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[eablevinswrites]

My Epic Presidential Fanfic

Last year the U.S. President was in my state. I am not a supporter of his, and I like to make jokes, so I was teasing my husband that I was a huge fan now. Then I said, “Why am I not writing fanfiction for this man?” So I did.

Presenting: This stupid thing I thought up to make people laugh.

He picked up a gold-plated pen that he brought from home because the pens in the Oval Office are cheap and lame and don't have precious gems in them or anything. He picked it up with his huge hand and signed the most important bill in history into law. Everyone cheered really hard, for almost an hour. So much clapping. Then every woman in a five mile radius begged to have sex with him.

And he obliged every last woman because he has more stamina than any other man. Also, his constituents matter to him.

And someone videotaped it and the haters saw it and they all shut up because they were so obviously wrong.

[eablevinswrites]

Hiiii!

WRITEBLR ROLLCALL:

Who all is still active in 2019? Let’s find each other and keep our dashes alive!

SOUND OFF – LIKE/REBLOG/COMMENT

[eablevinswrites]

How my parents’s HOA tried to use a 40-year-old rule to stop them from repairing hurricane damage and got the shaft for their trouble.

A few months back, as you all may remember, Florida got pretty beaten up by a couple of hurricanes. My folks live down there, and while none of the damage that they sustained was life-alteringly horrible or home destroying, home owners insurance kicked in and they had some water damage through the roof. They also needed a new one because of all of the shingles that had come off/debris that had punctured it.

Keep reading

[eablevinswrites]

Therapeutic writing is incredibly helpful. I kept a journal all through middle and high school.

Do you have any tips for writers with depression? Things have been rough this year

My main one, because I know low motivation can be a big thing with depression, is to try and be positive about every little bit you do write. Writing stuff is all about chipping away at things. 100 words is a 10th of a short snippet! 10,000 words is an eight of a novel, you know? It adds up, so there’s never ‘oh no I haven’t written enough today.’ 

Similarly, not writing is not a non-creative thing. It’s a point of drawing ideas, metabolising plot and characters. It’s important mental creative work. 

If your project isn’t working or you’re not feeling it, write something else. Write whatever you like. It’s still practice! 

Alternatively, if routine helps, make a routine. Give yourself rewards. 

Writing can be a great way of coping with things too. It can be very therapeutic. 

[eablevinswrites]

Honest religion, more familiar than its critics with the distortions and absurdities perpetrated in its name, has an active interest in encouraging a healthy skepticism for its own purposes ... There is the possibility for religion and science to form a potent partnership against pseudo-science. Strangely, I think it would soon be engaged also in opposing pseudo-religion.

Excerpt from a letter to Carl Sagan in “The Demon-Haunted World”

[eablevinswrites]

If we teach only the findings and products of science—no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be—without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience? Both then are presented as unsupported assertion. ... The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.

Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World"

[eablevinswrites]

Pseudoscience differs from erroneous science. Science thrives on errors, cutting them away one by one. False conclusions are drawn all the time, but they are drawn tentatively. Hypotheses are framed so they are capable of being disproved. A succession of alternate hypotheses is confronted by experiment and observation. Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding. Proprietary feelings are of course offended when a scientific hypothesis is disproved, but such disproofs are recognized as central to the scientific enterprise. Pseudoscience is just the opposite. Hypotheses are often framed precisely so they are invulnerable to any experiment that offers a prospect of disproof, so even in principle they cannot be invalidated. Practitioners are defensive and wary. Skeptical scrutiny is opposed. When the pseudoscientific hypothesis fails to catch fire with scientists, conspiracies to suppress it are deduced.

Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World"

[eablevinswrites]

Me: Do you ever write a scene that's so emotional, you just start crying while you write?

Husband, who is not a writer: No.

Husband's Best Friend, who is not a writer: No.

Me: Oh. Okay.

[eablevinswrites]

U know, ive noticed, you pretty much never thank your readers or any kind words sent in the asks. Kinda sad, considering you wont really be anything without them

A) Because I always feel like that would be repetitive fast and be really self indulgent? You’re not here to see how many different ways I can say thank you. You’re here to read stories?

B) Also, honestly, as much as I do appreciate my readers and very much appreciate their kind words, I don’t feel I’m indebted at all. I produce a lot of free content in my free time which I assume people enjoy reading. If they enjoy reading my work which I produce on request, I figure that makes us even if you want to put it in such cold terms.  

The fact that you think otherwise kind of says to me how much you take for granted my time and creativity, because you think I owe you more on top of that.

I love my readers, but I would still be somewhere without them: I would still be a writer. I would still be enjoying writing. I would still write like I write, and I have put ten years into learning to write like I do. You didn’t have anything to do with that. 

 The fact that you think I’m nothing without you really and truly says how little value you place on my creative work. 

So thanks, anon. That’s kinda sad.

[eablevinswrites]

[eablevinswrites]

To people writing a high school setting

As a professional high schooler I have some tips on what actually does on in a high school ( keep in mind this is a Canadian high school from grades 8-12)

1. People falling up and down the stairs. Often.

2. Half the school just doesn’t eat lunch

3. Cafeteria food is really good but super unhealthy also optional most people bring their own lunch

4. Random people just hugging in the hallways for a long time (sort of maybe me and my friends)

5. Theres always fandom shirts speckled around

6. Movies reference are a thing and everyone gets them

7. Teachers are usually late to class and students have to wait outside the locked door for up to 15 mins

8. Some teachers give 0 shits and let kids do whatever . And example is one teachers plays movies, lets ya roast marshmellows with Bunsen burners, and laughs when kids blow up condoms as balloons- actually high school experience

9. People either just call teacher by last name without the Mrs, mr, etc. or just by their first name

10. Sassy students and sassy teachers galore

11. If a teacher is offensive the collective glance of ffs among students

12. Um we don’t have a detention block or class of whatever idek America

13. People quotes memes a lot and usually get slapped

14. We like to make fun of America

15. Trump is a meme

16. People sneak onto buses a lot

17. We don’t have a dress code so it’s either bralettes and booty shorts or pajamas and flip flops

18. It’s not embarrassing for crushing on a celebrity every one relates

19. Snapchat is the connector if everyone- we have a huge story for the entire school to upload to and every day it’s a different inappropriate version of a teachers name

20. We have a gender neutral bathroom, gender sexuality alliance club, pride flags in every class, stickers of equality for everyone, teachers use appropriate pronouns for trans kids, so CATCH UP GUYS

21. People taking shots in the bathroom

22. A bitchy aid prowls around the pick up only stretch of road and yells at parents

23. People hide in lockers sometimes

24. We don’t take much seriously except halloween

25. Occasionally someone falls bc they’re just so done

26. If a Netflix show (like riverdale) airs that day, you can find someone watching it every where you look

27. Footballers and cheerleaders are cool but it’s not like patriarchy

28. Our senior football team takes ballet

29. 80% of classes you could just walk in and chill with ur friends and teacher wouldn’t see and/or mind

Hopefully ive inspired you do write some badass high school scenes. Love, your slightly depressed 10th grader you has to go back to school after winter break on Monday

[eablevinswrites]

When ur like: “this show is very good.  In fact, it is too good.  I want something I can watch with 30% brain and this is a minimum 60% brain show.”

[eablevinswrites]

If Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.

[eablevinswrites]

Thank you so much for taking time out of your life to share these snippets and advice tidbits. I really appreciate you not giving up on this blog altogether after the prompt plagiarism became too much. Show don’t tell is a difficult concept for me to get my head around. How do you find the balance between the two? When would you do more telling? More showing? How much showing is too much and makes the point get lost?

Some thoughts…

Show = emotions, behaviour traits (i.e, don’t tell us they’re kind or cruel, have your character behave in kind or cruel ways), and the really important scenes/conversations/moments. For example, if you would slow shot something if your novel is a movie because it’s an important moment and you want your reader to really pay attention, then it’s a show moment. 

Tell = the other stuff. Backstory, exposition, the bits that get you between show bits, any time skips needed for coherency. Or, if we’re doing behaviour, you can tell us what a character is like and then later have them behave completely differently if they have a reputation that doesn’t match them, or if the character doing the telling doesn’t like them/has a biased view on them. 

[eablevinswrites]

oh god are you one of those people who reads romeo and juliet as a romance rather than a tragedy

I thought I was gonna go to bed early tonight but I guess not

hey friend you just unleashed my nerdy wrath buckle up

short answer: no, I know r&j is a tragedy and I read it as such. Shakespeare didn’t write “romances”, at least not in the sense you mean (some people call his later stuff that’s harder to put into a genre ‘romances’, such as the winter’s tale and the tempest)

so no I’m not a moron thanks

here’s the long answer:

I presume you’re “one of those people” who likes to count themselves as the Specialest Snowflake In All The Land because they don’t buy into the fake cheesy idea of //romance// that everyone else so blindly believes

maybe you like to talk about how romeo and juliet were “just horny teenagers”, how they knew each other for three days, how romeo so loved rosaline thirty seconds before spotting juliet, so clearly he’s fickle and silly. they weren’t actually in love, they were just teenage idiots. because only stupid girls buy that stuff. you’re more mature than that. am I right?

well, here’s the thing, sunshine- you aren’t special. I hear this same damn argument right down to the last word every time I mention my love of this play and it ENRAGES me every time because 99% of the time this is coming from /other teenagers/. other young people talking about how this isn’t a story to be taken SERIOUSLY. it’s silly and frivolous and unrealistic. they don’t realize that this play is dedicated to them.

and it’s criticizing people just like you.

while I do believe that these two young people were soul mates (I’ll get to that later), I don’t really think this is a story about love. it’s a story about /passion/- how love and hate are only a hair’s breadth apart and their overwhelming capacity for healing or for destroying. the emotion that drives mercutio to defend romeo from tybalt. what drives mercutio to be killed at his hand. what pushes formerly docile, dreamy romeo to slay his cousin in law: it all begins to seem like the same continuous passion, enflaming the same group of people on the hottest day of the year.

as a result, love isn’t a pretty thing in this play. it’s linked inextricably to death, to murder, to chaos. love is presented as the most dangerous force in the universe. it leaves five bodies in its wake, and then at the end (people forget this) it’s what finally brings the ancient feud to an end. it’s not silly. it’s not frivolous. o brawling love, o loving hate.

and who are the conductors of this unstoppable force? who sets verona burning and then rebuilds it better in under a week?

kids.

people with a shitty understanding of this play who love to dismiss it and downplay it like to call it a “cautionary tale”- why you shouldn’t think with your dick, why you should grow up and not be so rash, be sensible.

I agree with part of this. it is a cautionary tale. but it’s directed at YOU.

you, who devalue youth. you, who underestimate teenagers and what they’re capable of, who wave off their every thought or feeling with “just a kid”. who think that love is a pretty little silly thing and that no one under the age of 25 is capable of really experiencing it. that the kids don’t MATTER.

capulet thought it- he dismissed tybalt’s rage during the party as dumb kids throwing a hissy fit. he wrote juliet off as a child who should be seen and not heard, shuffled from her father to her husband, guided by the wisdom of those older and wiser than her.

in the world presented in the play, age has NOTHING to do with wisdom. the adults range from careless (montague) to helpless (lady capulet) to blithering (the nurse). the wisest character, the most eloquent and intelligent one with the most beautiful poetry, is fourteen year old juliet. (go back and read it. whose speeches are the most beautiful, sophisticated, complex? Juliet’s.)

okay, fine, you say. but they didn’t love each other, they just saw each other and got hot and bothered and wanted to jump the other’s bones! anyway, what about rosaline?!

I’ll address rosaline first:

shakespeare likes making fun of the poets of old (take for instance his “my mistress’ eyes” sonnet, a deliberate parody of the Petrarchan model of frilly love poetry). heres another example in romeo. when we first meet romeo he’s mooning over a girl in the frilliest, stalest, most formulaic verse imaginable. we get the feeling he’s enjoying himself, basking in his misery.

notice, though, that we never see rosaline on stage. she represents romeo’s vague infatuation with the //idea// of love, the pretty image he made up in his head from reading old poems. this not only creates an incredible arc in his character, but makes his love for juliet obviously the real deal by comparison. he meets juliet and his world goes into free fall; he’s rash and violent and impulsive, and the verse that was so stale and ingenuine before shifts into some of the most famous passionate poetry in the english language. in his first scene, he asks “is love a tender thing?” he falls in love with juliet- REAL love, not the kind in poems- and comes to answer his own question: no. no it fucking isn’t.

but, you say. but they CANT have loved each other! you don’t fall in love just by LOOKING at someone!

yeah, I know you don’t.

but here’s the thing. if you aren’t willing to suspend some modicum of disbelief, you won’t get anything from shakespeare. period.

we’re already assuming that these people just happen to walk around speaking in blank verse and rhyming couplet. the plot of hamlet relies on the existence of a ghost, a midsummer night’s dream on fairies, macbeth on witches, the tempest on magic, measure for measure on the friggin /bed trick/- is it SUCH A HORRIBLE STRETCH FOR YOUR CYNICAL POSTMODERN MIND TO MAKE that characters can identify their soulmates with a look? have we reached that level of lazy cynicism as a society that magical love flowers and vengeful ghosts are believable, where a woman can turn into a boy by shoving a hat over her hair and statues spring to life as deceased loved ones, but love at first sight (a very very common Elizabethan plot device; it’s /everywhere/ in shakespeare) is just too much of a stretch?

no one rolls their eyes at hamlet because “ghosts aren’t real. are you one of those people who believe in ghosts?” no- they take it for the plot device that it is in order to get to the message of the play as a whole, and the truths of the human conditions it reveals, with the help of some purely theatrical elements.

but kids in love. that’s far too silly.

it’s really fucking sad.

and questions like yours, anon? those make me really, really fucking sad.

[eablevinswrites]

I’m writing a modern version of Romeo and Juliet for english class and I’m making them dumb teenagers like they should be and I thought tumblr might appreciate some excerpts from my planning document

Oh yeah and romeo’s going to be sulking about rosaline friendzoning him at the start

I’m really trying to emphasise the ‘stupid kids’ thing here