ELIZA DUSHKU As Gina City By The Sea (2002) Dir. Michael Caton-Jones

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 1x10 — The Black Queen (2022)

EMILIA CLARKE as DAENERYS TARGARYEN in GAME OF THRONES ↳ 1.10 - Fire and Blood

an ever-growing collection of all my writing tip posts

sick characters (word bank)

characters with prosthetics or mobility aids

injured characters

injured characters (word bank)

writing angst

creating atmosphere in your writing

writing characters with emetophobia

tips for writers who are auditory learners

edward of wessex / the last kingdom 4x06

And speaking of Sophia Tolstoy, her diaries are just so depressing. 

“I am to gratify his pleasure and nurse his child, I am a piece of household furniture, I am a woman. I try to suppress all human feelings. When the machine is working properly it heats the milk, knits a blanket, makes little requests and bustles about trying not to think […].“

She wrote this when she was 19, one year into her marriage to Leo and as she was pregnant with the first of his 13 children.

A few years later, when she was 25 or so:

“I am so often alone with my thoughts that the need to write in my diary comes quite naturally … Now I am well again and not pregnant—it terrifies me how often I have been in that condition. He said that for him being young meant “I can achieve anything”. For me […] reason tells me that there is nothing I either want or can do beyond nursing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and loving and caring for my husband and babies, all of which I know is happiness of a kind, but why do I feel so woeful all the time, and weep as I did yesterday? I am writing this now with the pleasantly exciting sense that nobody will ever read it, so I can be quite frank with myself […].“

During her 12th pregnancy she wrote about taking scalding baths and jumping from high pieces of furniture to try and miscarry.  And at one point while reading her husband’s diary (which he told her to read) she found the sentence “There is no such thing as love, only the physical need for intercourse and the practical need for a life companion.” In her own diary she wrote “They ebb and flow like waves, these times when I realise how lonely I am and want only to cry…”

A few years before her husband’s death, she published a cycle of prose poems titled “Groans”, under the pseudonym “A Tired Woman”.

show, don't tell:

anticipation - bouncing legs - darting eyes - breathing deeply - useless / mindless tasks - eyes on the clock - checking and re-checking

frustration - grumbling - heavy footsteps - hot flush - narrowed eyes - pointing fingers - pacing / stomping

sadness - eyes filling up with tears - blinking quickly - hiccuped breaths - face turned away - red / burning cheeks - short sentences with gulps

happiness - smiling / cheeks hurting - animated - chest hurts from laughing - rapid movements - eye contact - quick speaking

boredom - complaining - sighing - grumbling - pacing - leg bouncing - picking at nails

fear - quick heartbeat - shaking / clammy hands - pinching self - tuck away - closing eyes - clenched hands

disappointment - no eye contact - hard swallow - clenched hands - tears, occasionally - mhm-hmm

tiredness - spacing out - eyes closing - nodding head absently - long sighs - no eye contact - grim smile

confidence - prolonged eye contact - appreciates instead of apologizing - active listening - shoulders back - micro reactions

Leo Suter as Harald Sigurdsson VIKINGS: VALHALLA | 1.01 The Greenlanders

May the Mother smile down on this gathering with love. May the Smith mend the bonds that have been broken for far too long.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 1.08 — The Lord of the Tides

"Lucrezia Borgia operated within the circumstances of her time to forge her own destiny. She came into her own, showing a powerful intelligence and skill in managing her life."

— Sarah Bradford, Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy.

TOM GLYNN-CARNEY as GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR in DOMINA (2021-)