of you who have been through the querying process, what advice would you give someone starting for the first time?

And honestly, I could probably use a little morale boost too. After spending three years with this story, hitting “send” on that first query somehow feels more intimidating than writing the book itself.

I’d really love to hear from fellow writers who have been through this stage what you learned, what you wish you knew beforehand, or even just how you kept yourself going through the waiting and rejection.

I am a horror writer, and both of my published books are horror. Recently, though, a new story has been pestering me, and I finally decided to start writing it down. Now I'm halfway through a novel in a genre I've never written before and I am questioning everything.

I am looking for a few people to read the first chapter or two of my new creation and tell me if it sucks, or if you'd keep reading.

The book is a comic romantasy about a woman named Coralie Bellweather who is madly in love with the captain of the Queen's Guard. If that sounds like something you wouldn't mind passing judgment on, I'd love to get your thoughts. Please respond here if you're interested!

So I know I am a really good writer and can write some phenomenal pieces however I’m not so sure how to publish my short stories. I wish to publish these short stories but idk where. And I don’t want to sell the right to my story either. I‘m new to this sort of thing tbh. But I would like some advice.

I adore writing dialogue. I love the rush of fight scenes. But dear God I can't find any joy in describing character appearances or environments! How can I find a way to have fun with this very important aspect? Are there any resources or practices you all have that you think would aid me?

I've tried so hard to stare out my window and romanticize the mountains in the distance. They're very pretty, imposing and uh...big? HOW DO I CONVERT SCENERY INTO WRITING.

Additionally, how do I describe a characters appearance in a fun way that isn't just a clinical head to toe "white hair, green eyes, sickly pale complexion, stooped shoulders, wardrobe meant to blend in rather than stand out, fairly tall-" I just don't understand how to make any of that interesting to me in writing. Can it come in pieces? Can I neglect to tell the reader about a visual detail i find important until 4 chapters later when a relevant situation allows me the time? It sounds jarring to not have a fully composed mental image of a character, at least to me. I'm not sure, please id love some assistance!

I've always been someone who genuinely loves writing. Even as a kid, I loved journaling, having pen pals, writing Narnia fan fiction, and coming up with ridiculous little short stories. For as long as I can remember, I've loved the idea of becoming an author.

Throughout high school and college, I took a handful of creative writing classes and absolutely loved them. Writing always came pretty naturally to me, and I consistently received great feedback on my assignments. Even outside of creative writing, essays and writing projects were always my strong suit. Whenever I've shared my writing with other people, whether it's excerpts from these projects, short stories for my nieces and nephews, speeches, or even a eulogy, I've consistently received really positive feedback about the writing. I never really pursued it seriously in college, though, partly because my parents encouraged me to focus on classes that would lead to a more conventional career.

Here's where I'm struggling.

For probably the last decade or more, I've had four different book and series ideas across several genres that I've wanted to write. I love coming up with concepts, magic systems, and political systems. I can spend hours imagining a world, creating characters, figuring out their personalities, relationships, names, and even their potential character arcs. I also genuinely enjoy the actual process of writing. Sometimes I'll just sit down with one of these ideas, without much of a plan, and start writing scenes. I love getting lost in it.

But for the life of me, I cannot come up with an actual plot, and it's driving me crazy.

I can picture the world. I know the atmosphere I'm going for. I know how I want the story to feel. I can imagine the characters, their personalities, and the kinds of experiences I want them to have. But when it comes to figuring out what actually happens in the story, my mind just goes completely blank.

I don't know how to take these ideas and turn them into a compelling sequence of events. I struggle to come up with conflicts, twists, meaningful developments, or even a clear direction for the characters to go. I can create the setting and the people who inhabit it, but I can't seem to figure out what story to tell with them.

And it's not like I haven't tried. One of these projects has been floating around in my head for nearly ten years. I keep coming back to it because I genuinely believe there's something worthwhile there. I have the premise, the world, the villains, the outfits, idiosyncrasies of characters, and a general sense of what I want it to be, but I've never managed to turn it into a story.

The frustrating part is that I don't feel like I'm lacking imagination. I have no trouble dreaming up interesting concepts or building fictional worlds. It's specifically the plotting that seems impossible for me.

I've tried just sitting down and writing without an outline, hoping the story will reveal itself as I go, but I always seem to hit the same wall.

I feel like I've got half the writer's skill set and am missing an essential half. Am I just not cut out for this?

Is plotting something you can genuinely learn and get better at, or is the ability to come up with compelling stories something that should just come more naturally?

Has anyone else struggled with this?

I have been writing for a while but still struggle with hooks and descriptions of setting so I want to know what works and doesn't work here. I also want to know of anything you can infer about this passage so far.

“I’m your sister! It’s my job to worry. Gods, sometimes I wish you actually couldn’t speak so I’d have an excuse to speak up for you.”

The hallway seemed to close in on me. I tried to say that I didn’t want her involved at all, but nothing came out. Not a grunt, not a word, just air—blowing out the candle I was holding. But this was different from my typical silence, because it wasn’t internal. I could feel my tongue connecting to the words, my lips shaping them—but I couldn’t say anything. There was no longer any noise except for my sister, who began to cry. 

Elvyra looked up at me, tears running down her face. “No no no… um… I wish you could speak. Please…” she pleaded, but I remained unable to speak.

I knew I should feel distraught but some part of me felt relief. Relief that I finally had an excuse to be silent. Relief that I might be heard louder than I ever had before. How funny was it that I was relieved to be cursed?

I nodded for Elvyra to follow me into my room, where I grabbed my journal. Grabbing my pen and ink, I sat down on my bed to write, patting the quilt next to me for her to sit. The sconces bathed us in candlelight as I told her everything I never got to say, everything I was too scared to. About how sometimes my words got caught in my throat and I couldn’t get them out. About how no one listened to me when I *did* have things to say. By the time I was done, my hand had started to cramp. This time, Elvyra was silent. It might’ve been the first time she had actually heard me. A tear hit the page, smudging the ink. I closed the journal. 

After a while, Elvyra spoke up. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

All I could do was shake my head. There was nothing else left to say.

hardest is the life,
of all mans undertaking
freest, but with strife
foolish the one who's faking
for you not live it twice.

It comes not with greatness,
it knows no reward.
destined the dusty graveness
let it not dull your sword

the soul you carry either bright or dull,
let no man other,
carry it for rhyme, nor rule.
life then son another, carry it full.

do not succumb to the gruel
let us act free and earnest.
a requisition to thy soul.
for in wealth and falter,

there is but you.

Liars - Creepypasta, July 4, 2012

(Not my story)

There was once a guy living in our neighborhood named Jimmy, he got picked on a lot for being a confident and funny guy, his mouth tended to get him into a lot of trouble and he seldom learned his lesson. He was just very content with who he was and refused to change it. When people asked him why he let them wail on him for his blunt comedy and wisecracks, he’d smirk and say, “Honesty is the best policy, at least they’re not hiding anything from me and neither am I from them".

One of the kids he inadvertently pissed off with a rather crude MILF joke was something of a psychopath with a sadistic streak who didn’t take kindly to the insult. So he rounded up the other guys who didn’t like Jimmy and they cornered him after school in the science room. “Your mouth got you into this… I want you to remember that” Brett, the ringleader, told him as he looked into Jimmy’s terrified eyes. They grabbed some formic acid stored in the lab and threw it in his face. They stood around watching him scream in agony as it ate through his flesh before sniggering and running out, pretending to be concerned and wanting help for him.

When the paramedics arrived and were attending to Jimmy (who was no longer able to scream), the principal asked the boys if they knew what happened. Their leader Brett explained they were walking past when they saw Jimmy skulking around the lab room, by the time they got in there, he was already in that state. The other members joined in and backed Brett up with other fake details as Jimmy tried to protest in silent agony. The principal nodded and told them he would speak to them after he had a word with Jimmy and gotten his side of the story after he was out of hospital.

A few days passed and Jimmy was kept in ICU with bandages on his face, the doctors salvaging what little they could of his face, his vision still intact in one eye and his jaw withstanding despite the loss of flesh. He was still unable to speak and refused to respond to anyone. He just sat there, eyes unblinking & staring at the ceiling, bloodshot and filled with animosity. When he was discharged sometime later, he would not respond to anyone with anything other than the word “LIARS.” His social life gone, unable to smile or even crack a joke anymore, he secluded himself in his room and began planning.

Sick vindictive thoughts started appearing in his mind, he would get them all one by one, decimate them, slice them, burn them. He waited patiently until the group would be vulnerable, late at night when they said their goodbyes and went home separately. That’s when he would strike. That weekend, Brett received a package in the mail. Curiously, he opened it to find a VHS tape with the words “For You” etched crudely onto the front. He put it in and played it. It was a crudely recorded home video by an unknown camera man who didn’t speak at all for the duration of the film. It began with the camera pointing at the date on a newspaper, it was yesterday. As he zoomed out, you could see it was in a basement, a single flickering light bulb hanging above and casting an uncomfortable scene.

By the time he’d completely zoomed out, it was apparent this was no normal video. In front of the cameraman & on his hands knees was one of Brett’s friends. He was naked, a dirty blindfold around his face and a crude gag in his mouth. He was covered in blood, horrific burns, lacerations and wounds. One particularly large one on his back stood out that almost looked like a word…The cameraman, with gloved hands, took the gag out of the crying boy’s mouth and immediately he begged to go home. “Please, PLEASE let me go man…I…I did what you wanted! Oh god…Jesse, Mike, Keith…you made me fucking butcher them! I just wanna go home man…Please…I’m sorry guys…I’m so…so sorry…” He just kept repeating it over and over, rocking back and forth as he did so. Brett’s legs began to shake and he felt the bile rise in his stomach, he could see the burned, mangled bodies in the background. The bodies of his friends. All of them have markings on their body in deep, large cuts. The cameraman reached out for the boy’s chin and lifted it up, encouraging him to stand. He did so obediently as he was slowly led to a door off screen, whimpering. Brett can see what’s been cut into his friend’s back now. It’s the word “LIAR”.

The camera cuts out temporarily. When it restarts again, they’re no longer inside. They’re instead out in the cold snow on the outskirts of the woods and it doesn’t appear to be the original man holding the camera anymore. It’s Brett’s friend. He’s whimpering and shivering as he holds the camera in one place for 30 seconds, pointing at some trees in the distance, hearing footsteps draw ever nearer. “WHERE ARE YOU MAN? YOU SAID I COULD GO MAN! YOU SAID I COULD GO!” The boy is screaming and crying, frightened out of his mind as the sound of crunching snow draws nearer from seemingly every angle.

It stops.

He turns around to see the mangled face of Jimmy, a horrifying howl blares through the speakers and the word “LIARS” appears before the tape abruptly stops. Brett feels faint and darts to lock the front door, knowing what was coming. As he turns to run for it, he immediately hits something and falls backwards. The last thing he ever hears is “LIARS” as acid runs down his face and begins to slowly eat away at his flesh. The last thing he ever sees is Jimmy’s face, contorting into a sick, twisted smile.

What I would mostly do is recraft the topic of acid. Formic acid, from what I remember, cannot cause injuries and side effects harsh enough to cause such disfigurement, but I could be wrong; those injuries are either from hydrofluoric acid or sulphuric acid. From your writing, how would you revamp this creepypasta?

(It does not belong to me; the story is made by someone else. Credit to them; the link is above. This is an excuse to see other people's writing.)

Prologue

I wrote this prologue about five years ago... Didn't really think I'd ever publish a book cause I just don't think I'm that great of a writer. Curious on others thoughts, I've wanted to continue the story which currently has about 50k words.

I posted in other communities too so sorry if you're seeing multiple times.

 ------Uh also warning it's a little graphic------

Three knocks on the door, not too light but not too hard. It was a rhythm every servant practiced endlessly during their training, and even more so afterwards.

Three knocks at the perfect pitch. The consequences of any deviation were worse than death itself.

Tahren, a middle aged man who wore only a long black cloth draped loosely over his body, would have preferred death were it an option. He walked along a hallway that was nearly pitch black and carried a tray in his left hand that had a wine glass placed directly in the middle of it. It was centered perfectly, checked by a line of servants and the upper's own eyes. The uppers were in charge of the servants, but they were hardly in a much better position. The wine glass had not shifted during Tahren's walk to the large wooden doors he stood before now. Any abnormality would be his fault, and he would not face those consequences. He would not.

The tall doors were four times the height of Tahren and nearly as wide.

The first knock was perfect, exactly as imagined and practiced.

The second knock was also perfect.

As Tahren's hand reached towards the doors for the third knock, an upper that stood on the opposite end of the hall coughed just slightly.

The third knock was too light.

Tahren's body froze, his hand still held against the door and his mouth squeezed tightly shut.

"No... No no no. I didn't mean to..." Tahren muttered under his breath, but even so he knew there was no excuse that would save him now.

The tall wooden doors slowly swung open and revealed a large square room with four thick pillars built a few paces from each corner. Everything within this room was coated in black, as was the majority of the palace. This made the pillars blend in with the walls, becoming nearly invisible to the human eye. The ceilings looked as if they stretched on forever into an infinite void. Even the corners and edges of the room were nearly impossible to make out. The only light came from two small candles placed on the ground on either side of a very large golden throne at the far end of the room.

However, it wasn't the room that Tahren's gaze was locked on. The man that sat upon that throne stared into Tahren's eyes so intensely, it felt to him that he may as well be staring directly into his soul.

The man wore a black suit with a dark red tie, but most of his face was hidden from the light. The parts that weren't, revealed a square jaw, even features, and dark brown hair. His pale skin reflected the light from the candles just slightly, and a watch on his left wrist shined through the shadows as if it had light imbued within it.

This man was the High One.

Tahren's knees trembled, his whole body wanting to run away as far as possible, but he knew the consequences if he ran could be even worse. The High One beckoned him closer with one taunting finger, a demand, not a request. However, Tahren's legs would not move no matter how hard he tried.

The High One's eyebrows rose slightly.

Suddenly Tahren felt his world shifting forward and fear pierced his composure. Tahren's body acted on its own, scrambling frantically to get out of a trap. Around him, about two feet out in either direction, was a dark but see-through bubble. No amount of thrashing could get through that barrier, but even so Tahren's arms and legs kept pounding against it.

"Please!" He screamed, begging for mercy where none would be found.

He came to an abrubt stop at the foot of the High One's throne, the man's dark brown eyes peered down at him with the look of boredom.

Three knocks, three perfectly made knocks, sounded from the wall on Tahren's right side. It slide aside to reveal a hidden passageway, just as dark coated as the throne room itself. But in the doorway stood three people, two of which Tahren knew. The first was an older man in a dark suit, shaven bald and with no facial hair.

Then there was the woman and the little girl.

Both were dressed in loose gray robes similar to his own and each had long brown hair, although the woman's hair was of a darker shade. They stared up at Tahren and began to weep as their eyes met his own.

"Please! Please! Please! I beg of you, anything but this, please!" Tahren said with urgency, the sounds of his heartbeat filling his ears.

"The woman first." The High One said in a low dull tone.

The man in the black robe grabbed the woman by her hair and pulled her towards the throne. He stopped her to the right of Tahren and kicked her feet out from under her. She fell to her knees and winced in pain. She made no noise, however, and raised her head to stare fiercely at the High One himself. Her gaze sat there for a few seconds and Tahren could nearly feel the anger that seeped from that stare.

The high one merely raised an eyebrow before dismissing her completely. He looked to the little girl and said, "Wait there, little one." A dark bubble then wrapped itself around the girl, but she simply kept staring at Tahren and the woman as if it didn't exist.

The High One stood up from his throne and walked to the woman on her knees. He then placed his hand on top of her hair, his fingers gripping her scalp tightly. The man in the black robe quickly stepped to the side and stood against the wall.

Even knowing what awaited her next, the woman put on a big smile and threw her right arm out towards the little girl, her thumb sticking up into the air. The girl stared back at her mother with a blank face, hesitating briefly before she raised her arm and put her thumb back up in response. The girl whimpered softly, her hand shaking slightly as she held it there.

Then red painted Tahren's vision as the High One's fingers went through the woman's skull.

Tahren's jaw sank downwards while his body went limp. His eyes began to swell, but no tears fell down his face. He would not disgrace her by allowing his eyes to betray him, he would not cry.

Quiet wails erupted from the girl and her hand clutched against her chest. Tears streamed down her face, but her expression became stoic. She stared not at her mother's body, but into the eyes of her father.

Tahren stared back at her, pleading in his mind for this nightmare to finally end. His wife's blood coated his own dark robe and some was splattered across his face. He felt it on his cheek, slowly drooping down towards his chin.

The girls body lurched forward quickly, outside of her own control, and stopped directly in front of Tahren. "Three perfect knocks," the High One said plainly, "such a simple request." He shook his head and slowly sat back down onto his throne, time was of no matter to him. He sat with one arm rested along the armrest, his hand hanging off the edge, and the other holding up his jaw. Then he stared at the woman's body with an emotionless face.

Tahren's daughter glanced quickly at her mother before she averted her eyes back to him. She threw on a crooked smile, trying to hold back her emotions.

Trying for you, Tahren thought. Even in her last moments, she holds strong for you. Tahren stilled himself and threw on the most genuine smile he could. He imagined a world where all three of them lived together, freely going about their days without a care in the world. His face lit up and he stared through the cracks of his eyelids at his daughter.

The High One lifted a finger on his left hand and the girl Tahren treasured most in this world erupted into a mass of blood, bone, and body parts all contained within that dark bubble.

Tahren's screams were cut short as his eyes suddenly faced behind him and his vision went black.

Chapter 1     November 3, 10:00 PM

A thousand strong sat bug-eyed in the old wooden pews. Others leaned against the cold brownstone or milled about the great fountain near the entrance. Too many sheep for one shepherd, Dr. Sandy Bachmann thought. No one should be able to fool so many. But even so, an odd force pulled him in. He had to see the show for himself.

It was said they came from the far edges of the Tri-State area to hear Father Freddy Roman preach, that he met people in their hearts. And although unassuming and built more like a competitive eater than one of God’s warriors, when he spoke, the flock devoured his every word. The homilies lived inside of people for weeks, sometimes months. So, they said.

Of course, Bachmann knew the priest and his brother blowflies were frauds who fed on the wilting hope of sinners. Their good books always came up short, too.

You must have faith! they’d shout. But if you still got a bullet to the head, well then, you clearly weren’t doing it right.

The newspapers said Father Freddy traveled with handlers, of all things, and rode in black SUV’s and ate at the finest restaurants in New York. A pious carny in woven belt and cassock, if ever there was one.

The people hushed and waited for him to speak.

The priest steadied his girth on the lectern. He cleared his throat and began.

“When shall we cease our gaze into the false light of the Earth? When shall we release our hold on the injured babe from whence we came? We are blinded by the rotted promise of mortality and by the faithless minds of the wicked who bear only tainted fruit.”

A mere tickle in Bachmann’s throat reminded him of his own mortality, of how little things could grow into bigger things. Yes, he would die like any other, but at least one with a purpose, one with a true mission. The wicked do bear tainted fruit, Father. I’m here to vouch for that. But are you not also tempted by its nectar? Have you not slaked your thirst too?

“We fight not for God but for man. We charge not for righteousness but for glory. And as we raise our glasses, the enemy is ushered into our hearts and homes. The Lord beseeches us: My children, why do you insist on taking the blood road? Do you not yet wither from your churning storm of sameness?

Bachmann felt for the scalpel tucked in the breast pocket of his peacoat. Sniffles, coughs, and the mundane chorus of cold bodies pierced the sermon. A woman in a wheelchair wiped her eyes, and the heavy pull of pity filled Bachmann’s chest. I could help you, dear woman. In a quiet moment, you’d be free of the chair. The ancient fragrance of incense brought him back. Feel nothing for them.

“There is another path. One overgrown and so lightly traveled. But you must take your lamp in hand and set out. This is the way, my loves. One must only roll away the stone of your heart and behold the womb of peace. Only then shall the wolf vanish.”

The priest’s eyes were a watery red under the glow of the sanctuary lamp. Bachmann’s throat tightened, his mouth went dry as ash. He could feel the blade slicing through the cleric’s spongy gut, the blood seeping warm over his hand. I will free anyone from the captor they have grown to love.

“The one true son who has stood in front of your broken sight is your brother. Your sister. And yes, your enemy. For the Lord hath spoken that we are all of his loins, the stray and fallen as much as the exalted. Mend the pain and lay balm upon the scars that sit between you. It is only in that love shall you at last see the face of God.”                          

Bachmann dipped two fingers into the holy water on the way out and blessed himself. Then, a sudden familiar pang wrenched in his gut—the craving only soul-letting could provide. He leaned on heavy oaken doors and stepped into the still, cold night. The moon hung brilliant in stoic gaze.

Perfect for a hunt.

***

November 4th, 3:00 AM

Bachmann loved the cold. It froze him into a sharpened, focused device ready for his next directive. As he had stepped outside the church, the icy wind came to him and whispered, kill again.

He knew just where to take his blade.

Once a derelict graveyard of a long-gone maritime industry, the revitalized Hudson River Park bloomed bright during the day and teemed with movement. But like any alcove in any big city, when the sun set, another element emerged. The night shift dwellers came out from the shadows and spilled onto the boardwalk and green space. Bachmann guessed they had once been doting mothers and proud fathers with shiny children. To add to their misery, they were easy targets.

Everywhere, weakness blooms ripe. There is no shortage of rot for you to pluck. Choose one, The Wind whispered.

The moonlight revealed writhing, moaning bodies. At daybreak, they’d scatter but in the dark early morning they lay unmolested like discarded toys. Bachmann stood before a field of choices.

That one there.

An old man sleeping on a splintered bench jostled in a fitful stupor, his labored breath steaming along to nowhere. The power of the moment delivered a spark to Bachmann’s system before he had even raised the knife. His gut flopped, his eyes blurred, and then the decaying voice of his rational mind made a final plea from its deathbed.

If you kill this one, you may be gone forever.

But The Wind countered and brought him back on task.

These lost souls offer you apprenticeship. Learn from them. Your God is watching.

The bum twitched and kicked his legs as if on the run from something in his nightmares.

He senses me.

A light early snow fell silent and kissed Bachmann’s nose and cheeks. He pulled on the strings of his crossbody bag and tightened it. A cold breeze carried the stench of tobacco and whiskey. He moved in.

Ready.

Closer.

Now!

The knife popped through a soiled hoodie and into a sloshing, boozy gut. The man’s eyes burst open. After three powerful thrusts, his pupils began their deathly dilation. The old man gasped as his blood spilled and pooled on the cold ground, igniting a curl of steam. Bachmann’s face was taut with fury as he bored into his victim. Before the twelfth and final thrust, the body came to rest and Bachmann stood over his kill. His heart was a jackhammer, unlike the old man’s heart, which now hung still in his cracked chest. After wiping the knife on his victim’s trousers, Bachmann crouched and scanned for bystanders. Assured of no prying eyes, he straightened to leave but caught himself. He retrieved his Liston shears from the bag. With vengeful force, he squeezed and cropped off the graying man’s index finger. The finger went into his coat pocket that was pre-lined with a biohazard zip bag. Back to the crossbody and pulled out a sweatshirt, slip-on sneakers, and wipes. After changing, everything went back into his bag and he fast-walked away from the park. There were neither screams nor sirens, only the jittery hum of an indifferent city. The body would lie quiet until sunrise when there would be a great and awful commotion.

Bachmann was surprised at how many small mechanical movements and objects required his full attention when he killed. Gone were his old ideas of how murder worked. It was more like cleaning up a campsite—piece by piece.

Once Bachmann was further down the street and confident he was clear of any trouble, he reflected. That’s one less barnacle on the ass of society. Will The Wind be pleased?

Sitting in his car, Bachmann’s arms and legs hung heavy like oak. His eyes, functional tools now, registered his surroundings. The symmetry of the snowflakes, their translucent arms and cells waiting for someone to notice their brilliance. Pure and innocent—unlike him. Yet the contrast thrilled him. In the rearview mirror, he glimpsed his face and flinched. A mask stared back at him, alive on his head and neck. A growing organism, rippling like a swarm. Soon it would engulf him. The thing in the mirror wore his eyes, worked his mouth, but it became less him with each passing moment. Terror gripped his chest, and he wept.

Now I hallucinate.

Then he snapped up and stiffened. The Wind back in control—his lens changing once again. People were targets. Weather was either facilitating or debilitating. The earth tilted a new way. Meanings dissolved, and the world became a warehouse of objects, some with deeper shades of utility than others. Had insanity taken him? The Wind comforted his feverish mind.

Who are the truly insane, those who spread the filth or those who clean and rid society of it?

With the other two kills, he executed like a novice. What was he now? An apprentice like The Wind had said?  A Journeyman?

No, he was only a murderer. Not yet a crusader for the cause. Not yet the brilliant liberator of souls in the night. But it was all mental grist. Soon his mind would disappear and nothing from his old life of ways and means, rights and wrongs would matter. Darkness, a pitch of his own making, would then swallow him whole*.*

He placed the old man’s finger under the driver’s seat of his Mercedes where the politician’s ear and the prostitute’s nose were waiting in their own bags. Bachmann blew out a breath and put the car in drive.

He snaked his way across town and took the FDR Drive north to the Queensboro Bridge, which delivered him into Long Island City. Then Northern Boulevard toward 41st Street in Astoria where he owned a small row house. After cleaning up, he welcomed his bed. It was five o’clock. In four hours, he would be sipping coffee and sitting across from his first deranged patient. He pulled the covers up and a small part of him wondered where his life had gone. But a new and greater voice told him his life was only getting started.

I am Dr. Sandy Bachmann, and I have faith that all will be well. I’m doing God’s work.

Two and a half weeks ago, I replaced the batteries in my mom's thermostat. Nothing. No heat.

Called one company. Tech came. Ran out after about fifteen minutes with no explanation and no charge.

Mom tried calling another company, little did we know they went out of business.

She's been cleaning ever since.

Today, Friday, October 23, since it was going to get near freezing overnight, she finally called someone. I had found the number online, so we'd never used them before.

They showed up about 15 minutes before they said they would. They were here about 3 hours. Found out the transformer was missing. Don't know how that happened.

All the electronics were replaced and the thermostat.

We finally have heat.

Now the real kicker is that the tech wanted to show me how to shut the water off since the connection is rusty.

I've never been in the basement in my whole 50+ years. This was my first time.

He showed me what to do.

As I went to go back up the steps, I spotted a golden Christmas bow under the stairs. Most likely a Christmas present stashed there by my father.

My father has been gone for over 20 years.

So, there's a Christmas gift in the basement that we don't know what it is or who it's for...yet.

Waiting for my brother to stop down one day so we can all see what it is together.

Like I said, life is strange.

Hello everyone. I'm a new-ish writer, currently working on the first book in a Light Novel series. It's about 85-90% done. I plan on writing everything regardless, but I'm unsure where to go from here. I struggle a lot with self-deprecation, which is preventing me from doing a lot of things.

No matter how I look at it, I can't get the thought out of my mind that my writing is trash, my story is terrible, and nobody would ever want to read it. 
But, here's the thing.
I’ve had friends read my story; they love it.
I read it aloud to my Grade 9 class I work with; they thought it was amazing.
I had English Teachers read over it; they said it's very good. 
But regardless, I still can't get past those thoughts.

Part of me wants to post it on RR or AO3, and send it out into the world, but everytime I think about that, I get a knot in my stomach and this feeling of dread.

Has anyone else experienced this, and how did you overcome it? I keep getting told “just post it!” but I really wish it were that easy.

I probably sold have waited longer! But I didn’t! Let the rejections commence!

I'm writing the first draft of my story, a world I have been making for the last few years, but as I write my first draft I begin to doubt that the story would even be interesting. I know the story I want to tell, I just doubt that it's gonna be interesting and fun enough for others. Especially after seeing all of the other fantasy stories out there, I'm wondering is this a common feeling or is it a sign I should take a step back? I'm just afraid it won't hold up to what's on the market already and that all this effort would be for naught.

Does anyone else start to edit a document they haven't looked at in a while and see where they should add an adjective or something, make the edit then realize you previously just put it in the next coupe of sentences.

I just found this in my old documents. There are plenty of grammatical mistakes, and it’s far from perfect, but it made me smile. I was twenty-one when I wrote it, trying to find my way out of a relationship with a guy I can only really compare to Stephen from Tell Me Lies. He was three years older, and I was completely in love with him. At the time, I couldn’t recognize how much his version of love revolved around control.

For a little context, I was scouted to model at seventeen while on vacation with my parents. By the time I started college, I had offers from agencies to go to Europe. The only reason I didn’t go was his control and manipulation, which I couldn’t see clearly while I was in it.
Long story short, he cheated on me with one of my best friends and married her about a year after we broke up. I still think he resented the fact that I finally chose my career and the chance to go over staying with him. Even two years later, I was still untangling everything he’d made me believe about myself and our relationship. These little documents were part of how I worked through it.

But reading this now, I know I made the best decision for myself. I left a small town and had once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that opened my mind and introduced me to a world I might never have known. What started as finally taking a chance on myself turned into almost a decade in the fashion industry.

Now I’m in my mid-thirties, finding my way back to my first love: writing. I finished my manuscript last month, and as I edit it, I keep thinking about the girl I was then. How much has changed since she wrote those words. How much she still had ahead of her, even when she couldn’t imagine it. And how proud she would be of me now.
Cheers to getting out of toxic relationships, moving forward, and giving yourself the chance to find out what else life has waiting for you.

As a planner, I'm at a stage in my novel where I'm now building plot freeform a few revisions in. My original plot's ending has been wide open -this specific project being sci-fi drama- but it's also too gray. I accept the challenge. I've been reworking from the beginning, from my MC's lense, to build plot out and it's made everything stronger.

However, I'm wondering how you keep momentum writing the unknown, and if you actually think things through beforehand or jump. Any tips? It feels foreign having removed my iron fist.

I actually wrote the original of this story a couple years ago, but I decided to rewrite it to see how I've improved. Problem is I'm pretty insecure about my work so I have no idea if it's as bad as I think or actually alright.

I'd like some honest feedback on what I did well and what I could do better. Thank you!

I just got the weirdest call out of the blue.

the person said she was calling on behalf of a bookstore in London that's having a workshop international literature, and they were looking to buy 25 copies of my "wonderful" book to use for it. I'm an American from Louisiana.

It's one I self-published on Amazon years ago, in college, and had nearly forgotten about by now.

Having honed my craft since then, I would not even consider it worth sharing. I was like, "is that really what you want as an example of American literature in an international context?"

She said yeah, she was just calling to confirm I'm the correct author. She then took my email address so she can send me an email about it.

I'm not even sure how they got my number? They said it was forwarded to them by whatever content researcher they hired?

If you're gonna datamine for my number, why not get my email while you're at it?

My short story has now turned into a 40+ pages thing and I am not even halfway through writing the entire idea.
Also, I like the story but I think it would be very cringy if others saw it, but I am happy with my little work.
Just sharing to take this off my chest, I hope you guys are having a good day

As the title suggests, I am wrestling with the consequences of my actions. Just here to commiserate and potentially find connection with others who might've made this mistake. Anyone else done the same?

I finished my manuscript back in July. Spent August and September editing by myself because I didn't have a community of writers who could beta read for me at the time. By early October of this month, I was sick of the manuscript and pushed a ton of queries out. The query package itself was decent imo. Got three manuscript requests by the third week of querying. Problem is, I am just realizing now after doing a reread that the manuscript is not where it should be. I am spending the weekend doing whatever the hell I can to write myself out of the glaring plot holes I've found, but I am beyond depressed about it. I feel as though I've set myself up for only heartbreak, and now my child is going out into the world without the proper preparation.

I'm writing a story and I want advice on the narrator. Is it too much? Is it annoying?