Otter's Rock

"too many authors in the current market are focusing on selling 'spice' instead of telling interesting stories"

"oh yeah, i agree. i started reading one that i heard a lot about and it just wasn't-"

"and it's all of these women reading their fucking mommy porn out in public like FREAKS"

Part of why so many writing "rules" don't work for everyone is that they're assuming you're trying to accomplish things that you're not trying to accomplish.

This way of thinking is applicable at every level and every step of your writing process.

Is this plot structure telling the story I want to be telling?

Does this scene evoke the emotion I am hoping to evoke?

Does this sentence mean what I intend it to mean, in a way that is likely to be read with that meaning by most readers?

If something in a story is jarring, for example, it's probably because that piece isn't accomplishing what you're otherwise trying to accomplish in the story.

When I talked about finding epithets jarring in a close third person POV, it's because what epithets do (provide distance from the character) inherently conflicts with what the point of view was intending (intimacy with the POV character).

If a scene or moment is jarring or just feels wrong in a book, it may be because it doesn't match the tone you are otherwise trying to cultivate, it breaks or escalates the tension in a way that you aren't intending, or it has a different narrative feeling than you are intending with the book.

Even down to the grammatical level, you can get away with breaking a lot of grammar rules if you can accomplish what you want to accomplish with the sentence. Is it coherent? Does it have the meaning you intend? Does it have the clarity or ambiguity that you are intending? Does it fit the tone that you are going for?

Today, 27 April, in South Africa is Freedom Day, commemorating the day in 1994 when the country’s first post-apartheid elections were held. When the country’s post-apartheid constitution was ratified in 1996, it South Africa became the first country in the world to constitutionally outlaw sexuality-based discrimination, in no small part thanks to the world of gay anti-apartheid activist Simon Nkoli.

(Source)

The formerly-Catholic Society of St Pius X triggered the schism by consecrating bishops without the Pope’s approval, a key part of the ceremony for Catholic believers.

Using Marie Skłodowska-Curie to shill your AI garbage is, uh, certainly a choice.

On one hand, keep her name out of your mouth

The RIGHT way to do this would have been to have a month-long event that went to twelve different cities, with Philadelphia hosting during July because that was our capital (insofar as we had one) in 1776; the other eleven stops could have their own significant-in-the-Revolution days (for example: Washington crossing the Delaware on 25 December, the start of the First Continental Congress on 5 September), and you could get commemorative items from your stop's specific event.

All fifty states AND FIVE TERRITORIES should have been invited to attend, not charged for it. And we should have done it Colombian Expo style: respected thinkers and educators speaking, concerts, "come look at our wild new inventions," and cultural events. If I was in the Oval Office my first thought for this would be to contact ethnic leaders to see who wanted to tell their story. Tribal leaders. Civil rights leaders. Local arts groups. Let us celebrate your food, your art, your dance, your place among our people; and let us also recognize that the flip side of the coin of amazing inventors and economic prosperity on a global scale has been devastation and exploitation. You can't tell the story without both. It's not fair to leave out things we've done for good (Mark Twain! Jonas Salk! Airplanes! Comic books! Musicals!), but it's equally unfair to leave out the lives we've taken and futures we've destroyed. We can't do better if we don't look at these things and say "no. Not again. Not on our watch."

The state fair format is extremely American; I think that was a good choice, I'll give credit for that where it's due. But "that was a good idea" is as far as it goes. Because this doesn't look like a state fair. It looks like a church revival on the third day when all the tents are out of food and everyone is hot and tired and wants less Jesus and more air conditioning.

In 1976, the Bicentennial was everywhere. There was merch. You could decorate your home with it. In the city where I lived, the Girl Scouts were asked by the city to go around painting all the fire hydrants red, white, and blue. American history was the hot topic in publishing and people were buying history books and even talking about them. One of the TV stations used commercial breaks to air "Bicentennial Minutes," 60-second spots in which actors from current shows (I specifically remember Loretta Swit from MASH and Nancy Walker from Rhoda) told us little snippets of social history, like the state of garbage collection in the Colonies, with appropriate visuals like political cartoons and paintings from the time period. High school proms had Bicentennial themes. You never saw so many people put flags out. Every town worked hard on their firework displays and some had more than one.

Yeah, we all knew it was overblown and a bit tacky but also people were into it. The energy rose for months to the climax and lingered into the next school year -- I remember all my pocket folders for that year were glossy prints of classic patriotic paintings, The Spirit of '76 and The Declaration of Independence and so on.

For the 250th, nobody cares. Because it doesn't feel like we're living in the United States of America, where freedom was for everyone and our freedoms were expanding every day and history was a vital living force.

You can't celebrate history without teaching it.

People were protesting stuff during the bicentennial too! DC had a Potomac Tea Party to protest only having a non-voting representative on Congress. The American Indian movement held multiple large protests! People mocked the commercialization by calling it the "Buy-cenetennial"! But the main planned events still occurred so that's what people mostly remember!

My guess is this year people are mostly going to remember the states' various celebrations because the federal one has been SO screwed by grifting and mismanagement. They have somehow made it so there is almost NO ONE on the national mall during PEAK TOURIST SEASON. You have to use specified entry points, there's armed national guards everywhere, and the electricity powering things like the ferris wheel and food booths has broken down multiple times already.