romaâ
$LAYYYTER
Andulka
Xuebing Du
occasionally subtle
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
tannertan36
we're not kids anymore.
Product Placement
Discoholic đŞŠ
NASA
çĽćĽ / Permanent Vacation
YOU ARE THE REASON
â
Kaledo Art
pixel skylines
Claire Keane
Aqua Utopiaď˝ćľˇăŽĺşă§č¨ćśăç´Ąă
Not today Justin
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@anoveldreaming
characters who are so inauthentic. characters who only show what they want other people to see of them. characters who simply must have control over every part of themselves. do you even get it
characters who are inauthentic even to themselves. characters who cannot allow the mask to slip. characters who struggle to have an identity past what they project out to the world.
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one of the reasons why "what if people went on a road trip and it was weird" is one of the oldest story types is that a lot of sense of personhood has been, historically, tied to place. the weird road trip says "what if we went somewhere else, where no one knows us, and tried out being a different person".
Odysseus, the famous liar, goes on a weird road trip & over the course of it becomes several different people, and then comes home & is all those people as well as himself, wearing the echoes of those other people
also i had two quotes pop up in my head while writing this - du bellay's "heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage.../et puis est retournÊ, plein d'usage et de raison, vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge" (happy he who, like Ulysses, has traveled much/ and then returns, filled with customs and [ways of thought], to live out his days among his family)
and Horace's "'Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.(They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.)' -
there's a bunch more I could add on either side (Cavafy's "The City," for example) but the dialogue between travel as a complete transformation vs. personality as an unchangeable core is long indeed.
what I really like about Pratchett's work among all the other things, is that he basically opens all his books with exposure and "here is an immuable, very eternal law upon which the world is built" and then he spends the rest of the book trampling on that law
"it is impossible for a woman to be a wizard, so we're going to follow this wizard girl's journey"
"dragons are gone forever and dormant, here be no dragons. say hi to this one lady dragon tho"
"nobody can resist elves. that's why Magrat is going to deck their queen in the face"
"everyone knows women can't fight"
"everyone knows golems don't have souls. they all have names and personalities and-"
"all dwarves are men. then they were introduced to gender"
"Death is eternal and unchanging. Let's see what happens when he goes through all major human development stages in reverse starting with his retirement"
All in all "here's this thing everyone knows is true, here's why it's bullshit, here's how untrue it is, and here's how nobody is going to learn a lesson from being shown that this law of nature is bullshit. We all know people never learn right. or do they"
And he mostly wrote those openings last of all. He'd write the book to find out what it was about and then wrote the openings when he was done with the first draft.
Hello, Mr Gaiman!
I have decided to write a book! And I am writing it with intent to publish it someday. But I'm nervous because I'm chronically ill and I only have so much brain power on any given day and sometimes it's hardly any at all. So I just thought I'd do as others have done and ask for some encouraging words. Do you have any encouragement for a disabled writer with chronic brain fog?
As a fog-brained writer, the most encouraging thing I can tell you is that nobody ever has to read your first drafts. Nobody has to know that the two sentences they were reading were written days apart. Write on days you have a brain, edit on days you you have a different, less creative brain. You'll be fine. Just keep going.
You often answer to the question "how difficult is to live as a writer" and say the first couple of years was really hard to get by, but after that you could buy a house etc. My question is: was the monetary income increased gradually or it was night and day after signing a good contract?
Both. My income as a freelance writer increased slowly from about ÂŁ700 in year one to about ÂŁ6000 in year two, and probably ÂŁ10,000 in year 3. But by the time we got to year seven Terry and I had sold Good Omens for ÂŁ150,000 (and I would get half of that minus agent's commission) and I had started to get royalties on Sandman and Black Orchid and had been contracted to write Books of Magic. There was never a clearcut Night and Day moment though.
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Hi Mr Gaiman (sorry if thatâs too formal). I just finished reading Neverwhere and am absolutely in love with it. On Tuesday 22nd November (which I recognise is soon and you may not see this in time) I am doing a presentation on the text to my seminar group for my fantasy literature course at university. I was wondering if you could share any thoughts, or recommend any interviews/articles where youâve spoken about the text, in terms of the magic system or lack of it in London Below - the way that what is supernatural to the reader and Richard is completely natural and, to an extent, unspecial to the inhabitants. We see Richard very quickly learn not to question how people can speak to rats, how a medieval court can occupy an underground carriage, or how a man can be brought back from the dead. I found this such a fascinating method of dealing with the fantastical, and so different from most other texts in the course. Otherwise, big fan, thank you for all your work, youâre a big inspiration to me as a writer <3
I never understood systems where you learned the true rules. I've been on this planet for six decades and I have no idea what the true rules are, or even if there are any true rules. I just go along with what seems to be happening and assume that's probably reality more or less and that if it isn't it will all sort itself out sooner or later. So that's how I wrote magic too.
The adherents to true rules in magic are so often adherents to rationality over all-- as if one could ever isolate it from everything else. (At least among those that I know).
Just as they assume there are easy answers if only one is rational enough, they believe that any magic must adhere to clear rules which they can understand. If it doesn't, it's simply not a good story.
Very frustrating.
For all the people who ask me for writing advice...
Neil Gaiman
1Â Write.
2Â Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3Â Finish what youâre writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4Â Put it aside. Read it pretending youâve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5 Remember: when people tell you somethingâs wrong or doesnât work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6Â Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7Â Laugh at your own jokes.
8Â The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, youâre allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But itâs definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it Âhonestly, and tell it as best you can. Iâm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
âŚ
Read the whole article. Itâs filled with great advice from wonderful writersâŚ
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower, Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Joanna Macy)
Fly me to the moon
gaslighting someone by saying they're too smart to be gaslit so you're not gaslighting them
this would work on me
No it wouldnât. Youâre too smart.
Posts like this are like modern day fables. Yeah ill reblog this funny little exchange, but next time someone says this to me ill remember this post and hear kill bill sirens.
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The made up concept of christian/catholic suffering has so many people grabbed by the balls.
Protestant Work Ethic is literally a cycle of abuse
âTo separate those who make it and those who donâtâ
And those who donât make it? They deserve to, what, die on the street? For the crime of ânot making itâ? Just say youâre fascist and go
Passage, by Cornelia Konrads in Chaumont-sur-LoireÂ
What's really in that witch's cauldron?
Folk names for herbs
Ass' Ear- Comfrey
Bat's Wing- Holly Leaves
Beard Of Monk- Chicory
Bear's Foot- Lady's Mantle
Bird's Eye- Germander or Speedwell
Blind Eyes- Poppy
Blood From a Head- Lupine
Blood Of Ares- Purslane
Blood Of Hestia- Chamomile
Bloody Fingers- Foxglove
Calf's Snout- Snapdragon
Cat's Foot- Ground Ivy
Crow's Foot- Wood Anemone
Devil's Ear- Jack In The Pulpit
Devil's Plaything- Yarrow
Dew Of the Sea- Rosemary
Dog's Mouth- Snapdragon
Dragon's Teeth- Vervain
Elf Leaf- Lavender
Englishman's Foot- Common Plantain
Fairy Eggs- Nutmeg
Flower Of Death- Vinca
Goose Tongue- Lemon Balm
Graveyard Dust- Mullein
Hawk's Heart- Wormwood
Juno's Tears- Vervain
Jupiter's Beard- Sempervivums
Lion's Foot- Lady's Mantle
Little Faces- Viola
Man's Bile- Turnip Sap
Mortification Root- Rose of Sharyn
Nose Of Turtle- Turtlehead, Chelone
Nosebleed- Yarrow
Our Lady's Tears- Lily Of The Valley
Old Man's Flannel- Mullein
Ram's Head- Valerian
Scale Of Dragon- Tarragon
Semen Of Ares- White Clover
Semen Of Hermes- Dill
Serpent's Tongue- Dog's Tooth Violet
Sparrow's Tongue- Knotweed
Tree Of Doom- Elder
Unicorn Root- Boneset
Weasel Snout- Yellow Archangel
Wool Of Bat- Moss
Body Parts as Plants:
Eye- Blossom or Seed
Heart- Bud or Seed
Beak, Bill or Nose- Seed, Bud or Bloom
Tongue or Teeth- Petal or Leaf
Head- Blossom
Tail- Stem
Hair- Dried Herbs or Stringy Parts Of Herbs
Privates, Genitals Or Semen- Seeds Or Sap
Blood- Sap
Guts- Roots or Stalk
Paw, Foot, Leg, Wing or Toe- Leaves
Animals as Plants:
Toad- Sage
Cat- Catmint
Dog- Grasses, Specifically Couchgrass
Frog- Cinquefoil
Eagle- Wild Garlic
Blue Jay- Laurel
Hawk- Hawkweed
Lamb-Wild Lettuce
Nightengale- Hops
Rat- Valerian
Weasel- Rue
Woodpecker- Peony
I borrowed this from:
Bird's Eye. Calf's Snout, Eye Of Newt and Hair Of Baboon sound more like byproducts of a bizarre slaughterhouse, than contents of a spice ra
@thatlittleegyptologist
@rudjedet
The barrier
to where you want to go
will help you if you let it
âit costs nothing to be kindâ usually true. but not always; sometimes, doing the kind thing costs you time, or energy, or even money. it isnât always easy to make the kindest choice
consider: sometimes it costs to be kind, and we should all do everything we can to choose kindness anyway
This is the heart of choice. At all times the Universe is whispering in your ear, âWill you pay the price?â ...Because for every action (or inaction), thereâs always a price.
Choose.
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Iâve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context.
The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and itâs time to make a standard âthank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blahâ speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.
Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says âDeveloping written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.â
She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something âmore profitableâ. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: âWe live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.â
Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly âYour empire will fall. And I will help it along.â
We stan an icon.
I never knew the whole quote or its circumstances. Lord she was amazing.
âWe live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.â â Ursula K LeGuin
@deadcatwithaflamethrower
That right up there is the essential style of the woman who radicalized me. :) It was a privilege to share the planet with her, though (to my great regret) we never met.
I wasnât surprised. Sheâd sent me an email the week before, where she said
Dear Neil
Heroism isnât exactly my thing, so please just look at me as your fellow writer, OK? Two grunts in the great war of Art against Insentience, or something.
Anyhow, yes, I did have a question:
Iâm told I have 3 to 5 minutes to say thanks. Having sat through 5-minute thankyou speeches that seemed to last 3 hours, I thought Iâd enliven the gratitude with some very brief remarks about (for one thing) the big publishersâ practice of grossly overcharging public libraries for ebooks, limiting access, etc. I know youâre a true library lion. So I wanted to check if youâd welcome this, & if so we could maybe kind of strike the same note â or at least tell you, so that if I do say some things that our publishers will perceive as ungrateful, subversive, unladylike, etc., it wonât take you by surprise.
very best wishes
Ursula
(And because I suppose some people might want to know what I replied, I said,
Dear Ursula,
Iâm very happy to be a fellow grunt in the war.
I think that anything you want to say is going to be good, because you mean it. I donât think chiding publishers etc is out of place from a public platform - it may even change things - and the world of five (or is it four?) monstrous huge international publishers us not the one either of us grew up with. (Iâm with one giant in the UK, another in the US, in each case because they engulfed and devoured my original publisher.)
And we neither of us got where we are, or indeed, anywhere, by toeing any party line.
Love
Neil)
I learned in a post today that Pterry wrote letters to a select number of people about five months before he passed, to be delivered after his departure. The obvious question is, did you receive one, and would you be willing to share its contents?
I did. It told me that he was giving me a hat to remember him by. And that he thought he had been good and wished that he had been better.
This is such a thoughtful gift for Terry Pratchett to give to the people he left behind. When my dad died, I wanted nothing more than a letter. One more thing from him. One piece of advice. One more story and memory to cherish.
