Tag: thanks

Hi Neil, I’m an aspiring screenwriter and I’m applying to some programs with writing requirements (so I’m working with a deadline). What do you do when you have an idea that excites you, but you suddenly can’t find the inspiration? You can’t find the emotional investment you did only days before? I’m writing, but right now the magic is gone and I want to get it back.

neil-gaiman:

You keep writing anyway. Inspiration is real, and it matters, but it’s not going to be there every day. And the work still needs to be done.

Here, I will quote myself: 

If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.

You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.

🥔 ^__^

guess i’ll just talk about tudors because i have so much meta-ish about it i’ve yet to discuss:

in retrospect, it kind of baffles me that they tried to make their character of henry more sympathetic in ways that were inaccurate (i.e. don’t reflect historic record) and less sympathetic (or, i guess here i mean likable more than sympathetic) in ways that were inaccurate.

for more sympathetic, we have, for instance:

  • anne of cleves is told that in addition to her pension for accepting the annulment, she is free to marry whoever she chooses (the former is true enough, the latter was certainly not)
  • henry fitzroy dying at like… five or six? henry crying over his lil cap (if they’d started earlier they could have had a scene of emotional anguish after the new year’s prince of 1511 died, but nooooooo,)
  • henry wearing black for mourning while anne wears yellow after koa’s death is announced (bitch wore yellow…and sorry, no, it wasn’t the ‘Spanish color of mourning’…)

for less sympathetic, we have:

Thomas Boleyn and 🗣️ + 📚? Thank you<3

“Thomas Boleyn became ambassador to France in January 1519, and it is possible that George spent some time in France as a child with his father when Thomas was on embassy.”

– [ x ]

“The Pope is governed by the Emperor, and the Italian divines will support his authority. They are dissatisfied with the Emperor’s conduct in Italy, for he has pleased his enemies, and done nothing for his friends. There is great dissension between the Spaniards and the Almains. If the Emperor should fall out with the French king, I think the former would seek to you. When I go to France I shall learn more. I keep with me Alexander, the messenger. Lyons, morrow of St. George’s Day.”

Rules: list the first lines of your last 10 published stories. See if there are any patterns yourself, or have other people say what they notice (aww that would be nice…). Tag up to 10 friends!

tagged by @ofmodernmyths – thank you!! 

tagging…whoever wants to do it! also @quillington @essequamvideri24 @feuillesmortes @somethingaboutsewing @redxluna @mihrsuri… whoever else follows me and writes fic~

opening lines from my very one-note fics, take one:

1.)

Anne hates
third-wheeling.

Or,
rather, she hates third-wheeling in certain circumstances.

With one
glaring exception, most of her present circumstances are fine:

One,

An
exclusive “pre-grand-opening” of a bar that resides on the rooftop of a posh
hotel north of the Thames; with a beautiful view on each corner (she’s already
walked its borders). On one corner is St. Olave’s Church, its clocktower lit up
with a bluish glow.

– best of the best & the worst of the worst (henry/anne)

2.)

Anne steps out of the office doors with a spring in her step– her father always gets her the most perfect gifts for her birthday, and the one he just gave her is no exception.

Thomas Boleyn’s assistant’s desk, which was (thankfully) empty when Anne arrived, is now occupied by its owner.

– redeux (henry/anne)

3.)

There’s no one at the check-in desk, but there is a notecard propped and folded that reads “Be back in ten.”

Henry, not being in the mood to wait ten, slides his numbered card next to the note and walks behind the desk and into the closet.

It is dark, although open, and failing to find a light switch he uses the flashlight on his phone to flick through the coats and their numbers, attached on the sleeves by clothespins.

Upon hearing a loud hiccup he nearly jumps out of his skin, lurching backwards, he looks down only to find a girl sitting on the floor, hand clasped over her mouth.

– keep myself awake (henry/anne)

4.)

From: 323-431-231

To: Katherine Aragon 

Sent August 20th, 2016, Saturday, 4:00 AM

Henry Tudor has tagged you in a relationship status

“Henry Tudor is in an Open Relationship with Katherine Aragon”

Press “1” to like

– whitehall university (henry/anne + gen)

5.)

It begins on a Saturday, a few minutes before noon and heavy with blooming June heat.

It begins at a threshold, like many new things do– but one that is, unexpectedly, ajar.

But there’s the number from the Facebook posting on the group page for UCLA rooms for rent, glinting in tacked gold right above the eyehole– 526, and so Anne knocks, holding the door handle with her unoccupied hand so that it doesn’t swing open under her firmly beating fist– being mistaken for a burglar would not be a good start.

– close quarters (henry/anne)

6.)

You have four new messages.

Hi, sweetie. You haven’t been picking up on your cell so I thought I’d try you here. Please call back, it can be less than a minute, [tearfully] just to let me know you’re okay—I’m worried about you. Love you.

Next message:

Hey man—again, so sorry, I had no idea that would happen. I didn’t even think that many people watched that show, it might be the—anyway. If you still want to get blackout drunk, maybe you’d have a more sympathetic experience at like… a gay bar? Just a thought. Let me know if you need anything, though, for real. Peace.

– dancing with our hands tied (henry/anne)

7.)

Elizabeth pages through the sketchbook on her lap, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand.

She is her own worst critic, and art is not something that she feels is meant for her. But then, none of her classes feel as if they are for her, none thrill her in the way was hoping for when she first enrolled at Whitehall.

There are subjects she enjoys, and subjects she should enjoy but doesn’t. History, for instance, is mainly just reading, broken down it is a series of stories, and she has taken to stories like a fish to water since she was a child.

And yet she feels too wise and world-weary for each and every history course. History is inherently dishonest—the only one who gets to tell the story is the one who lives.

– between two centuries (henry vii/elizabeth of york)

8.)

From: AnneOrmonde@orpheusuniversity.edu

To: MargaretSavoy@orpheusuniversity.edu

Sent January 5, 2016, Monday, 7:09 PM

The “opportunity” sounds a little too good to be true, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone requesting a student to play for them privately, much less alone. Unless it’s a music therapy session or something.

– struck twice (henry/anne)

9.)

Anne’s New Year’s gift is presented to her with great pomp by servants as she shares the last course of supper with Henry.

The gift is hangings that he explains are meant for both her bed and bedchamber, the expanse of which is held on either end by pairs of liveried footmen: masses of crimson satin, cloth of gold, and cloth of silver stretched for their viewing.

– crimson (henry/anne)

10.)

Henry’s halfway through his coke and whiskey when a tiny brunette hoists herself onto a barstool three seats away from him, sliding an enormous purse (really, practically a suitcase, and white, to match her dress, he assumes) onto the matte black surface of the bar.

– so what would an angel say, the devil wants to know (henry/anne)

👑

In some nonfiction works (usually where the author or the historian is especially sympathetic to COA), I’ve read the take that Henry’ VIII’s acknowledgement and ennoblement of his son was unconscionable and/or unconscionably cruel. 

Now…I don’t think this was particularly a considerate thing for him to do concerning his wife, obviously (although the adultery itself is…more so, I would think? the pregnancy and child was simply the result/proof of it).

And I’m wondering what, conversely, these writers think he should have done instead? Because usually it seems less like they’re implying “well, he just shouldn’t have committed adultery in the first place” (which tends to be…an argument not made often, because what is ‘shouldn’t’ to a king, esp. when it’s kind of de rigueur) and more like “it’s fine to commit adultery, but he should at least have to decency to conceal it/lie about it” and I don’t really think that makes it, like……better….

So, yeah, conversely he was supposed to…what? Be like “good luck with all that” to Bessie Blount? Pull an #IDon’tKnowHer ?

Because the ennoblement and acknowledgement certainly wasn’t, like I said, considerate to COA. But I don’t think it was “unconscionable”– what would’ve been more so would be, actually, to do the opposite of what he had done: not acknowledge him, not title him, not extend lands/incomes, not arrange a noble marriage for his former mistress, not grant her property, etc. 

I’ve also read that if she’d had a daughter, he never would have acknowledged her, and that he only acknowledged Henry Fiztroy to “rub salt in [COA’s] wounds for not having had a living son yet”.

While I’m sure they read his secret diary and thusly know all his motivations behind every decision, I don’t have this diary and so…don’t know.

But also? We don’t really know that, because that isn’t what happened. He may well have acknowledged an illegitimate daughter (although people say one of Mary Boleyn’s was his, and a few other women’s daughters were his, there’s no definitive proof), although I don’t think he would’ve titled a potential bastard daughter by Blount as “Duchess of Richmond”– hereditary titles/peerages weren’t typically given to even women of legitimate birth (besides the Countess of Salisbury in 1512, and later the Marquess of Pembroke for Anne), much less illegitimate ones. He was probably far too much of a traditionalist for that [which, you know, he was…….save for the whole Thousand Year Break With Anglican Tradition to Marry ‘The One’ (of Six) thing]. 

💣

Hm, I’ve talked about it before but I’ll expand in that I think… both H7 and H8 were more similar than they were different (or, at least more similar than many are willing to admit– most historians try to dissociate them from each other). Even in decision-making, and I think they both kind of fuqued up re: setting precedents that were like…not great tbh. Even though I understand the political motivations behind them, there were also aspects of them that were kind of like…politically dumb. 

And we see this really early in their respective reigns (we see this in like…the ‘first day’ of H7′s and within the first year/s of H8′s).

So, H7′s first boo-boo I will tackle, and that is in the treatment of the corpse of Richard III.

Like…I get it. It’s not morally upstanding for sure, I’ll shade over it forever, but I do get like…the motivation. To treat the body honorably could potentially be dangerous because it implies that his death was regicide. And for his foundations, he can’t say R3 was ever king; rather an usurper. 

At the same time I think it made him look…kind of petty, tbh. And even if we have to go with Richard the Evil Usurper angle (which, you need to, to have ground to stand on as the one that overthrew him etc. etc.) so he was never king etc. he was still, at the very least, a duke? A member of the nobility? Brother of the last ‘rightful king’ (and he had to be, for his respective children to be relegitimized and the marriage alliance to EoY to work out)? 

Granted, shady and illegal things happend in the WoTR to members of the nobility, executions without trial re: Edward IV’s father (whose head was put on a spike) and of course Owen Tudor’s. But this wasn’t that…Richard was slain in battle. He was greatly loved in York. To treat his corpse with disrespect didn’t, in general, set a great precedent for English noblemen that had died in battle. It just added insult to injury, it made him look gloaty. 

And H8′s was the executions of Empson and Dudley. I get the motivation behind these too; I’ve talked about them in detail both here and here, so I won’t repeat myself. 

It wasn’t totally without precedent, I think many kings of the same era would have done the same. But at the same time this did set a problematic precedent  that we see later on– that if there is enough popular discontent for a king’s advisor… it has the power to eventually influence, perhaps even guarantee, their death. I’m sure this remained in the memories of the commons…particularly because the revolts in the North that happened later in Henry VIII’s reign did not call for his deposition– but rather, the head of Cromwell. They seemed to believe that this was a reasonable and achievable goal, and to me it’s little wonder that they did.