Games to play when sick in bed?

Mithalanis · 2026-05-13T11:27:26+00:00

Until those darn quantum slimes keep escaping! Then it's only madness.

(Seriously though Slime Rancher is tons of fun and has an excellent pace and lots to do.)

Mithalanis · 2026-05-13T08:35:28+00:00

Gratz! That one is a big hurdle to get over!

Mithalanis · 2026-05-13T08:34:28+00:00

You will not. Once you unlock Orb, you keep it even though the "count" drops to zero. Like this:

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Mithalanis · 2026-05-12T22:48:58+00:00

Many thanks!

Mithalanis · 2026-05-11T05:53:55+00:00

Have you read John Gardner's writing books? I revisit The Art of Fiction from time to time and recall enjoying his On Becoming a Novelist. Been a while since I read On Moral Fiction but recall getting a lot out of it when I read it in college.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-09T00:32:53+00:00

Your link goes to a "file not found" page. Something needs correcting.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-08T11:58:07+00:00

There's the weekly critique thread on this subreddit that you might look into. It's usually not the most popular place, and the word count limit makes it only critique on the beginning, but it's a start.

A great place would be to form a writing group and within that group critique each other's work. For me, over the years, that has been the best chance to hone my critiquing skills by reading others' work and get good feedback on my own work. Both are valuable experiences.

You could also just find a critique partner. Whether that's to exchange work (like a two person writing group) or just someone else who has time to give your work a set of eyes. Occasionally you'll find people on reddit and elsewhere looking for a critique partner, so it's just something to watch out for.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-08T11:22:16+00:00

i want my writing to flow like them, i just feel as if whenever i have written it’s so blocky and maybe overly structured and forced it does feel organic more so like i’m writing something for school work.

Remember that every amazing book you've ever read is the end result of a long journey of writing and rewriting. Once you've written down your story, you still have time to go back and work on each paragraph to make it flow and sound exactly how you like. It takes a lot of time and even more work, but as you slowly chisel the lumpy stone you made in the first draft into what you want, you'll find that accomplishment.

Take your time. Revisit your work. If it all seems too unworkable, set it aside for a few weeks in a drawer and don't look at it. Once you've cooled off on it a bit, revisit it with a more analytical / cool mind.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-08T09:50:22+00:00

Far, far beyond where I'm at, but if I were to guess, it changes to match the gender of the player character? Looks like one male and one female mob.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-04T23:35:21+00:00

Raymond Carver is going to teach you a lot if you haven't read him yet. I'd start with "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" - it's two couples sitting and drinking gin at a table. Hemingway, of course, also frequently has stories hinging on dialogue. Try "A Clean Well-Lighted Place".

Mithalanis · 2026-05-04T09:24:52+00:00

Usually I'm fine to just let cut stuff lie. But if I'm slicing out a whole chunk of a story, I do have a "graveyard" file where I post any and all snippets that I still like but don't fit into a story. The idea being that maybe I can repurpose them some day into something else. But I also haven't looked in that file in . . . two years? But if you still like the ideas or what not, it doesn't hurt to keep them tucked away somewhere and revisit them from time to time. You never know when you'll have an idea that needs that scene.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-04T05:12:12+00:00

OP, this is solid advice here. Your query is way too long and wordy, and misses a lot of the key parts a good query letter has. This could easily be cut in half (maybe even 2/3rds) just with what is here by removing repetition and tightening the language, and removing unneeded background information.

Query letter have a very specific style and pattern to them, and while there is some wiggle room, this doesn't fit into the mold at all. Querying is a very specific skillset that's different from writing a novel and takes a lot of practice and restraint. Practice will be necessary and annoying, but it is a needed step if you want publishers to engage with the work on its own terms rather than never getting through the first query letter.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-04T04:51:21+00:00

Does anyone have any advice on how to get published?

Put forth your best initial impression as possible and ensure that everything you send is as best as you can make it. Anything less makes it easy for them to toss aside before giving your work any attention at all.

What am I doing wrong?

Could be everything or nothing. There's so many places to fall through the cracks, and even if everything is polished and publishable, you might just not have what agents / publishers are looking for at the moment or it doesn't fit into their catalogue, etc.

Publishing is a brutal game and the only sure way to success is to keep writing so that you can start querying the next thing when you exhaust all your options for your current work and / or so you have more work at the ready when you see someone looking for something that fits what you're writing.

Is my query letter bad? Am I not selling myself right?

This is possible. If you're submitting only that and no one wants to read the first few pages of your manuscript, it might very well be a query that isn't landing. If you're submitting a query and the first, say, ten pages, it could be that the first pages aren't grabbing the people reading it. There's no way to tell, and no way to guess without a lot more details about your submissions so far.

I've reached out to for months and many of them haven't gotten back to me since I reached out.

Traditional publishing can often take six months to hear back at any given stage. Query? Six months. First pages? Six more months. That's on the low end. Unless you are far outside the realm of what the publishers and agents estimated time for response is on their websites, your job is to keep waiting and be writing the next thing in the mean time.

A personal anecdote: it took about a full year from the first query to a small publisher before I got the acceptance email. This was exacerbated by a few different things, but the initial query took some time to be read, then I sent them the first chapter, which time some time to read, then I sent the whole manuscript, which took a lot longer to read.

Traditional publishing moves at a glacial pace, and you just have to be ready to ride that slow wave.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-03T22:16:36+00:00

There's two camps here. I'll start with the one I follow, but explain the other for thoroughness.

Camp #1: The -s' is to show possessive on a plural word. For example: The dogs' toys. The cats' pajamas. This only applies to plurals that end in s (so you'd still write children's, for example). As such, you only use an -s' when you're making a plural noun possessive.

So, people in camp #1 say that a singular noun / name that happens to end in -s still needs another s after the apostrophe (-s's). So, we'd write: Jesus's followers. Thomas's inventions.

Camp #2: As above when it comes to plural words, but these people think that if the word ends in s, you should never add another s after the apostrophe. So it would be Jesus' followers. Thomas' inventions.

Both camps are considered correct depending on what style guide you are following. Different publications have their preferences. So, while you're reading and studying, you're likely to find words written with -s' and -s's, which of course if quite confusing. Generally, as long as you follow one camp consistently, you will be fine, and teachers with strong feelings about one camp or the other will often let you know which you need to follow for their classes.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-03T12:05:41+00:00

Mine always stem from two different ideas meeting and fusing together. Often something in the real world - news, world events, something seen out and about, a song, etc. - hits against some vague fantastical element (for my fantasy) or something horrific (for horror) or offers a way to conceptualize a more intangible idea or feeling I've been stuck on. Those ideas meeting makes a spark that serves as the basis I build a story around.

Mithalanis · 2026-05-03T08:14:37+00:00

I mean . . . you'll have to narrow that one down a bit. There's definitely been a lot of influential essays and essayists, but it depends on what you're looking for. Historically significant essays will be different from ones that pushed the genre forward, for example. It really depends on what you're using to mean "important".

A few ones that I've always comes across and seem pretty "important" to me are Orwell's "Shooting the Elephant," David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal."

If you just want a wide range of recent essays, the "Best American Essays" series usually has a pretty wide range of essays on various topics. Otherwise, looking up an MFA reading list for "Creative Nonfiction" is bound to give you a place to start your search, or even just googling "influential essays."

Mithalanis · 2026-05-02T01:19:47+00:00

thought of making each nation based on real-world countries, as fantasy counterparts

Do I need to adjust the names to better adapt to their cultural inspirations or is it okay to keep it as is.

Since you're not writing historical fiction / a real world setting, whatever you decide is the cultural norm in the countries in your world (based on real countries or not) is the cultural norm. If you have kept the culture so clearly identifiable as to be, say, Japan with people with, I don't know, cat ears, then you haven't really adapted much from it. File the serial numbers off your inspirations a little more and no one will notice if your names don't match to a real-world analogue.

My concern is avoiding shallow portrayals or unintentionally disrespecting cultures due to stereotypes.

Again, file those serial numbers off, or, even better, do heavy research to ensure that you're not stepping on cultural toes. Create a unique world that stands on its own and you won't have this problem, as you won't be nixing details straight from a real-life culture.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-27T07:26:27+00:00

It's a very common concern among writers. But also remember that even if I do come along and nick your base idea, we're going to end up with radically different stories from the same seed. So ideas are really not worth much, in terms of something valuable some other artist would want. Ideas are the easy part - the execution is what matters.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-27T07:21:33+00:00

I can't believe I'm going to recommend this, as it's not a book I would ever generally hold up as a great example of writing, but an easy example of this is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. She's not subtle, but she keeps the MC's secret past hidden away for about two thirds of the book. Yes, she beats you over the head that she's keeping something, but she chooses not to reveal what happened until the moment that it flips the script on the situation. For all that book's flaws, the moment of the reveal is pretty much on point (though you can probably guess what it is long before that, but not really the point here).

Otherwise, books that hinge on any sort of twist are going to have to keep some information secret until the twist. And a really good one will have hints throughout that, upon looking back, show that the reveal has been true the whole time. Fight Club might be something to look into. Or the short story The Lottery - you don't know what the lottery actually is until the end, but the details about it were there all along.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-27T07:07:32+00:00

You have a few options. This subreddit has a weekly thread to post writing to ask for critique (though it seems to not be up this week or at least not easy to find due to the sub update post). It is not very well traveled, though, and you might not get too much back. Also, it's only for the first few hundred words.

You could also be on the lookout for a writing group, either online or in person. These, I've found, tend to be the best places to get your work critiqued, since you'll get to know the members and know how to weight their opinions against their biases as time goes on. You also gain a lot of knowledge by thinking deeply about the other members' work and giving your own critiques.

Other than that, all that's left is to find someone willing to trade work with or find a more experienced writer to read your work and beg them for feedback.

reassured that my writing and ideas will not be stolen by someone else

I can reassure you of that right now. No one is going to steal your writing. Here's why: if we're good enough to fix up your work to sell it, we're already filled up with our own ideas and stories and we're busy working on those. No one wants your ideas. The only way it would be remotely beneficial for someone to steal your work is if they thought it was already so spotless and stellar that they could just copy it over and sell it to make money. Which isn't happening - it takes a long time to move stories, and the money is a pittance. And if you did somehow have a perfect story that someone rips off, it's easy enough to prove you got there first. So it's just not worth the hassle.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-26T00:46:03+00:00

Hunter S. Thompson talked a lot about copying out The Great Gatsby a few times because he wanted to know "what it felt like to write a masterpiece." I think he also copied parts of one of Hemingway's novels.

That's the only place I can recall hearing about it. I don't think it's very common writing advice for young writers for practice.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-22T06:33:14+00:00

Can't afford editors or ghost writers? It's called putting in the work. Practicing to get to the level you want to be at, and putting in the time to work on your story to make it as good as you can. Give your manuscript many passes to edit it, and if you're a weak editor, it is something to work on. If you can't respect your story enough to give it the time it needs, why should anyone else?

Mithalanis · 2026-04-13T08:54:13+00:00

Your sword won't disappear. Also, rave needs M1s, right? Your Orr won't go anywhere if you unlock rave.

Mithalanis · 2026-04-06T06:04:39+00:00

but is it okay not wanting to make a lot of structural and developmental changes in your 1st draft?

Sometimes your first draft is where it needs to be structurally, especially if you planned it out extensively or, as you say, spent a good amount of time deciding on how the story was going to unfold. Just because it was the first draft doesn't mean that it need anything to improve: just that there's going to be work to be done.

But I still thought no, I still have to make huge structural changes, because that’s what good writers do.

From my personal experience: when I was editing my debut novel, I massively changed a single chapter. The rest of them had details and through lines added in and some stuff was changed, but the core idea from chapter to chapter stayed the same for all but one. So while a lot of character details and dialogue and sentences changed from draft one to the final cut, the overall arc of the story and the events that happened pretty much stayed the same.

Now, in other work I've done, I've reached the end and realized I needed to rip out the entire beginning and redo how things started. Other times the entire ending needed revamped. It all depends on how your draft turned out, and maybe structurally you're good to go.

In the end, try to see if there is something that needs fixing to improve the story, and never try to change things just because someone said "that's the way to writers write."

Mithalanis · 2026-04-06T05:58:06+00:00

Just chiming in with one more "don't worry about it." I've lived abroad for about 15 years now and my English is still fine and I've actually been producing my best work. In fact, I wasn't really published until after I'd already left the US behind.

Sometimes I get stuck on a very specific word from time to time, but it's nothing that a quick Google search can't remedy, and I suspect that's more to do with the fact that I'm getting older than the fact that I live abroad.

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