elanorx

[elanorx]

Gimme, lemme, gonna, wanna

Killing time before a class starts and I came across these cuties! So, why not make something with my brief break and make something out of this flash of inspiration? SOOOO…. with the help of Beespeaker and a couple AI gen examples, here we got a worksheet with a short explanation and a couple exercises. I know it’s not the most designed piece I’ve ever done… But I wanted to get myself moving.…

[elanorx]

you don't "hate kids," you hate being forced into a caretaking role.

you don't "hate kids," you hate censorship passed off as family values.

you don't "hate kids," you hate the constrictiveness of the nuclear family.

you don't "hate kids," you're just not used to occupying fully age diverse spaces so you're not used to the noise or the many different kinds of needs.

you don't "hate kids," most public spaces just aren't built for kids, and so the few kids you see are always uncomfortable and distressed.

you don't "hate kids," you hate the intense social rules assigned to kids and anyone who interacts with kids.

You don't "hate kids," you hate how society reproduces its most restrictive elements and how kids are powerless to resist it.

[elanorx]

In Prince's funky name, amen.

[elanorx]

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

[elanorx]

There’s either no sexting on Discworld because all faster-than-postal communication must be manually encoded by a human (or other species) person, or there IS sexting and some poor clacks operator midway to Pseudopolis is out here Suffering like, broo...not again bro... just send her a letter, bro... a letter in the —ing mail...

[elanorx]

[elanorx]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[elanorx]

ESL Body parts

Here’s a word list from Cambridge Dictionary +Plus I’ve made to help people learning English as a Second Language to get some practice. I love their quizzes, they’ve got an audio quiz I use a lot! This is a great way to get some practice while you’re waiting in line or have a few minutes. You do need to have an account there, but it’s a free tool! Note: I can’t believe I left this one as a…

[elanorx]

Pros and cons of being in the Discworld fandom

Pros:

Discworld is amazing

It’s like Tolkien but modern

You will chuckle so hard you’ll have to have to have little breaks to breathe

Small fandom so it’s easy to make friends & discuss things

Really awesome if you like series because there are 40 books

But there are actually 5+ series within that & several stand alone books so you don’t have to read all of them (although by the time you finish one series you might want to read all the rest)

The world is flat & sits on four elephants who are for some reason standing on a giant turtle and I don’t think anyone is really sure why

Easy to find a cool Discworld-related url

Range of female characters (so you know the Joss Whedon Marvel/Steven Moffat syndrome of all the main females being kickass, skinny, kickass, perfect in everyway, kickass & pretty much the same character? that syndrome is stomped into the ground, cut up into tiny pieces & mocked)

Canon lesbian characters

Some super cute tv adaptions with cameos from sir pterry himself

Deep shit reflecting on life the universe and everything, the rise and fall of political systems, the power of words, the prevalence of evil, the nature of humankind, human relationships and beliefs, and so, so much more

Super silly bits where you’re like ye gods pratchett did you really just make that pun

Ships ranging from teenage fluff to middle-aged fluff to damn hot af

Characters who oppose their society’s gender binary & nice friendly badass werewolf woman lends them dresses

Badass moments which make your insides do hoola hoops

The fucking puns

Really awesome large characters who either just don’t give a flying fuck or have to deal with fat shaming and prove that they are infinitely better, kinder, cleverer people than the fat shamers and often use their size to help them as they save lives/fight evil etc.

There’s this book called Monstrous Regiment and it’s basically 400 pages of fucking up sexism, xenophobia and gender binary

There’s a character named Adora Belle Dearheart and her partner (to clarify: she’s not his wife, he’s her husband) is called Moist what more do you want

A Christmas/winter festival book which will leave you warm and happy and philosophically questioning

Do you like funny footnotes?? So many funny footnotes

Characters getting over & challenging internalised prejudices & beliefs

Destruction of racial stereotypes 

Characters call even the protagonist out on their assumption of roles which fit a white supremic system 

Really good model of police/civilian relationship where the commander of police force fundamentally does not agree with the police/civilian model because “what was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? once policemen stopped being civilians, the only other thing they could be was soldiers.” - or put more simply “a watchman is a civilian, you inbred streak of piss”

young teenage witches coming to terms with their own strength & power, middle-aged witches who write cooking sex books and are as kind as can be, old witches who are canonically ace/aro spectrum and never regret that for a moment and just so fucking smart

so many witches

and there are wizards, and female wizards too

Death is a character and he’s adorable and he really really likes cats and he has a granddaughter who looks after children and hits monsters with pokers and has amazing hair

Super talented fandom who do art and fics which break your heart

Very good realistic characters and protagonists which are far from perfect aka recovering alcoholic picked up out the gutter by a (6 foot) dwarf and a woman who is large and kind but perfectly capable of looking after herself and the recovering alcoholic and a garden full of swamp dragons - and the old witch? she is only a goodie because everyone else is too busy being bad - and there’s an ex con artist who spent his life ruining others’ bc he found it fun and is only now a ‘goodie’ because he’s being blackmailed - and the person in charge is a tyrant but he’s really a very reasonable one - and there’s a guy who literally just runs away from things the entire time I’m not even exaggerating that’s like the entire plot of his books he just runs away from things

Have I mentioned the puns

Cons:

There are no cons

Discworld is amazing

I will lend you the books

[elanorx]

Quietly losing my mind over the fact that Elon Musk has straight up orchestrated a coup of our executive branch and like....I don't even know what, if any, system we have in place to fix this. Like... He's just taken control of the money and locked out the actual appointed officials. What the fuck.

[elanorx]

Tongue twisters to practice the vowel sounds

I made a little video to practice English pronunciation using tongue twisters, it's rather simple and that's the point, check the sound of it and start practicing!

I know I shouldn’t start the post expressing doubts about my own abilities, but it’s a struggle to do anything new and I guess I can at least be transparent about it. This is one of the first attempts to produce content to use for my lessons, I’m very self concious about video because I always had a hard time with it at uni… but it doesn’t need to be perfect for it to be useful. I’m working on…

[elanorx]

"Rules" for Writing a Good Novel

The art of writing novels can seem mysterious to those who have never attempted such an endeavor. But seasoned authors will tell you there is nothing particularly secretive about the book writing process. Writing fiction is predicated on two main principles: creativity and discipline. Whether you’re a bestselling author or a ​first time writer self-publishing your first book, you’re in for a lot of hard work. Fortunately, if you are dedicated to the process, the results can be massively rewarding.

The 10 Rules of Writing a Good Novel

Read voraciously. Writers are shaped by other writers. The books we read as children influence our tastes and can often have an impact on our writing style as adults. The writers who shape us are almost like unofficial mentors: By reading widely and closely, young writers can learn at the feet of history’s most famed and beloved authors.

Make checklists of details. Think about your setting and motivations for writing, and then make a checklist of details you want to be sure you include in your story. Your checklist can be a single page or it can fill a whole notebook. It’s not guaranteed to save you from bad writing, but it’s a very useful tool nonetheless. The last thing an author wants is to finish a manuscript and realize they’ve left out half of what motivated them to write in the first place.

Develop good habits. Most beginning writers will have to balance their writing with other responsibilities. Setting aside consistent blocks of time for writing is an important step. Your writing time can be early in the morning or late at night or on your lunch hour, but keep it consistent, and insist on prioritizing that time. You can also experiment with having a dedicated writing room where you always work. This can be your dining room table or—if you have the space—a home office. The fact is, a good story idea does you little good if you don’t set aside the time to work on it, so find those pockets of time and space in your own life.

Use your limited time wisely. Before you sit down to write, think of ideas, remind yourself of where you left off in the story, or make a mental plan for what you want to accomplish during that session. Some people strive to write 2,000 words a day. Others disregard word count and are more comfortable alternating between days spent reading, outlining, or researching. No matter what you choose, it’s a good idea to give yourself daily goals. This will prevent you from spending precious writing time staring at a blank page—though there are practical ways to overcome writer’s block.

Build a relationship with an editor. Editors are a hugely important part of your publishing process. If you’re so fortunate as to command interest in your manuscript, you’ll want to do everything you can to ensure a good fit. A good editor will make you a better writer, but a bad editor can compromise your artistic vision. Check potential editors’ references, look at their backlist (prior books they’ve edited), chat with them about expectations, and look for a personal connection. Ask yourself what traits you value in a collaborative partner. A good connection between writer and editor makes a huge difference in the editing process.

Don’t stress your first draft. Generating the first draft is an exercise in getting everything down that you can get down. There’s always time later to reassess and comb through what you’ve generated. Resist the urge to do repeated dives into the thesaurus or to constantly refresh your word count. The first draft of a book needs to arise from spontaneity. Later on, you can obsess over whether you chose the right word or used too many exclamation points. That kind of self-editing will only be needed once you have a great story to tell in the first place.

Seek out surprises in the second draft. The second draft is all about finding surprises and starting to tease out the shape of your story. What unexpected themes or motifs have cropped up in your writing? If you like them, find a way to reinforce them throughout your writing. On the other hand, you may have to kill off a few darlings from your first draft. Fiction writing inherently forces you to ditch a few pet ideas or plot points, but your job as a writer is to serve the book, not your own emotions.

Start with characters. Readers don’t pick up a book looking for a theme. Good fiction comes from a compelling plot and strong character development. This means you’ll need a main character who is complex enough to sustain a real character arc (including a backstory), and supporting figures who can motivate subplots off the main story structure.

Write for art’s sake, and save the commercial analysis for later. Genre is a concept created by publishers and literary critics, but it’s not always a valuable one for the working writer. Not knowing or thinking about what genre your book belongs to can be valuable, because it offers you greater freedom to stray from genre expectations and to play with form and subject. Your job is to make your book the best, most compelling version of itself, plausible within its own imagined realm and set of rules. Let others worry about what genre it is. You can self-consciously try to write a horror novel, but this won’t necessarily make you the next Stephen King. In other words, don’t let genre analysis creep into your writing process. It’s hard enough to be a good writer without obsessing about commercial appeal, so don’t.

Rules are meant to be broken. Every great writer works in a different way. Some writers work straight through from beginning to end. Others work in pieces they arrange later, while others work from sentence to sentence. Don’t be afraid to try out different techniques, voices, and styles. Keep what works for you and discard the rest. Your material and creative process will guide you to your own set of rules. Anything is theoretically fair game. For instance, you could toggle back and forth between first person and third person voice. You could upend grammatical correctness. Of course, this doesn’t mean there’s no use for the rules, it simply means fiction writers need not follow every one of these rules to the exact letter.

Note that these rules for novel writing can apply to other forms of fiction, like a short story or screenplay. They aren’t even limited to fiction books: An engaging nonfiction book can be written under many of the same principles. If you keep these writing tips in mind before you start writing, you can maintain your own style and your own point of view while simultaneously employing the discipline every writer needs to successfully complete a work of fiction.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[elanorx]

Life cycle of our Sun, from beginning to end~

[elanorx]

Santa is on strike due to global warming.  All presents this year will be delivered by Sasha the Christmas Tiger.  Milk and cookies may not be sufficient.

[elanorx]

“Are you the witch who turned eleven princes into swans?”

The old woman stared at the figure on the front step of her cottage and considered her options. It was the kind of question usually backed up by a mob with meaningful torches, and the kind of question she tried to avoid.

Coming from a single dusty, tired housewife, it should’ve held no terrors.

“You a cop?”

The housewife twisted the hem of her apron. “No,” she muttered. “I’m a swan.”

A raven croaked somewhere in the woods. Wind whispered in the autumn leaves.

Then: “I think I can guess,” the old woman said slowly. “Husband stole your swan skin and forced you to marry him?”

A nod.

“And you can’t turn back into a swan until you find your skin again.”

A nod.

“But I reckon he’s hidden it, or burned it, or keeps it locked up so you can’t touch it.”

A tiny, miserable nod.

“And then you hear that old Granny Rothbart who lives out in the woods is really a batty old witch whose father taught her how to turn princes into swans,” the old woman sighed. “And you think, ‘Hey, stuff the old skin, I can just turn into a swan again this way.’

“But even if that was true – which I haven’t said if it is or if it isn’t – I’d say that I can only do it to make people miserable. I’m an awful person. I can’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I have no goodness. I can’t use magic to make you feel better. I only wish I could.”

Another pause. “If I was a witch,” she added.

The housewife chewed the inside of her cheek. Then she drew herself up and, for the first time, looked the old woman in the eyes.

“Can you do it to make my husband miserable?”

The old woman considered her options. Then she pulled the wand out from the umbrella stand by the door. It was long, and silver, and a tiny glass swan with open wings stood perched on the tip.

“I can work with that,” said the witch.

[elanorx]

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

[elanorx]

“You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become” - Hogfather, Terry Pratchett