benjaminrussell

[benjaminrussell]

For all of the northerners that stood up for Texas during our freeze and said, "Don't make fun of them, they've never dealt with this before. Their infrastructure isn't made for snow and freezing."

This one is for you.

Where I live 108°F with 80% humidity with no wind is normal.

Pacific North West is dealing historic best waves 35-40°C or 95-105°F.

First of all. Don't make fun of them for bitching about the heat. Just like Texas isn't built for a freeze and our pipes burst, Pacific North West isn't built for heat and a lot of their homes don't have AC.

If you live somewhere with a high humidity like 80+ HUMIDITY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. The "humidity makes it feel cooler" is a lie once it gets beyond a point.

If you live somewhere with a lower humidity, misters are nice to cool off outside.

Once you get over 90°F (32°C) a fan will not help you. It's just pushing around hot air. (I mean if you can't afford a small AC unit because they're expensive as hell, by all means a fan is better than nothing).

If you have pets, those portable AC units aren't safe. If your pets destroy the outtake thing, it'll leak CO2. Window units are safer.

Window AC units will let mosquitoes or other small bugs in. Sucks, but that's life.

Now is not the time to me modest. If you have to cover for religious reasons, by all means. If you don't, I've seen people wear short shorts and a swim top. It's not trashy if it keeps you from getting heat stroke.

If you do have to cover up for religious reasons, look for elephant pants or something similar. They're made with a breathable material.

Shade is better than no shade, but that shit it just diet sun after some point. Don't think shade will save you from heat stroke.

I know the "drink your water" is a fun meme now, but if you're sweating excessively you need electrolytes. Drink Gatorade, Powerade, or Pedialite PLEASE. I don't care if you're fucking sitting in one spot all day. That shit WILL save you from heat stroke.

Most importantly. RESEARCH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAT STROKE AND HEAT EXHAUSTION PLEASE!

If you're diabetic and can't drink Gatorade, mix water, fruit juice, and either lite salt or pink salt

If you can afford it, cover windows with thick curtains to insulate the house

If you have tile floors, lay on them with skin to tile contact. If you don't, laying your head on cool counters works too.

If the temperature where you're at is hotter than your body temperature, don't wear heat wicking clothing. Moisture wicking is safe though.

Check your medication labels. Many make you more susceptible to sun and heat

-Room temperature water will get into your body faster. This is something I learned doing marching band in high summer in Georgia, and it saved all of our asses. Sip it, don't gulp it, especially if you're getting into the red; same goes for whatever fluid you're drinking. And just in general drink during the day.

-If you are moving from an air conditioned space to an un-air conditioned space, if at all possible try to make the shift gradual. When my dad and I were working outside and in un-ac houses a few years ago, he'd turn the air down to low in the truck about ten-fifteen minutes before we got where we were going. This way your body doesn't go from low low temps to high temps. S'bad for you.

-If you can, keep your lights off during the day. Light bulbs may not generate a lot of heat, but the difference is noticeable when it gets hot enough. I literally only turn my bedroom light on in the evening when it gets too dark.

Don't be afraid to just like... pour water on yourself if you need to. The evaporation will cool you off.

Put your hand to the cement for 15 seconds. If you can't handle the heat, it'll burn your dog's paws. Don't let them walk on it.

Dogs with flat faces are more prone to heat stroke. Don't leave them out unsupervised.

Frozen fruit is delicious in water.

Wet/Cold hat/handkerchief on your head/neck will help you stay cool.

Pickle juice is great for electrolytes! You can even make pickle juice Popsicles!

Heat exhaustion is more, "drink water and get you cooled off." Heat stroke is more "Oh my god call 911."

Image Description provided by @loveize

[Image description: an infographic showing the difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The graphic is labeled "Heat Dangers: First Warning." Signs of heat exhaustion: faint or dizzy, excessive sweating, cool, pale, clammy skin, rapid, weak pulse, muscle cramps. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat exhaustion, get to a cool, air-conditioned place, drink water if conscious, and take a cool shower or use cold compress. Signs of heat stroke: throbbing headache, no sweating, red, hot, dry skin, rapid, strong pulse, may lose consciousness. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat stroke, call 911. End description]

Be safe.

-fae

[benjaminrussell]

Marvel's Voices: Pride #1 - "Everywhere" (2023)

written by Shadi Petosky art by Roberta Ingranata & Ceci De La Cruz

[benjaminrussell]

[benjaminrussell]

explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

[benjaminrussell]

I can't do much but maybe this will interest someone. This cookbook is by a classically trained autistic chef, made for people with sensory issues. It's sold 1/6th of its initial run because apparently no one wants to have an autistic person interviewed on TV.

Apparently it's also very funny.

Spread this around! I bet someone here can use this.

[benjaminrussell]

It's Juneteenth yall. And I'm not letting this day go unmarked.

Black people fight for everybody. We stand in solidarity with women, lgbt people, poor people all over the world of every skin color and background. Every religion and nationality.

Today, stand with us. Be with us. Tell a black person you love them. Hug a black person (with consent). Ask that hot black girl out today. Make a black person smile. Black lives matter to everybody and you matter to us.

Stand with us on Juneteenth like we stand with you all year round, and I hope a happy Pride month continues for all of us

💝

[benjaminrussell]

Spin this wheel first and then this wheel second to generate the title of a YA fantasy novel!

(If the second wheel lands on an option ending with a plus sign, spin it again)

Share what you got!

[benjaminrussell]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[benjaminrussell]

I genuinely believe that the new SW trilogy wouldn’t have flopped out into irrelevance like it did if they hadn’t dumped Finn on the side of the freeway like a new pet rabbit the week after easter

[benjaminrussell]

[benjaminrussell]

Oh, there is a light and it never goes out There is a light and it never goes out - The Smiths

Anyone unfamiliar with Jono Starsmore should check out his history here. He’s my absolute favourite mutant. He blew away half his face and chest when his psionic fire powers manifested. He has to wear face/chest coverings to stop the billowing psionic fires from escaping. Tormented and tortured, he’s a wonderful angsty and sarcastic British soul. Once an up and coming rocker only to lose everything to his mutant powers. He’s bitter at life and his lot, yet at the same time his fire hides a heart he thought he blew away. He can only talk telepathically, cant eat, breath and is a pretty big powerhouse (once he gets over his fears of using his powers to their fullest.)

[benjaminrussell]

I drew this a year ago and wasn’t going to post it because it was one of the first Jonos I’d drawn and I didn’t like it. Too pretty boy, not enough nose :D But I just wanted to have a go at redesigning his costume because I’m not a fan of the New Mutants black and yellow costume they have him in now. Figured he’d look cool using his powers in a billowing coat with a hood to hide himself. Black and red are his colours too. My silly sense of humour thinks it’s funny to keep giving him skeleton t-shirts.

 But, in retrospect his best costume is always his plain leather jacket and jeans. Mind you I do want the boots I gave him for myself.

[benjaminrussell]

perpetually exploding horror face

[benjaminrussell]

My default assumption whenever I see people pitching fits about how characters or ships or the color of the wallpaper or whatever else they don't like must be evil, is that they are a teenager.

They are a teenager who has never used anything other than an algorithmic feed on a social media app to find fannish content, they don't even know where the settings page is, and they're having a real bad time. They have to get up early in the morning, school is awful, all their clique-y peers have been mean to them about their weight, their teachers are impatient, they just got seven hours of homework and their last class was gym. And they are eternally frightened that they're secretly a bad person and their only current recourse against this is to be like, at least I know that pineapple on pizza is a sin.

Approaching things from this angle has never steered me wrong. Even when the person in question is not literally a teenager, they're still pretty much letting their inner kid drive the bus right now.

"A four year age gap is abusive!" okay champ. Screen time's up. Let's get you a protein shake and a nap.

[benjaminrussell]

Writing the Perfect Query Letter

The point of a query letter is to sell your story. 

Writing your query letter, your goal is to make the reader want to pick up the book. That is the entire purpose. We’ve all recommended books to friends before. It’s exactly that, except now that book is yours and the stakes are high. A query letter is, above all, persuasive. While writing your query letter, make sure you draw your reader into your story with every word. 

A query letter is not a creative letter; it’s a business proposition. 

Writing a query letter, don’t think of yourself as a writer, especially not of this particular story. You’ll need that degree of separation from your work for a good query. An agent/author relationship is foremost a business relationship. You’re pitching a product to someone whose job it is to sell your product (the agent) to someone whose job it is to sell your product (the editor) to someone you want to buy your product (the reader). This means that by querying your manuscript, you’re requesting a place in an industry. As such, you should follow some industry standards:

Use business letter formatting. 12 point font. Single spaced. Left alignment. No indentations. A space between paragraphs.

Don’t be familiar. This is a business letter. A formal letter. Unless you already have some sort of a relationship with the person you’re querying–if you’ve met at an event or corresponded in some other regard–write like you’re writing to a potential business associate. 

Write the letter as yourself. Don’t write as your character. Don’t write as your narrator. Don’t write as the historian who discovered your story 1,000 years into the future. It’s a risk that rarely pays off. On that point…

Don’t be creative with the form of your query. Save the creativity for your manuscript. Don’t quote a section in your opening lines. Don’t include a box of chocolates with it when you mail it off. Don’t be gimmicky. If you resort to a gimmick, the agent is going to wonder if it’s because you don’t know how this works or your story isn’t strong enough to stand on it’s own. Play by the rules. Trust your story. 

Keep it short. 250-400 words. Remember your goal: to get the agent to pick up the first chapter. Agents can receive hundreds of queries in a week. They don’t have time for wasted words. They won’t wait for you to get to your point. Say what you have to say as quickly as possible. 

Writing Your Query:

You don’t have long to tell your story. Just a page. This means you can’t include much more than the information that is absolutely vital to your story and the querying process. I’ve outlined the information, and separated it into paragraphs. You don’t have to divide it the way I’ve set out here, but these are the general lumps of Query Stuff. 

Each point I’ve bulleted should only be a sentence or two long. If your reader wants to know more, they’ll read the first chapters and request the manuscript. 

The Opening Lines: The Formalities

Address the agent. As this is a business letter, start with something akin to “Dear Mr./Ms. [First Name, Last Name] or [Last Name]:” Ex. Dear Mr. Tolkien: 

State your intent. In my research I’ve found this unnecessary, but if you choose to do so you can say something along the lines of: “I’m submitting for your consideration my completed novel, [TITLE].” 

The First Paragraph: The Introduction

Introduce your story as cleanly as possible. It should be minimal, yet evocative. Specific to your story, but skimming the surface of it. The more set-up you give, the more complicated you’ll make things for yourself. 

The set up. What was life like for the character when the story began? Where does the story take place? 

The inciting incident. The “but when…” What set the ball rolling? This can be in the same sentence as the setup. 

The combination of the set up and inciting incident should work as a sort of tagline. 

Protagonist motivation. What does your protagonist want? What is it about the inciting incident that motivates the protagonist to action? 

The Second Paragraph: The Conflict 

I’ve made this a separate paragraph because shorter paragraphs make a page more inviting for a reader, but it’s your call. In this paragraph, you don’t want to summarise the entire book; you want to show your ability to weave a compelling story. It should have energy. It should tell the reader just enough to get them excited. 

The rising action. What are a few key events that raise the stakes in your manuscript? Take a few sentences to lay out the most important events leading to the climax of your story. 

The central conflict. What is the main obstacle your protagonist will face to achieve their goal? Lay out exactly what your protagonist’s biggest problem is. 

The hook. The line or question that will make your reader want to read more. If you’d like, you can make it it’s own paragraph. 

The Third Paragraph: The Details

Some people make this their first paragraph, but I’ve decided to put this after the introduction to the story. These are the formal details of your story, where it gets very Industry.

The title. You might have said it earlier, but it won’t hurt to say it again here. 

The word count, genre, & age range. All necessary industry information. Round your word count to the nearest 1,000. 

Comp titles. What books might this person have read that are similar to your own, either in tone/setting/story? This can give your reader a sense of the potential audience for your story. You only want to include two. 

If you really want, you can choose to personalise the submission here and say why you’ve queried this particular agent. If you only want to show that you’ve done your research, you should have already gotten this point across clearly with the summary, age range, and genre. But, if you really love this agent, if you follow their blog or twitter or love some of their authors, it won’t hurt to say so. 

The Fourth Paragraph: The Author

The last paragraph is usually set aside for a few short lines about yourself. This should only include information relevant to writing this manuscript. Examples of biographical details you might want to include: 

Awards

Degrees

Writing conferences/workshops attended

Expertise related to the content of the book

Where you lived/have lived (if it matters)

You should be able to summarise this paragraph with: here is why you should trust me to tell this story.

You can also include a line about what you: are currently writing, enjoy writing, or have written. Let the agent get to know you as a writer and reader outside of this one story. (Especially if you don’t have many manuscript-related accolades/experience.) 

The Closing Line: The Niceties 

Thank the agent for taking the time to read your query. A small but important consideration. 

Tips

Highlight your writing ability with narrative voice. If your story is funny, make sure your query reflects that. If the writing is lyrical, your query should be too. You don’t want to drown the agent in your writing style, but you should splash them a bit. 

DON’T INCLUDE THEMES. Don’t say this is a story about “friendship and the power or love,” or “children will relate to this story of bullying.” A query letter isn’t a literature class. Don’t analyse your manuscript for your reader. Let the story speak for itself. 

Use active language. Don’t use phrases like “this story is about” or “the main character is.” Again, let the plot and the character’s actions speak for themselves. 

Only name a few characters and locations outright. If you’re querying Harry Potter, you’ll want to use Harry’s name in the query, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Dursley can be “his cruel relatives.” Hermione and Ron can be “his friends.” Even Hogwarts can be a “school for people with magical abilities.” Refer to things by their function in the manuscript and keep your query simple and easy to follow. The more names, locations, and special terms in your query, the more confusing it will be. 

Don’t sing your own praises. Don’t say that your mom loves your book, or that your little cousins devoured it. Don’t compare it to Harry Potter or any other best-seller. Don’t say you think the book will sell well. The agent won’t believe you. 

It’s okay if it takes you days and days to write your query. It should take days to write. Whether or not the agent even looks at your first chapter will depend entirely on this single page. You can write the novel of the century, but no one will look at it unless your query sells it. 

Have someone else look over your query before you send it out. Share it with the smartest person you know. Share it with your old English teacher. Share it on a writing website, like r/writers. Have them judge it on clarity and quality. Ask them where it can be trimmed. Ask them what they think the strongest sentence is. Ask what the weakest sentence is. Have them check for typos. 

Triple-check you’ve spelt the agent’s name correctly. Agents are trying to get through their inbox. If they find one good reason to move past your query, they will. Don’t give it to them in the first line. 

Triple-check the agent’s submission requirements. Getting these wrong is another way to get your query moved directly to the reject pile. 

Let them know if there’s a potential for sequels. If you’re writing a trilogy, don’t try to sell all three books at once. Use this query letter to sell the first book of the series only. Then, let the agent know that “[Your Title] has the potential for two sequels continuing [Your Protagonist]’s story.” An agent wants you to have more than one book in your arsenal, but this is a short letter. There’s only room for the one book in it. 

And one last tip? Your query doesn’t have to be perfect. Following this advice will help you draw the essential story out of a manuscript and make it look like you know what you’re doing, but many queries break these “rules” and still get full manuscript requests. As long as there’s something in the pitch that is enough to make the agent want to take a look at the manuscript itself, the query is doing its job. 

Remember: you’re recommending a book. That’s all. It just happens to be your book. 

Sources. 

Writing a Six Sentence Synopsis

23 Successful Query Letters

How to Write a Query Letter

How to Write the Perfect Query- Agent Advice

The Anatomy of a Query Letter (Podcast episode: 1hr)

The Narrative Breakdown (Podcast episode: 35min)

Query Generator

Using the research I did for this post (plus a whole bunch more), I created a website to help you identify important aspects of your story and gather them into a standard query structure. Check it out at: https://www.querylettergenerator.com/

[benjaminrussell]

Missing MCIU Shatterstar, then I remembered I could just draw him.