lindagoesmushrooming:

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any advice for absolute beginners who are writing-curious? My education was cobbled together and I didn’t have to write much there. I’m in a professional field where I do very technical and structured writing, but self-directed writing feels like a stranger. Writing basics/advice seems like it’s either for someone who has way more practice than I do, condescending, or written by someone who is convinced that writing is pain. Sometimes all three…

ariaste:

I definitely agree that a lot of writing advice (especially the sort you find on the internet, written by people with dubious qualifications to be giving advice) is… less than helpful. Even a lot of the published books on writing are not very helpful. However, I have some recommendations!

• Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer. If you buy only one book, let it be this one. It’s fantastic.
• Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin.
• The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. More about the flowers of rhetoric (that is, tools like metaphor, alliteration, metonymy, synecdoche, parataxis, etc) than WRITING, but it is genuinely one of my favorites.
• There are also a buttload of amazing articles on writing from people who legitimately do know what they’re talking about on the SFWA blog! (Example: Key Conditions for Suspense)

But honestly, if you are an absolute total beginner, my advice would be to ignore everything I just said. You don’t need writing books or articles. Just give yourself permission to play. Read some of your favorite books and practice noticing things about how the writer did things. Every time you go, “Oh, I love this scene,” or you notice your heart racing, or tears coming to your eyes, or WHATEVER – pause and read it again and try to figure out where the magic trick is happening. You could even try transcribing a scene, either by hand or by typing – this is an OLLLLLD apprentice-writer’s trick to help trick your brain into thinking that IT is doing the writing itself so it can get used to what the movements of the dance are.

Another old, old apprentice-writer’s trick is to make a list of all the stuff you really love in books. Character archetypes, tropes, themes, topics, vibrant sensory details, mental images that speak to you, whatever. Mine has things like: wizards, dragons, enemies-to-lovers, only one bed, etc. Then you can use that list (I call it a “Magpie Hoard” but people have a million different names, I did not invent this tool) to cobble together ideas – and because the ideas are made up of raw material that you love, you are going to love the ideas too! You can even represent the genesis of an idea mathematically. The Idea Formula (and this one I DID invent) is:

Idea = ❤️ + ❤️ (+ ❤️…) + “what if”

Where ❤️ stands for “thing from your Magpie Hoard”. So for example:

Cozy fantasy + badass lady soldier + the smell of baked bread + murder mystery + “what if”… = “What if a grizzled lady sellsword retired from mercenary life, rented a room above a bakery in a quiet village, and immediately got caught up in investigating a murder?”

You can do this all day long, just generating story ideas based on all the stuff you love in books.

And then… y'know, just get out there and play! Make some messes. If you don’t like what you made, nobody ever has to see it, and it’s EXTREMELY easy to hide the evidence. :)

xx-k1tsun3-k1d-xx:

say what you want about the switch 2 but leave my beautiful wife 3.5mm headphone jack out of it i’m so happy for her she deserves this moment <3

ID: a close-up of the side of a Switch 2, which has a headphone jack

darkmoonstruck asked:

Is this a horrible thing with legs or...a horrible thing with fingers? Or just a horrible thing?

elodieunderglass:

sufficientlylargen:

sufficientlylargen:

elodieunderglass:

sufficientlylargen:

elodieunderglass:

belovedbright:

elodieunderglass:

That’s cephalopharyngeal, a word which ought to help. Thank you so much for thinking of me!

Wouldn’t it be cephalophlangi? Since fingers are phalanges, and pharynx is the throat

Ooooh yeah, that’s better as an accurate description - but no, it still needs the

🤌 flow

How do we feel about cephalodactyl? And we can use phalanges for “phalangipod.” Cephalodactyl phalangipod. How do we feel about that

The Greek prefix for “hand” is “chiro”, so perhaps it is a chirocephalic pentapod, or maybe a pentapodactyl cephalochiroid?

I like “pentapodactyl” tremendously!!! but hate “chiro” in this context, and I don’t know why. Obviously I have no authority to be the arbiter of this but I do feel strongly!!

There’s a gorgeous rhythm to:

Cephalopharyngeal pentapodactyl monstrosity of the alarm

@elodieunderglass I’m curious how you pronounce “Cephalopharyngeal” - my instinct is to pronounce the opening as a dactyl, like in “cephalopod”, i.e. “SEF-uh-lo”, but the scansion of that line feels better to me if it’s an amphibrach, i.e. “suh-FAL-lo”

The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus! Palmate monstrosity of the alarm!
The sesquipedalian’s best pernoctalian psuedo-mammalian hand without arm!

This maniform, bursiform, digital deep-dweller drifts through the darkest demersal domains,
A five-footed fingerling phantasm floating full fathoms afloor from the foam-freckled main!

It hunts with its quick hyponychial cnidocytes fully envenomed and ready to kill!
If nocuous toxicants don’t cause cessation its rostriform mandibles certainly will!

By ripping and rending, it ruptures its rations with razorlike radulae housed in its jaw;
Its great glabrous grub-grippers gather the gobbets to go in its ventropharyngeal maw!

The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus seldom comes skyward while it’s still alive,
But sometimes some singular specimen surfaces, stalking the shore like a deadly high-five,

So if you should witness, in perambulation, gressorial fingertips roaming the sands,
I beg you, consider this simple hortation: observe from a distance, and do not shake hands!

#on the naming of things#the cephalobrachial pentapodactylus#palmate monstrosity of the alarm#(its polysyllabical classification engenders affection and adds to its charm)#sufficiently poetic verse

^ tags!

nitewrighter:

Me: I don’t get it. I thought I was doing a lot better than I was a few years ago. I’m like 10 times more on top of things than I used to be. How does everything feel terrible now?

The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it’s the fascism. You’re completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you’re also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you’re going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances.

Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW.

Tiny OSHA Me: BOSS, THE FASCISM.

(via stormofsharpthings)

View high resolution

uniqueinalltheworlds:

Ernest and Celsetine 

skarabrae-stone:

(via driadorim)

a-random-fandom-friend:

Because of Re: Carmilla, I thought you all would enjoy my edition of Carmilla :

The holes go all the way through, the sides of the book are red, and on some pages the text is colored red just under the holes !

I was so happy when I found it in a little french bookshop specialized in queer texts ❤️

(via dinosexual)

alyxbronwynn:

roathena:

Get in loser, we’re gonna stab Ceaser!

(via heartsyhawk)

katharkness:

the-haiku-bot:

inthefallofasparrow:

sophiehelgagoughfives:

calm down guys, it’s only the 8th

At this rate, Caesar won’t even show up on the day. You tipped him off.

At this rate, Caesar

won’t even show up on the

day. You tipped him off.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Caesar was tipped off by a seer and still showed up

(via amysnotdeadyet)

caats:

(via beanarie)

a-molecular-machine:

ALT

Original post was made unrebloggable so I’m reposting the link. Click through for the whole thread.

(via jackironsides)

mcgregorswench:

hawkeye221b:

I wanted to meme before the big day.

Not yet, Brutus.. not yet..

Originally posted by mcgregorswench

(via abowerofasphodels)

bluedalahorse:

Take a cupcake! 🧁

yellow cupcake, vanilla frosting

yellow cupcake, chocolate frosting

chocolate cupcake, vanilla frosting

chocolate cupcake, chocolate frosting

See Results

Then reblog to make sure everyone gets a cupcake. 🩷

(via spiritofcamelot)

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limerickshere:

catgirlheart:

sexhaver:

spencerofspace:

My mom was looking through our old National Geographic magazines and I found my favorite picture ever

that baby is on maximum coolin

If you’re looking for advice that is free,

Try the podcast of the McElroy three!

Their advice is all shit,

But you might laugh a bit

At My Brother My Brother and Me.

From any MBMBAM short excerpt

You’ll know Travis claims he’s a sexpert.

But don’t take advice

Or at least first think thrice:

No McElroy boy is an expert.

And lastly, this show, you should maybe

Be aware’s not for kids because they-be

Too young for this stuff.

Now they know sure enough

That they’re cool, so what’s up you cool baby?