i dont know why im still here

(fake dating, fake engagement, misunderstandings, pure crack)

(A.K.A. Before You Even Touch That Shiny Blank Page)

↳ What You’re Actually Obsessed With Stop trying to write what’s trendy. What do you spiral about at 2 a.m.? What ideas make you grin like a gremlin and mutter, “Ohhh, that’s juicy”? That’s your story. Chase that weird, niche, can’t-let-it-go stuff. Your obsession will be the fuel that drags you through chapter 27 when everything sucks and you kind of want to fake your own death.

↳ Your Story’s “Why the Hell Should Anyone Care?” Not in a mean way. But genuinely—why should a stranger give up sleep to read this? What itch does it scratch? What feeling does it deliver? Figure that out early and let it guide you like a tiny emotional compass. If you can’t answer it yet, cool. But keep poking at it until you can.

↳ A Character With Big, Messy Feelings Don’t start with a plot. Start with a person. A disaster with a wound and a want. Someone who wants something so badly it makes them do unwise things. Get to know them like a nosy therapist. Let them tell you what kind of story they want to be in.

↳ Conflict That Isn’t Just Vibes Mood boards are fun. But conflict is what makes a story move. Make sure you’ve got some stakes, emotional, relational, existential, literal. If your idea doesn’t have anything to push against, it’s not a story yet. It’s an inspiration board.

↳ A Rough Emotional Shape Not an outline. Not yet. Just… the feeling. Where does it start (lonely)? Where does it go (rage)? Where does it end (hopeful)? Think of your book like a rollercoaster. You need the high points, low points, and those slow creaky climbs that make people scream. If it’s all flat? Snoozefest.

↳ The One Vibe You Want to Nail Every great book has a thing. An atmosphere. A flavor. Your job during brainstorming is to catch the scent of it. Is it spooky and tender? Funny and tragic? Cozy but secretly brutal? Whatever it is, write it down. Tattoo it on your brain. Let it infect every scene.

From Cork who got limericks

Who liked to compose limericks

But he failed at the sport

like listen... 55+ years ago a bunch of actors had to use a mix of existing habits and wild imagination to come up with what they felt would be believable movements and muscle-memory for someone using completely unbelievable tech a few hundred years in the future. like tv had less than ten channels and the screen was a foot across, and they had to go "ok how would someone who's used to a tiny wireless gadget with a screen hold it and use it? how would they talk to a computer? how would the computer sound when she talked back?"

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

@ faradaycockcage