Just trying my best...

Dragon Scarves and Pins

nobody gives a crap if something is cliché or not. what they care about is the execution.

having a bad day of writing does not make you a bad writer.

writing in your second or third language isn’t always easy. you’re doing great.

writing advice = tools. not rules. you’re not meant to follow every advice you read about on the internet. learn the rules so you know which ones to break.

every writer is capable of writing a captivating story, but your story might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s ok. there will still be people out there who’ll adore it.

If you started a headline with 4 names no one has ever heard before, most people won’t even read all the way to the pertinent information in the headline, let alone be intrigued enough to click on the article itself. And more people know where Africa is than where Nigeria is. I’m not making a value judgment there, it’s just the truth. It’s a funnel approach: you start by appealing to the broadest or most culturally relevant possible demographic in the headline so people will click on it for more information, and then you start going into detail:

In less than 2 sentences we have names and a location. 

I checked another article about the same thing, with a similarly catchy and vague title: 

And again: names (and this time even ages and pictures) and a location within the first 2-3 sentences of the article, immediately following an eye-and-attention grabbing, snappy and easy-to-digest headline.

300: step pyramid built 450: Great Pyramid at Giza built 815: Pepi II dies and civil war breaks out 950: Egypt re-unified 1350: Middle Kingdom ends 1450: New Kingdom begins 1520: Hatshepsut is on the throne 1650: Ahkenaten switches to monotheistic religion and builds a new city 1680: Tutankhamun dies 1720: Ramesses II ‘the great’ ascends to the throne 1740: World’s first peace treaty signed 1790: Ramesses II dies leaving way too many children 1920: Egypt breaks into 2 states again And now we get to ~~~~the future~~~~. If we started at 1AD all of this stuff hasn’t happened yet 2050: Briefly re-united as a single state 2180: Civil war 2250: Nubian kings take over 2335: Assyrian conquest 2665: Alexander the Great conquers Egypt 2930: Cleopatra VII born 2970: Cleopatra VII dies. Egypt falls to Rome. Fin.

i never said oldest. i never said first. i never said longest.

Someone: Are you SURE? Older adoptees present UNIQUE CHALLENGES

I’m real over it. If I become a foster mom to a 17 year old kid and I get the privilege of the option to adopt them? You better believe I am legally making that kid mine.

“They’ll be a legal adult in no time, why spend the money to adopt? They’ll be aged out of the system.”

There’s no aging out of family, Marvin.

“They might be rebellious or smoke or do drugs or steal things! What if they won’t listen to you?”

Then I guess I’ll have to step up and do some fruxking parenting, Stanley.

“You want to adopt problem children then?”