ronique

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“Let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.”

— Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

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And sometimes we're hoping for an easy familiarity, one that doesn't require much time or energy or effort, that welcomes us with the promise of escape, even if only for a few hours.

“I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren’t aware of before.”

— Jhumpa Lahiri, In Other Words

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“All religion keeps the poor docile and the rich in their castles. Even American slaves knelt before a God that looked away from lynchings.”

— Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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NO KINGS.

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"Story [sic] is a chronicle of events. ... Plot is a chain of cause-and-effect relationships that constantly create a pattern of unified action and behavior." ~Ronald B. Tobias

In other words, a story is simply a sequence of events. With a plot, one event happens because of another in a cause-and-effect relationship that constantly builds tension. A plot has a clear beginning and an ending, and answers most if not all of the reader's questions.

Yes, there are authors who break these "rules," but a good writer should thoroughly understand these rules and why they apply before they break them.

[ronique]

recently read your fic "Lust, Imagined" and left a comment on ao3. wanted to tell you it's been rattling around in my head ever since. you've inspired me to start working on a sick fic of my own. thanks again for sharing it. it's immediately one of my all-time faves in the fandom.

Holy smokes I'm just now seeing this like 6 months later. But, wow, thank you for dropping me such a compliment! I hope you were able to write your piece and had fun doing it.

[ronique]

AI is terrible for people and the environment.

“Given the proliferation of auto-fill and AI in the legal profession, lawyers no longer know how to write. Some ninety percent of contract boilerplate is now generated by algos and AI, with only minor human intervention or augmentation. This can lead to ghastly problems.”

— Dave Eggers, The Every

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“Fashion’s for the fools, I know now, but I’ve learned that it’s good to be foolish from time to time. It keeps your spirit young.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

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“Oddly enough, there’s no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people.”

— Richard Powers, Bewilderment

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“The thing is, we don’t need to change our brains at all. Time does so much of the emptying for us. Live long enough and you’ll forget almost everything you thought you’d always remember.”

— Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

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I've never met a human that wasn't a storyteller.

“Knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it’s all just information.”

— Jennifer Egan, The Candy House

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Read.

On world book day📚

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“Movies make you think civilization will end fast, like with aliens and explosions, but really it’ll end slow. Ours is already ending, it’s just ending too slow for people to notice.”

— Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

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“How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.”

— Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

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“There is none of us whom life regards with any partiality. Sleet falls as she walks these streets, holding this knowledge inside her. Sleet that leaves cheeks and eyebrows heavy with moisture. Everything passes.”

— Han Kang, The White Book

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I've considered buying a JSTOR t-shirt more than once, and I've also had anxiety about one day losing access to this academic database. However, Academic Search Complete is also amazing.

Introducing you to the greatest site in the world.. @0heymoon

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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas