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I am going to take a deep breath and just remind you:

Writing is messy, even for the best authors. It's supposed to feel a little uncomfortable, exhilarating, freeing, natural, and terrifying.

It's supposed to inspire you and feel like a too-heavy backpack.

Sometimes, you're going to love being a writer and sometimes, you'll feel so disconnected, you'll wonder if you were ever a writer to begin with.

Give yourself room to make mistakes and hate your work and return to it with renewed confidence that yes, you will get 1% better next time.

It's what we're all going through. Let's speed up the growing process a little by accepting the entirety of it.

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Random writing tips that my history professor just told during class that are actually helpful

Download all your sources or print them so you can turn off your wifi

Give your phone to someone

Just. WRITE. Writing is analysing, you’ll get more ideas as you write. It doesn’t need to be perfect, for now you can just blurt out words and ideas randomly. You can fix it later.

Create a skeleton/structure before writing.

Stop before you get exhausted. It’s best to stop writing when you still have some energy and inspiration left, this will also motivate you to get started again next time.

Make a to do list

Work in bite sizes. Even if it’s not much, as long as you put some ideas on paper or do some editing.

Simple language =/= boring language, simple language = clear language.

Own your words. If they are not your words, state this clearly in the text, not just in the footnotes.

STOP BEFORE YOU GET EXHAUSTED. Listing it again because it’s easily one of the best tips a teacher has ever given me.

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“phones are disrupting natural sleep cycles” I mean true but also bold of you to assume I had one before the tech boom lol catch me out here reading chapter books by the light of my light up pens in the third grade

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Theodore Roethke, from "What Can I Tell My Bones", The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke [ID'd]

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Books clubs are held on this discord server

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Do you ship it?

reason under the cut!

Gideon and Harrow have one of the most fascinating, deliciously complicated, unbelievably fucked-up relationships in any piece of media I have ever encountered. Their obsession with each other stands out as uniquely weird even by the standards of a story that the author herself has described as being about "the horrors of love."

They have tried to kill each other, and each has tried (and mostly succeeded) to destroy herself for the sake of the other. They know each other more intimately than anyone else could ever come to know either of them if they tried, but also each have so many Problems that they fundamentally do not understand how the other thinks, let alone how mutual their feelings are; they are both desperately ravenous for someone to love them, and do not realize the degree to which they have that in each other.

They are inextricably tied together down to their very souls, and though the final book has not yet come out, every indication is that their bond will be the key factor to fundamentally changing the entire universe.

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I wonder whether you will remember one last piece of advice you gave me. It was during the exuberance of the rich and frantic twenties and I was going out into that world to try to be a writer. You said, “It’s going to take a long time, and you haven’t any money. Maybe it would be better if you could go to Europe.” “Why?” I asked. “Because in Europe poverty is a misfortune, but in America it is shameful. I wonder whether or not you can stand the shame of being poor.” It wasn’t too long afterwards that the depression came down. Then everyone was poor and it was no shame any more. And so I will never know whether or not I could have stood it. But surely you were right about one thing, Edith. It took a long time—a very long time. And it is still going on and it has never got easier. You told me it wouldn’t.

— John Steinbeck, in a letter congratulating his former creative writing professor at Stanford, Edith Mirrielees, for the paperback publication of her book, Story Writing.

Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!

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If you're lamenting the fact that you used to be able to shoot through a 500-page novel in like a day when you were in middle school and now you can't, it's worth bearing in mind that a big part of that is because when you were in middle school, your reading comprehension sucked. Yes, mental health and the stresses of adult life can definitely be factors, but it's also the case that reading is typically more effortful as an adult because you've learned to Ponder The Implications. The material isn't just skimming over the surface of your brain anymore, and some of the spoons you used to spend on maximising your daily page count are now spent on actually thinking about what you're reading!

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For the purposes of this poll, audiobooks and ebooks count as reading.

There's no judgement behind this question; anon doesn't read either. They're just curious about others' reasons.

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

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happy "everyone forgets that icarus also flew" monday. i want to throw up !

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controversial writing tip

open a document and start writing

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please help me return this book

I borrowed this book in the year 2000 from a friend. Unfortunately, I have since forgotten her full name, have dropped off of any and all social media that might be tied to my legal name, and the last screen name I have for her is for AIM which has been gone for longer than I care to think about.

I feel extremely guilty because it’s autographed, and thus irreplaceable to the person who loaned it to me. And I’ve had it for 23 years, keeping track of it through every house and dorm and apartment I’ve lived in. I still don’t think of it as “my” copy, because it’s not really.

23 years is long enough. If this sounds familiar to you, please get in touch. I just want to return it.

[image descriptions: The book is a paperback edition of Greer Ilene Gilman’s Moonwise, autographed by the author.]

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*through sweat, blood, and tears* YOU WILL NOT EDIT THE FIRST DRAFT AS YOU GO. YOU WILL NOT EDIT THE FIRST DRAFT AS YOU GO. YOU WILL NOT EDIT THE FIRST DRAFT. AS YOU GO.

YOU. WILL. NOT. EDIT. THAT. FIRST. DRAFT.

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Maybe this is a weird take, but I ask all of you: Write into your books. Add bookmarks, add doodles, add notes, add whatever you want. They are yours. I'm going through the books I inherited from my Grandfather and not only is it interesting to look at books that are 40+ years old, especially history books, it's also always... a surprise, a memento and memory, an added value whenever i stumble upon a note he left on a text, a bookmark or even newspaper articles he clipped out and added to the books because the articles relate to the book's contents.

Preservation of books is great and all, but don't be afraid to add to the physical books you own. There is something incredibly intimate and charming and also very honest to discover a persons notes. Something they deemed noteworthy, bookmark worthy, necessary to leave a note of and for themselves in a published book. It feels a lot more valuable.