between-the-alchemist-and-god - Tumblr blog

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

life's too short to write for an imaginary critic that you fear will hate what you wrote

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

My mom after I infodumped to her about Frankenstein: He was 19?!?! That changes everything!!

Me: Right?!?!?!?!

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

This is what happens in the lathe of heaven but with the turtles

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.

Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.

One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.

All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.

So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.

And Mr. Hargrove loved it.

It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.

Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”

And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.

Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.

One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.

That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.

And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.

And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)

So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.

Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven 

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

Hey. Hey y'all guess what? Guess what's happened? Bet you can't

You know. I don't really have a set strategy for creating characters. I just kinda. Write them based on what vibes I want from them and give certain details like mannerisms or speech patterns that differentiate them as a character before I develop them more through the story.

And this would work just fine 100% of the time except for the 98% of the time where I end up pulling from a part of myself for their mannerisms and they just become autistic

So now my character creation process has just become:

Me: *gives character identifying trait*

Character: *becomes autistic*

Me: *screaming*

Repeat.

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

“After all, [the world] is on my side. That is, I’m a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground’s walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

i love the strange reality of being a human person with a human brain. one time someone said something to me in a foreign language (japanese, which i do not speak) and i automatically responded in a different foreign language (spanish, which i do not speak well) and then we both said "what?" in english, an experience made more surreal by the fact that everyone around us was speaking loudly in canadian french (as this occurred in Quebec)

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

I usually try not to doubt librarians' organization, but something about this doesn't feel right...

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

LOVE your art. Also clervalstein for the win. When i read Frankenstein in high school my whole class agreed that those twinks were gay, and that was our main analysis behind victor’s anxiety around his marriage.

I need to share this with the world because i JUST FOUND OUT IT EXISTED THE OTHER DAY???? (Also TYSM)

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

I'm prone to disappearing spontaneously. I can't help it. Sometimes the little glass box doesn't whisper to me as it should and I have to go find my words somewhere else, just for a little while

When I return, either I'll have something to say, or it just means I'm ready to listen again. However it is, it's always nice to be back

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

I've been reading a LOT of sci-fi recently (Eastern European sci-fi specifically, so Strugatsky Brothers and Lem and all that) because of one particular class I'm taking, and man can't I go back to when people actually understood my obscure literary references??

Friend: I saw a video about someone who did math when they were anxious, that would make me worse

Me: Haha like D-503 from Zamyatin's WE

Friend: What?

Me: What?

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

Word board word board word board

(I added "vicissitude of individual" because I like to think I'm an intellectual and it was funny to watch the guy next to me looking confused)

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

I'm trying to write updates and catch up on my blog notifications and my cat decides it is now snuggle time. Not a few minutes ago when I wasn't doing anything. Not even a few minutes from now when I'm done. Right now

I see how it is

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

My favorite fun fact with no punchline that I'm going to pull out at the dinner table at Thanksgiving (as deigned by US tradition of saying the weirdest things to get reactions) will be this from my class notes about Stanisław Lem:

Something about it is just... satisfying? In a way? There's even a whole tab about it in his Wikipedia page, which delves into his relationship with Philip K. Dick, which is also interesting