the rubber duck

For anyone curious what they mean by the rubber duck, rubber duck debugging is a tactic used by programmers to figure out bugs in the code. To do it, they explain the code, verbally, line by line, to the rubber duck until they find it. 

It’s also very useful for writers, and I’ve used it multiple times with rubber ducks, stuffed animals, and my friends.

“when i say it out loud i realize where the stupid was”

I literally cannot count the number of times I’ve gone to someone and told them ‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong with my story, please let me explain it to you’ and that was all it took. Sometimes they ask helpful questions like ‘did you remember to feed them’ or ‘so is this all on the same day’ but other times I don’t even need that, it just figures itself out as soon as I try to explain it to someone else.

It’s one of my go-to pieces of writing advice. You’re stuck on your story? sit down and tell me/someone all about it. 

I think if you’re disabled you don’t get to call yourself lazy. No. You are facing a real ass problem, big or small, you shouldn’t morally judge yourself for it.

a scene can start wherever you want it to

writing isn't real life. You don't need to set up a character walking into a room or two characters greeting each other and talking about the weather or what-have-you in order to lead into the conversation you actually want them to have. just start at the conversation.

hell, start in the middle of the conversation. you could even start at the end and then have one of them leave and the other one left behind to reflect back on what just happened.

writing gets easier when you open yourself up to writing the parts that are interesting, to starting where it's easy instead of where you think you should start.

if it ends up not working? that's okay. you tried it, and sometimes just getting something out of your head is a necessary first step to getting the words right

*Scrolls past*

*reluctant sigh*

*scrolls back up*

*rebogs*

It is not enough to get into a comfy sleeping position- one must go through several and spin like a rotisserie chicken to arrive at the position you started with.

Lan Mandragoran in 1.03 A Place of Safety

Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis), parents with “colts”, family Gruidae, order Gruiformes, Orlando, FL, USA

photograph by Nicholas Horton

Ever heard of a Sexy Legs Cockroach? No? Ever wanted to see someone make an anthropomorphic cockroach? ...No? Well.

Now available on my Etsy!

pssst @elodieunderglass

she!

thank you SO much for thinking of me.

The physics of balancing toys 🙃

Me and my friends hanging out

@elodieunderglass thought you'd like these little guys

they're GREAT! thank you!

I spotted a reply to one of my posts:

And my knee-jerk response was "no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives--"

And it made me remember something.

Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in-- where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend-- and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.

Only I didn't really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn't have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.

So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: "what's your story?"

Your life story.

And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he'd been, the things he'd done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.

When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.

And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.

By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other's lives.

All of which is to say:

Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.

So do you.

telling myself “it’s okay it’s not so serious” while it feels like my guts are turning into soup whenever I’m dealing with my perfectionist tendencies

late night reminder:

imagine being on your little dried peapod shell of a boat with your fragile little human self and then

out of the depths below

the Divine

God-Beasts

come right up to YOU

capable of crushing you without even noticing you

and ever so gently

so gently

roll back and forth around the dried leaf you're sitting on

just to maybe examine you and see what you're doing in their world.

They are curious.

Also maybe it is their version of bird watching.

humans: go out onto the water for whale-spotting

whales: go above the water for human-spotting

he just looks so torture-able . like it would be a disservice NOT to torture him.. . he WANTS to be tortured

Had a dream last night that i was a knight and this bigger scarier knight had me on the ground and right before he swung his sword at my neck he said smth like "i mourn the loss of life for the tree who will become your coffin" which shouldnt of turned me on like it did but alas

im tired of him

some coffee might help with that ☕️

If you don't stick around till the end, you will miss him ❤️