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This week’s Guardian Books cartoon

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Do you think they realize how much cooler that makes it sound?

Like. I'm not even an apotheosis type of guy. But you do know that makes it sound so much cooler right?

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hey ao3 can you like give the extra $38k you made from this month’s funds drive to charity

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-Octavia Butler, Furor Scribendi-

Bloodchild and Other Stories

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Read this. Everything you need to know is in this essay.

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There’s a conversation going on over on TikTok right now about whether or not r*pe scenes should be banned from film/tv and books.

I have a few things to say about this.

1. You can’t only support free speech halfway. Free speech means free speech. Period. The creator I saw posting about this was a part of the queer community, and so am I. We support freedom of speech.

2. While I understand that scenes like this can be triggering for people who have experienced this horrific thing, they do have a purpose. Example: the r*pe scene in the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was extremely triggering for me sure, but it made my husband uncomfortable in a way that made him have realizations, made him *see* the reality of what something like that feels like for a victim of it, what it does to people mentally. These scenes are there to make people uncomfortable so that they can UNDERSTAND the toll of these things. We could get into a whole conversation here about how art can change the world, but I’ll spare you. Let’s just say: life inspires art, then art inspires life, ok?

3. Not every book is written to entertain. Some books are the author’s way of dealing with life, and all its nasty moments, which they then later publish. How can we morally tell artists not to make art about something horrible that’s happened to them? How can we morally tell anyone they shouldn’t go on to profit off of something terrible that happened to them?

4. When ridiculously high numbers of women and LGBTQIA2S+ people are victims of r*pe, it’s gonna come up in art. If you don’t want to see those scenes in books and movies, do something about those statistics. Every one of us should be working toward a future where NO ONE has to be scared of getting r*ped! (Hint: voting for candidates who are perpetrators isn’t gonna get us there.)

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This isn’t a question, but I want to thank you for your books and how they’ve impacted my life.

Over thirteen years ago, I read Neverwhere for the first time and it changed what kind of writer I wanted to be. I went on to read more of your books—my other two favourites were The Graveyard Book and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

About 11 or so years ago, I asked you on Twitter if I could read Stardust on a Twitch livestream, and you responded, “Fine by me”. It was one of my best streams, and while life got in the way of me doing more, I still remember it incredibly fondly.

Ten years ago I had a baby, and while he was an infant, I read him, Fortunately, the Milk, in an attempt to read him a book. He didn’t seem interested. I decided I’d try again some other time perhaps. But I did resolve to get him to read The Graveyard Book someday.

Nine years ago, when I was a mother of a one-year-old, I posted a status on Facebook simply saying, “We do not forget.”

Two years ago, I went on holiday, and I downloaded the audio book version of The Graveyard Book from our local library. My eight-year-old son listened to it as he fell asleep, though he ended up missing some parts, and we shelved it.

Last year, he read Coraline and didn’t like it. That isn’t your fault. He read Charlotte’s Web and didn’t like that either. He just didn’t quite have the understanding for them.

This year, he read Coraline and liked it. I told him it was from the same author as The Graveyard Book. He lamented that he never finished The Graveyard Book, and I said he could always download it from the library again.

Then about a month ago, he and I went through a tough time. I was really stressed about life, he wasn’t doing so well either, and our relationship got strained. I was angry with him all the time. I needed a break from him, or I thought I did. But one day when he was at his dad’s I realised that I wouldn’t get this time back. That I needed to fix it. So I asked him if he wanted me to read to him at bedtime. Just like when he was little. And we settled on The Graveyard Book.

On nights when he got to bed on time, I’d read a chapter. It often meant stretching past bedtime, but I could never stop halfway. It had been years since I’d read it too, and I found myself remembering things I’d forgotten. I’d watch his dark eyes widen whenever things got exciting, and I loved when he would interrupt me with an important revelation. “It’s Scarlett! His friend!” he’d say. “The dog! The grey dog!” “I know what Silas is!” He would tell me that I did the voices so well, that it seemed to match each character so perfectly.

We didn’t read every night, but it was a treat when we did. One night we had an argument and he told me he hated me. That he wished I was dead. And that he wanted to be with his dad. I told him to go take a shower, and that I’d ask his dad to come get him. His dad said no, but agreed to talk to him on the phone. After the shower, my son apologised for what he said. I said okay, and told him to call his dad to chat. After their call, he asked if we would still have story time. I asked if he preferred that or to have some space. He said he wanted both, but wanted story time more than space. So I read to him. It was the chapter when Bod and Silas argued, and then apologised to each other. Halfway through that chapter, my son asked for snuggles. I said, what happened to space? And he said, “I want snuggles more than space.”

We were sad when it ended. We finished it last weekend. I cried as I read it. But it was a beautiful sadness. We’ve talked about it a bit since then, to process it. He says he would like to read more about Silas and Bod’s adventures and asked if there was fan fiction about it. I told him to look, and to write some if there wasn’t. Perhaps I’ll write some too, just for him.

Last night he was at his dad’s and I was browsing Facebook and sent him a couple of his old pictures. Then I found an old post. From exactly nine years ago. And so I sent it to him.

It brought tears to my eyes. I did not remember making that post, and I’ve forgotten a great deal over the years, but I hope I do not forget these little moments with my son. But even if I do, I have them written down here to remind me again.

And thank you. For the words you’ve written and the impact you’ve had on our lives and hearts. I hope that your life holds the same amount of joy and love that you’ve given to others with your words.

That made me so happy. Thank you. I hope you and your son keep growing together.

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I apologize if you’ve been asked this question before I’m sure you have, but how do you feel about AI in writing? One of my teachers was “writing” stories using ChatGPT then was bragging about how good they were (they were not good) and said he was going to sell them. To put aside any legal concerns in that, I’m just trying to talk him down from that because, personally, I would not enjoy dream job being taken by AI.

The poor man.

Many magazines have closed their submission portals because people thought they could send in AI-written stories.

For years I would tell people who wanted to be writers that the only way to be a writer was to write your own stories because elves would not come in the night and do it for you.

With AI, drunk plagiaristic elves who cannot actually write and would not know an idea or a sentence if it bit their little elvish arses will actually turn up and write something unpublishable for you. This is not a good thing.

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Current reading list.

god tier dramione fanfics

Manacled by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454174/chapters/33390198}

Isolation by bexchan {https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461513?view_full_work=true}

Rights and Wrongs series by LovesBitca8 {https://archiveofourown.org/series/1007625}

Remain Nameless by HeyJude19 {https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875939/chapters/57393508}

Breath Mints / Battle Scars by Onyx_and_Elm {https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/35668776?show_comments=true}

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love by isthisselfcare {https://archiveofourown.org/works/34500952/chapters/85870804}

Wait and Hope by mightbewriting {https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818646/chapters/54531817}

Bring Him to His Knees by Musyc {https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481312/chapters/59089624}

Dragon’s Heartstrings by pinkinku {https://archiveofourown.org/works/46585585/chapters/117313114}

Cherry Mint by dirtymudblood {https://archiveofourown.org/works/21053894/chapters/50081633}

Love In A Time Of The Zombie Apocalypse by rizzlewrites {https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137807/chapters/68944698}

All You Want by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153092/chapters/35140268}

Apple Pies and Other Amends by ToEatAPeach {https://archiveofourown.org/works/8156101/chapters/18691246}

The Gloriana Set by ThebeMoon {https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821571/chapters/39485710}

Love and Other Misfortunes by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/14380728/chapters/33204618}

This World or Any Other series by olivieblake {https://archiveofourown.org/series/502333}

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Making a Reading Journal pt.2

Happy NYE. I spent the bulk of my day watching YouTube essays and Good Omens, and working on my 2024 reading journal. I’m now convinced it’s going to also be part film journal because there is so much space left in the notebook I chose. After blocking out the reading bit, there’s a little over half.

The first thing I did was put stickers on my journal. I’m obsessed with the chartreuse color of the book!

After I had worked on the pages a bit, it became clear that the stickers were not gonna stay on, so I decided to laminate the cover with packing tape. This will also just combat some of the issues I read in the reviews of this journal, mainly a separation of the lining from the soft material of the cover.

I had these stickers laying around for a while because I had run out of surfaces to put them on. So I guess I was *air quotes* collecting them *shrugs*. I particularly like how it looks like Sam, Dean, Cas are having some sort of discourse over the fairy above them.

This journal has a little contents section in it, so I used the first part of that for the “5 Star Reads” area. This is before I knew I’d be using the same book for film. Originally it made sense to me to start off with this.

The next pages will be the table of contents for each section. This book came with presumed pages, which is super nice.

Now to some of the fun, I started with a book count coloring page, complete with a rating system. This is something I saw in the TikToks I mentioned in my first post. On the opposite page is the first of three pages that feature 365! Clouds. This is the “No Buy Year” section. As I also mentioned previously, I have a lot of books I haven’t read, and they play a major role in my debt, so part of doing this journal is accountability, and setting an intention to read the books I own.

This was the point I remembered I had care-bear stickers, and started using them. 💖

Next up was “Book Bingo, more care-bears, and … balloons?… I dunno why, but it turned out super cute. I’m happy with it.

This is followed by the first page of the “series tracker”. Keeping with the care-lot-theme, I did up the series I’m working on in little rainbow clouds.

It only seemed right that the “genre bubbles” should follow, so I did that, of course with a bubble theme. Can you believe in this whole sticker book I have of care-bear stickers ONLY ONE FEATURED BUBBLES!

Last pages of set up in the next post!

*C*

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Come plan a reading journal with me.

This year I got really into bullet journaling. I like that they’re free and creative. There’s no real rules, but there’s still structure to the pages. It’s really just a good way for me to plan with my neurodivergent brain.

For 2024 I want to use a dot grid book to do a reading journal. Reading is really important to me, and after taking some genre specific classes this past semester, I want to branch out and read things that I wouldn’t normally read. I also think it will help me a lot as my family and I go into a “no buy” year. I have a lot of books I’ve purchased but haven’t read, so there’s plenty for me to pull from. I also plan on using Libby, my college library, and the local library. Not to mention, there’s plenty in my kindle and audible libraries I haven’t read yet.

I’ve done some research on TikTok, and found a creator whose reading journal style I vibe with. Admittedly a lot of my category ideas came from her channel (@lindseybluher), but I think that these can be so broad that it allows creativity to flow. If this is something you’re into, I highly recommend checking her out.

I ordered some supplies today, a new grid journal and some pens. I’m a perfectionist at heart, so pre-planning a journal helps me to avoid mistakes I might dwell on later. Here’s what I scribbled in Goodnotes while I wait for my supplies in the mail.

Here I was really just jotting down all the section ideas I had seen that I liked. The ones that are crossed out are ones I’ve decided not to do, and the highlighted ones are the ones I’ve chosen to organize the journal.

Starting with “# of books for the year”, I really just decided I don’t want to put an overall quantity goal on books to read. The main goal of this project is to read more intentionally. A number seems like more pressure than I’m comfortable with. “List of books I already own” (or “book backlog”) ultimately got cut for similar reasons. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of unread books laying around. A list of them might be too overwhelming. The “abc” challenge just didn’t vibe with me anymore when I was reviewing these sections.

This page breaks down the broader sections of “Series to read” and “Book Bingo”.

Series to Read: Order of Crowns by Kate Elliott, The Witches sub-series of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Parable of the Sower (reread) and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, and the Sword Dancer series (reread) by Jennifer Roberson.

Some of the categories for Book Bingo are a bit plain maybe, but I tried to think about the books I already own when deciding what to put in this section. This is one of the many coloring activities I have planned.

Genre Bubbles will be another page of coloring that is basically just a bunch of circles of various sizes that have genres scribbled in them. Each time I read one of the genres I’ll color in a bubble.

The other two sections on this page are lists of books in my kindle and audible libraries that I haven’t read yet. I chose 12 from each, one each for every month. This will be important for the Bracket pages I’m planning.

For this last bit I was just tracking down the books in the Discworld sub-series I’m planning to read. This is the only series I chose that I don’t own. The books that are available on Libby (all but 1) I also went ahead and tagged in the app so they are easy to find later.

And that’s it for now. I plan on using this as a place to track my reading progress.

Next post when the new journal arrives!

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