Yeah, write.

Namely, the union is on strike. HarperCollins, the second largest publishing house in the United States, has made record profits (in the billions) but refuses to pay its employees a living wage or negotiate in good faith. Unlike the one-day strike earlier this year, this will be an open-ended strike, to last until a fair, good-faith contract is agreed upon.

I cannot overstate the implications here. HarperCollins is a 200-year-old behemoth with over 120 imprints, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch. You have reads books from this company, I guarantee it. You have enjoyed movies and TV shows spawned by this company. The workers striking at the blood and sweat responsible for launching those properties you love. And as Harper goes, so goes the rest of the industry. If we raise the living standards for one, so the pressure increases on other companies to raise it for all.

The Harper Union need your support. They have a full thread here, but here’s the gist of what they’re asking:

EVERYONE:

- Donate to the strike fund if you can

- Politely email Harper’s HR ([email protected]) and the CEO ([email protected]) to express your support for the strike and the union.

- Boost their message on social media and among your social circles (here are some assets you can use to do that)

- If you are in the NY metro area, come join the picket line at 195 Broadway in Manhattan!

BLOGGERS/REVIEWERS/BOOKSTAGRAMMERS/BOOKTOKERS:

- If possible, please hold all reviews of Harper titles until the strike is over. (And I would add, if you feel comfortable doing so, tell Harper why.)

FREELANCERS/INDUSTRY HOPEFULS:

- Don’t be a scab. Don’t take new freelance projects or temporary positions while the strike is ongoing.

BOOKSTORES/BOOKSELLERS:

- Share the “I Stand With” graphic

- Print and distribute the union bookmark at your store

AUTHORS/AGENTS:

- Do not submit or sign new contracts to Harper until the union’s own contract is finalized.

———

Please note they are not asking for a boycott on Harper titles. A boycott would harm the authors, who have nothing to do with this, so the union is explicitly requesting no boycott.

Also, please do not @ Harper social accounts to yell at them. Direct all feedback to that peopleteam email. The majority of folks watching those accounts are out on the picket line anyways, and their managers have already been warned that, as non-union members, they risk termination if voice any public support for the strike.

For more info, check out the union’s accounts on Twitter and Instagram. I also recommend this Twitter thread for some hard facts and figures.

Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it. 

I’m just kidding. There are much easier ways of doing it. For example: On the top of a distant mountain there grows a tree with silver leaves. Once every year, at dawn on April 30th, this tree blossoms, with five flowers, and over the next hour each blossom becomes a berry, first a green berry, then black, then golden.

At the moment the five berries become golden, five white crows, who have been waiting on the mountain, and which you will have mistaken for snow, will swoop down on the tree, greedily stripping it of all its berries, and will fly off, laughing.

You must catch, with your bare hands, the smallest of the crows, and you must force it to give up the berry (the crows do not swallow the berries. They carry them far across the ocean, to an enchanter’s garden, to drop, one by one, into the mouth of his daughter, who will wake from her enchanted sleep only when a thousand such berries have been fed to her). When you have obtained the golden berry, you must place it under your tongue, and return directly to your home.

For the next week, you must speak to no-one, not even your loved ones or a highway patrol officer stopping you for speeding. Say nothing. Do not sleep. Let the berry sit beneath your tongue.

At midnight on the seventh day you must go to the highest place in your town (it is common to climb on roofs for this step) and, with the berry safely beneath your tongue, recite the whole of Fox in Socks. Do not let the berry slip from your tongue. Do not miss out any of the poem, or skip any of the bits of the Muddle Puddle Tweetle Poodle Beetle Noodle Bottle Paddle Battle.

Then, and only then, can you swallow the berry. You must return home as quickly as you can, for you have only half an hour at most before you fall into a deep sleep.

Get ready for Marvel’s PAM.

I want to see this cheerful lady walking through fire and being badass and sweet

and most of all I want her to save the day with the normal shit she’s toting in that bag. 

I NEED this. 

'Let me get this straight. You're saying our Xanderian captor is in pain from a swollen… thing, and is going to eject us from the airlock? Well why didn't you say so? Here, hun, I think I got some Aleve in here. You just take that.'

*Alien collapses frothing*

Everyone stares at her in awe. ‘How did you know that naproxen is fatal to Xanderians?’

'Honestly, you people never have children? I hear EVERYTHING.'

or

'Oh dear, you need something to bridge to gap between circuits and stop the shortage? I know I got a safety pin, just wait.'

*Ship jumps to warp ahead of pursuit*

 Like, seriously, I want her to fucking MacGyver whatever is needed to resolve the plot issues, using Clorets gum, her Kindle, a Starbucks receipt (tall caramel macchiato) and a handful of change and lint.

Because we got so many ‘ordinary’ guy heroes that go on to be extraordinary, and let’s be real - in an actual Holllywood movie Pam would scarcely rate a speaking part. I want a female hero who is a hero without needing a goddamned makeover and just needed the right circumstances to shine. I am up to my goddamn neck with ordinary dude heroes. I’m sick of them. I know everything about them already.

on a somewhat related note, when captain america 2 came out, did anyone else notice a slight audience-wide sigh of disappointment at the reveal that the lady politician suddenly kicking incredible amounts of ass was actually natasha in disguise?