Harvard

MIT

UPenn

USP (only PT-BR)

https://openlibrary.org/

There’s like 150 libraries partnered with openlibrary so far.

https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26576A/Tamora_Pierce

I sure did!

...That's it. Just do that. That's the thing it wants most to hear from you.

I'm not going to pretend that everything will get better for you when you do that. There are no guarantees. But you will have done an important thing: maybe the most important thing.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Here's a very well-maintained resource by the SFWA (Science-Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association) that lists contests/editors/small presses/etc. with predatory behaviours:

(also, btw, the book links are to the Storygraph, which includes content warnings for each one!)

smth funny and lighthearted about a security robot who'd rather watch TV then do its job? all systems red by martha wells (first novella in the The Murderbot Diaries series, 6 books, ongoing)

a complex, intricate political space opera following a warship AI who's lost (almost) everything? ancillary justice by ann leckie (first in the Imperial Radch trilogy) (fun fact! bc of space linguistics reasons, all characters in this series are referred to with she/her pronouns, making gender a non-factor - it's really cool!)

a dark story about travelling between parallel universes and a woman who is dead in almost every single one? the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (standalone) (SO good, i don't get to recommend it often enough!!!)

a story about grief and letting go, and a unique take on alien invasion? the seep by chana porter (standalone novella)

hey, how abt some dystopian YA, for old times sake? specifically, one with sapphics and sick mechas? try gearbreakers by zoe hana mikuta (first in duology)

or, if you'd prefer something a bit less angsty, YA about a ragtag group of teens and a space heist? the disasters by m. k. england (standalone)

alternate history steampunk that blurs the line btwn science fiction and fantasy? the black god's drums by p. djeli clark (standalone, novella)

a dark gone girl-esque thriller about clones? the echo wife by sarah gailey (standalone)

poetic sapphic romance and time travel? this is how you lose the time war by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar (standalone)

a hopeful utopian future and a human-robot friendship? a psalm for the wild-built by becky chambers (novella, first out of two) (this author's got a whole bunch of hopepunk sci-fi novels in general, if that's smth you're looking for!)

africanfuturism, coming-of-age, and cool jellyfish aliens? binti by nnedi okorafor (novella, first in trilogy)

spicy lesbian cyborgs? and shall machines surrender my benjanun sriduangkaew (novella, first in the Machine Mandate series, 6 books)

cosmic horror with an autistic scientist, cyborg angels and AI gods? the outside by ada hoffmann (first in trilogy, 2 books are out)

also, if you're a fan of Janelle Monáe, may i draw your attention to the fact that they've recently come out with a Dirty Computer short story collection, each story co-written with a diff writer?

this list is long enough, but have some more authors (who are not cis men) also worth checking out: rivers solomon, yoon ha lee, charlie jane anders, aliette de bodard, xiran jay zhao, mary robinette kowal, corinne duyvis

a collection of short stories centered around robots? so you want to be a robot and other stories by merc fenn wolfmoor (standalone short story collection)

a graphic novel about a found family traveling through space on ship that is a fish? on a sunbeam by tillie walden (you can read it here) (standalone)

a ragtag crew made up of broken people all aboard a stolen spaceship? seven devils by laura lam and elizabeth may (first in series)

how about some anti-corporation, dystopian climate fiction? firebreak by nicole kornher-stace (standalone)

also archivist wasp by nicole kornher-stace. (first in series) tired of romance and want to read more sci-fi about the power of friendship? this is the author for you

superheroes are bad actually, and working for a villain is better: do you need me to show you a spreadsheet as proof? hench by natalie zina walschots (standalone)

how about some nuns in space? who have a living spaceship? sisters of the vast black by lina rather (first in series)

you know that post about how ikea is a liminal space and walking through is like you've walked into a different dimension. did you know there's a book like that? finna by nino cipri (first in series)

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've 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 something's wrong or doesn't 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.

6 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.

7 Laugh at your own jokes.

"The globe was as large as an egg" - okay so they're usually smaller than an egg? or if you'd have said "as small as an egg", it's still the same fucking size but now we know they're usually larger than an egg?

"She owned both of the two tallest hats in the county", okay so this is a place where the height of a woman's hat is something people generally care about? Looking at the way this character otherwise behaves, this is clearly a flex.

will grows accustomed to hannibal's eyes, to seeing him. but calling him, invoking what he knows to be true and monstrous out loud, is something slightly different.

it is akin to acceptance, and we all know will doesn't accept easy: it takes him the entirety of seasons 1 and 2 to grow used to enjoying killing, to accept and name that in himself, and be at peace with that. seeing hannibal is one thing, naming him is admitting to what he is seeing, and accepting it.

another thing with naming is assigning a set of attributes that stick. and hannibal knows that will, even incapable of accepting it, has so much more in himself, and he's constantly invoking it by addressing will by his name.

will sees hannibal but he never assumes to know him wholly:

I wanted to understand you before I laid eyes on you again. I wanted it to be clear, what I was seeing.

u r a seahorse

Amazon and Audible made it into their policy that you can return ebooks and audiobooks and get a full refund.

They actively promote this, making their book shop into a book lending service, de facto a library you subscribe to. That’s their business plan to encourage subscribtions.

The dirty thing, however, is that Amazon and Audible are making the authors pay for each refunded item. They will detract money, income, royalties, from the authors’ account. They’re not hurting from the refund, the author is.

Look, no-one is saying you’re not allowed to return an item if you’ve read the first 50 pages or listened to the first 45 minutes. Maybe the style is not your thing. Maybe you don’t like the narrator’s voice. Maybe the quality of the writing drops severely after chapter three. Go ahead, if the product is bad, return it.

What I’m talking about is that no one should be able to listen to a ten-hour audiobook or read through nearly an entire novel and still get a refund.

Most of the readers don’t know who’s paying for this business plan. It’s not Amazon and Audible, they’re still keeping your subscription money. It’s the authors.

I had someone read and then return the entirety of one of my series last month, and I don’t make enough from my books for that sudden loss of income to not be noticeable. So, I was going ahead going “oh, okay, when Amazon pays out for this month, I will make X amount, which means I can afford Y”, and then in one day, there was a significant drop from someone returning an entire series.

Writing about an authoritarian theocracy did not make Margaret Atwood an authoritarian theocrat.

Writing about adultery did not make Leo Tolstoy an adulterer.

Writing about a ghost did not make Toni Morrison a ghost.

Writing about a murderer did not make Fyodor Dostoevsky a murderer.

Writing about a teenage addict did not make Isabel Allende a teenage addict.

Writing about dragons and ice zombies did not make George R.R. Martin either of those things.

Writing about rich heiresses, socially awkward bachelors, and cougar widows did not make Jane Austen any of those things.

Writing about people who can control earthquakes did not make N.K. Jemisin able to control earthquakes.

Writing about your favorite characters and/or ships in situations that you choose does not make you a bad person.

Authors are allowed to write morally ambiguous characters.

Authors are allowed to write downright despicable characters - and guess what they are even allowed to make despicable characters charismatic and likeble and the protagonists of their stories if they wish - because absolute monsters exist only under the bed.

It is not up to the author to spoonfeed the readers about morality and Yes I know this character did a bad thing and I am going going to show it in the story and make other characters call them out of it and– Bullshit.

The authors should be able to write what they want without having thousands of people jumping and their throats claiming to know them, their ideas and their morality based on what they write.

I think it is covered with a plexiglass bubble but that would be bonkers and no other sport has that

I think it's literally the hockey rink bc they say something about icing it if they lose

But I also think it's wooden and man, the hockey rink is NOT at ANY part of it wooden

How high is the ceiling bro? How high is it? Have you ever been to the rink??? It's so high you can't see it w/o binoculars Bro

But there also appears to be a place to run around the glass bubble if I recall the source material correctly. Where is that running space bro. In front of the first row in the audience??? No. It's somewhere between the benches and the court. Where.

Where is it.

2 ways i know of: the dumb & the dumber

1) heroic vs. just

NO don't go, listen, i promise, it makes SENSE. we've all seen pirates of the caribbean, right?? Jack Sparrow is HEROIC even though the shit he does is often not what the "hero" would do, but it is quick, and REACTIVE to the EVENTS, and on the spot, and he's a hero of his character journey for sure

and then Barbossa is JUST even though he isnt actually just, you know?? like the shit he does is entirely in his own favour but in his own worldview, all of it makes sense: it's fair that he gets to live & he works to accomplish that. he is ACTING with a GOAL.

.....does that make sense?

2) right now vs. always

i know, i know, boo hoo, phrase your thoughts better. ok.

now listen, its the exact same thing.

right now: reactive, in the moment, improvising, caught off guard, able to make it work whatever the situation bc tools & experiences are plenty

always: active, considering yesterday, hoping for tomorrow, planning, able to make it work IN GENERAL, over A LONG course of time bc minor inconveniences don't entirely ruin the plan but may fail in small things

...yeah

There was also the association of listening to the homestuck albums on break or while doing homework, etc because when one of the Good Ones comes on, you got a brief refreshing memory of that flash. Like Im just listening to music, doing my thing- "oh shit is that Sburban Jungle? Oh man, remember that raindrop scene at that part... wait for it... yeah that one that was so cool anyways."