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hello friends, my writing blog has moved! Now you can find me here!

thanks!

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Pathways/waterways/airways

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Went for a walk in the hills today. At any point that I could get away from the main path, I did. Being alone outdoors is soul-cleansing, and I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.

The clearing in the second to last picture was secluded from the eyes of other hikers and runners while at the same time being completely open to the sky and the view.

Thanks to the rain, new green grass has finally started to sprout from the (previously) dry dirt and dead grass. The dirt is no longer hard and sandy, and it changes shape more easily underfoot.

Last photo is a selfie: no-makeup, unedited. For the setting, it makes the most sense.

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"All the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops" -Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

It's raining in Paris. However, unlike Hemingway, I don't simply see sadness here. Granted, this is a summer rain, and I am not Ernest Hemingway (thank god). 

Hemingway's vision of Paris is compelling and beautifully described. Something about it rings a little false though. Maybe it's that he is writing about those times forty years after they happened. Maybe times have changed now. But for him to be a twenty-something living in Paris and supporting himself off selling stories and articles here and there every once in a while doesn't translate. He has no second job. He can write, he can do what he likes. 

Maybe that's part of why his story seems a little too romantic. He didn't have the kind of "daily grind" that most people living in cities need to have. He wasn't working in an office 40 hours a week, or waiting tables. He and his wife could pack up and go on vacation at the drop of a hat. That kind of life is next to impossible these days. 

I still do not know what Paris (the city, and my time here) will come to mean to me, but I think I am beginning to figure it out. 

As once-in-a-lifetime and romantic and glamorous as Paris can seem to we outsiders, it cannot be ignored that this is also a place where people live. They live, day in, day out, with all the little trials and annoyances and boredom of anyone living anywhere. It's true, Paris is a great city. But it is just a place. It is not a magical fairyland where you will get swept off your feet and all your dreams will come true.

Walking along the Coulée Verte, a path on top of an old railway viaduct planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers, you can see the top floors of the buildings. Hard to see from street level, the stuff of people's lives comes into view, spilling over tiny balconies. Flowerpots. Laundry. Furniture. A bike. once in a while, an arm pops out with a watering can. Looking at these things, I can't help wondering: who are these people? what brought them here? How are things working out for them? Because to live in this city is the dream of millions. But to them it's just the daily. They'll complain about the rain ruining their plans, but they'll put on jackets and go to the shops anyway (the sales are on, after all). 

There is a romantic side to the city, but it comes hand in hand with the dirty, the uncomfortable, and the noisy. 

Paris, you are sitting in a café, writing in a notebook and casually glancing at an attractive stranger over a café crème. But you are also being pressed up against a horde of sweaty commuters and club-goers on the metro. Paris, you are a walk along the Seine as the setting sun casts golden light on all the buildings. But you are also a rat running across the path in front of you before you have time to react. Paris, you are the mystery of an old city and the intensity of a modern city. Once in a lifetime and quotidian, exciting and dull, you are a city in the rain.

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Against "Canon"

I’ve been floating around fandom and fandom-adjacent communities for most of my online life, and I have come to hate the concept of canon with a passion. In this post I will attempt to outline why I don’t like it, how it hampers discussion and thought in fandom circles, and ultimately why it is an intellectual dead-end when it comes to thinking about the works we love.

Read More

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Writing advice from Neil Gaiman.

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the berkeley hills in the rain. 

watch in 720p to make it look slightly better :)

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Made a gif of a part of a film that I’m writing a literature paper about, but gifs don’t animate in a document, so I converted it to video. Might just add the video as a sort of quotation in my paper. I feel so multimedia savvy!

(The film is Blowup,directed by Michelangelo Antonioni)

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What will sustain you with any difficulty in your art is your love for that art. So if you’re having problems with your art, you’ve got to re-immerse yourself in your love of it … I always tell anyone who’s a writer who’s like “I got a writer’s block” like, fifty novels in a hundred and fifty days. You will be reminded of why you love this shit. You won’t even get to fifty — no, the love will return. I think part of the problem is that we think that we can muscle through this shit … if you grew up like me, powering through shit was the way we survived. You’re like, I’m two-hundred dollars in debt? I can work thirty-six hours straight. Art doesn’t respond to that. Art does not respond to the whip. Our bodies do, but art isn’t about our bodies. And so you’ve got to move away from the “powering through it,” it isn’t going to work.

Junot Diaz, on the cure for creative/writer’s “block” (via colporteur)

I needed to see this so much

(via frantzfandom)

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I have a ton of shit to do today, so instead of doing it, I have written a sonnet about having a ton of shit to do today. That makes sense, right? 

P.S. it's not in Iambic pentameter because ain't nobody got time for that.

Why am I awake again?

I wish I could stay here all day.

Relax, read, watch tv, and then

Skip showering. I smell okay.

But, too bad, it cannot be,

For life’s true pressures do not wait.

Homework, laundry, groceries,

And living standards won’t abate.

And then the worry comes like rain:

What happens if you don’t start now?

So much weighing on my brain;

I’d turn it off if I knew how.

I’ll start my day, but I’ll admit

I sure as hell am not gonna like it.

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Inspiration isn’t what gets your book written. Discipline is. Inspiration is fickle: it shows up when you least expect it, all sexy and exhilarating and reminding you why you put your butt in that chair and turned off Tumblr and forced yourself to trudge through the valley of no-good, very-bad first drafts. Enjoy that inspiration while it’s there. Enjoy it thoroughly because it is rare and precious. Just don’t expect it to show up every day. The only thing that needs to show up every day is yourself—and your determination to see this through to the end.

— Malinda Lo, on writing with discipline. (via lettersandlight)

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help I got an idea for a fanfiction.

90's high school AU Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Tybalt as frontmen of rival boybands (N*sync/backstreet boys style).

but as I am typing the idea it all of a sudden feels dumb. 

idk. whatev.

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So this month, instead of doing NaNoWriMo (which I have never done because 1) that shit's difficult and 2) I am woefully unprepared), I am going to try to write something every day this month.

It doesn't sound like too much but I think it will be a big step for me, seeing that I've never even written every day for a week. My hope is that it will get me in the habit of writing daily, which practice will be really important if I want to become a better writer.

Obviously.

So I'll be posting on this blog more often this month. Maybe not every day, because I don't think I'll want to share everything I write this month. It will probably just be the things I think are interesting enough to warrant a blog post.

Today, and as always, thanks for reading :)

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ERICA GOLDSON: Graduation speech

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lexie-con replied to your post: I am going to write a story. I don’t know how long...

Get that shit done!

busylittledyings replied to your post: I am going to write a story. I don’t know how long…

Good luck! :3

Thanks for the encouragement :D

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What do you do to up your writing productivity?

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I am going to write a story. I don't know how long it will end up being, but this is going to happen. 

there will be updates on my progress.