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fencesandfrogs · 4 years

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gathering times.

part of my broader lore series.

i’m breaking from my usual lore narration style for a moment to discuss: how cats know when to gather (because it bothers me).

anyway, i haven't seen any other lore about this, so i'd like to say that explicitly, anyone is welcome to use this if they like it. if you want to use the folklore parts (e.g., the story in "full moon.") please credit me somehow, but otherwise idgaf. (a CC0-1.0 liscence, if you are a nerd. if you're not, it's what i just said.)

section one: tracking the moon

so i have this tiny lore thing where so the cats. track the moon as starclan adding claws to the moon and taking them away. so we have four claws to mess with:

no claws: new moon

one claw: waxing cresent

two claws: half moon

three claws: waxing gibbous

four claws: full moon

but cats usually count these in terms of one claw away from new/half/full, like how people used to call november 20th 10 days from december.

also, since only new and full moons matter for most cats, most cats wouldn't think about the waning moon. hence why it's described as starclan clawing at the moon, because they don't care about the precision.

this is also somewhat decoupled from the idea of a half/quarter moon as a unit of time: cats aren't using this to track time (e.g., one claw to three claws), just as a method of measuring where in the moon they are. i'm not sure if this makes sense, i guess it's kind of like saying "monday" tells you where in the week you are, and saying "third week" says where in the month you are, but you wouldn't say "from second week to fourth week," you'd say the dates or be more specific.

look, cats track time differntly. we're going to talk about when first and why second.

section two: full moons

The leaders discussed this, and they agreed. From then on, they would meet the night after the moon had all its claws, and there were no more debates about when the gathering would be.

(full moon.)

yeah so basically i was so angry that warrior cats act like the moon is either new, half, or full i wrote 1k words of folklore about why that is. that will either be published or publishing soon, so i'm not going to recap it.

basically, the full moon is considered to start when the moon is a whisker's length from full (basically, the first night you can't see that the moon hasn't finished), and that day is the holy day for clans who celebrate like that.

the next day is the gathering.

the third day is the medicine cats' half moon meeting (we're getting to them).

mind, i'm still doing a lot of handwaving here, but i do have a limit to how realistic i demand my fantasy cat novels be.

section three: half moons

There was no celebrations to be had on half moon, and the camp was mostly quiet. Moonrise was coming soon, and Dovepaw could see Willowshine and Mothwing climbing the rocks. Jayfeather greets them, doesn’t ask where she is.

(feathers take flight --- footprints)

so basically half moon is when a whisker could be laid straight on the moon. this is still kind of vague, but let's say starclan intervenes.

i honestly can't come up with a better explanation of how they all agree, so at least this is a definition. the half moon is such a vague term like.

anyway.

section four: new moons

“Won’t everyone be asleep?” she asks, and Willowshine’s eyes glitter.

“On the night of the sleeping moon? I hope they’re not done.”

Dovepaw doesn’t know what that means. But she enters the camp, still alive, apprentices sharing fish, flower petals scattered, and she almost does.

(feathers take flight --- footprints)

okay, this is the one that i think is hardest to tell is ambigious. because you might be thinking "new moon is when there is no moon" but this has the same problem as full moon.

luckily, only medicine cats gather on the new moon. so clans can celebrate whenever.

anyway, internet says people can see a moon at anywhere from 1% to 10% as illuminated, and cats have better night vision, and you get about 3 days in the 0% to 5% range, so i'm not really sure what to derive from this.

i mean there are cycles with a new moon and a 0% moon on either side.

anyway, i'm going to say that cats call it the new moon when it's 0% or new. the first day is always the new moon. we're also going to say their vision is good enough that there's no conflict.

(how is this different from the full moon? its a pyschology thing about complete/empty. a cup isn't empty unless there's nothing in it, but it can be full with not very much in it, even if you're holding out for a full cup. also, stop asking difficult questions. i cover this in "full moon." where the answer is basically the same as this one but with better lore.)

section five: medicine cats meet every half moon

“He’s right,” Willowshine says. “Mothwing made me a medicine cat on a second whisker night, and I swear the clan slept ‘til sunhigh.”

(feathers take flight --- riverbed)

so uhh i've never understood what it means that medicine cats meet for the half moon. in older books, it's called a half moon meeting, which implies that it doesn't occur on the new moon or the full moon. but in moth flight's vision i swear they say they'll meet every half moon which is an established unit of time in canon.

so. do they meet every quarter moon or every half moon.

i've gone with every quarter moon. why? the following:

it means i can let cats stay home now and then.

it makes more sense. if you know much about human medicine, rounds/grand rounds (which are a similar vibe with less religion) happen every day to every month, depending on the scale of the encounter. i think meeting every quarter moon makes more sense because they're constantly talking about getting advice from each other, and it would be so much easier to just have jayfeather ask for littlecloud's help at the next half moon meeting than running over, since that's what the point of the meeting is.

i want to.

anyway, new moons for clans and medicine cats can get desynched. kind of like geographic north/magnetic north, and human months vs the lunar cycle. it's not super common, but it does happen and no one really cares.

they meet on a second-whisker night for the full moon. that's basically, okay, in "full moon." i say

"No," said Briarleap. "But when the moon has all its claws, there is always a time where the moon is a whisker's length from fullness. We ought not to waste our energy gathering when the moon isn't full. So the clans must gather the moonrise after the last claw is returned."

and the understanding is, the "last claw" night briarleap is talking about is called "first-whisker night" that's the holy night.

first whisker is the night they meet. because it's supposed to be properly full but sometimes there's a whisker.

and second whisker is the next night, when medicine cats meet.

yes, that does mean any clans that celebrate the full moon have exhausted medicine cats near full moon. this is why meetings are every quarter moon. so they can stay home for a meeting without missing a major important time.

alright, i believe that's all i have for this. as a fun bonus, i have some consistent warrior/medicine cat training timelines.

The typical medicine cat training period is four seasons, although after the first two to three, they are usually alloted a good amount of autonomy.

...

There’s no vigil for medicine cats. They have trained for four seasons, seen the clan at its best and worst, and have already chosen to sacrifice much of a warrior life for the good of their clan. If Willowshine decides to make Dovepaw a full medicine cat, the clan will feast in her honor that night.

(feathers take flight --- riverbed)

the implication here is that warriors train for two seasons, which is why medicine cats are given more authority around then. in riverclan, that's when they move into the medicine cat's den, because their denmates are moving into the warriors den. not always, though:

“Am I going to be all alone when Troutpaw and Rushpaw and Mossypaw become warriors?” she asks. Dovepaw has never slept alone.

(Jayfeather, alone in his den.)

“I don’t think so,” Willowshine says. “They might stay in with you until Fernstream’s kits become apprentices, or you could sleep in the medicine den. You’re always welcome.”

(feathers take flight --- riverbed)

(fernstream is an invention bc riverclan doesn't have any queens they don't age it's a problem i need to redo their allegiances for FTF.)

anyway yeah that's a different story tho.

finally, take these cute words from mistystar to dovepaw:

“Then I make Dovepaw kin, and say she is born from River, as we all are. And I trust her training to Willowshine, and Starclan, to guide her paws.”

(feathers take flight --- riverbed)

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gentlethorns · 4 years

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1-31

JKJFLKJGDKLS did you mean. 1 through 31?? like. all of them?? LMFAOOOOOO okay but i’m sticking them under a readmore bc that is gonna be SO long

1. what is a genre you love reading but will probably never write? mysteries/crime. i love the technique and expertise it takes to expertly lay out and set up a plot twist, but i don’t think i could ever do it aptly myself.

2. which writer has had the greatest stylistic influence on your writing? probably stephen king, if we’re talking fiction, but even then i don’t think he’s influenced me a ton - my writing voice is pretty distinctive (or so i’ve been told). as far as poetry, i think reading @candiedspit‘s work has really caused me to stretch my expectations of where words can go and what they can do.

3. has a specific song/lyric ever inspired a work of art for you? absolutely! i’m super inspired by music, bc music is really important to me as a means of emotional expression. back in sophomore year of high school i was working on a story where all the chapters were inspired by songs from folie a deux by fall out boy. it didn’t pan out and i never finished it, but i still think the concept was neat.

4. a writer whose personal lifestyle really speaks to you? lmfao not to talk about him again, but stephen king’s lifestyle really appeals to me. his writing is widely known and renowned, but he just chills at home and watches the red sox games and takes pictures of his corgi and keeps turning out stories. that literally sounds like paradise to me.

5. do you write both prose and poetry? which do you prefer? i do write both! and i can’t say i honestly prefer one over the other - my interest bounces between them and waxes and wanes, but i don’t consistently indulge one more than the other, i don’t think. last year i went through a huge fiction phase in october and cranked out eight or nine different short stories/flash pieces, and then in november/december i went through a poetry phase and wrote multiple poems a day for a long stretch of time. it just depends on my mood and my mindset and what i need from writing (a kind of escape vs. emotional expression/release).

6. do you read both prose and poetry? which do you prefer? i do read both, and again, i don’t think i have a preference. i definitely read fiction more, i think, but like writing, it kind of depends what i need at the time.

7. which language do you write in? which do you want to write in someday? i write in english, since it’s the only language i know. i’d like to learn spanish at some point, but i don’t know if i could ever write in spanish - i’m so firmly married to english grammar and structure that i don’t know if i could ever exercise the same control and mastery over spanish that i could english.

8. share a quote or verse that has been on your mind lately. “you said i killed you - haunt me, then!” from wuthering heights.

9. a writer/poet whose life you find interesting. *sigh*. stephen king. i’ve read his memoir/writing workshop book (”on writing”) and his success story always fascinates me. i just can’t imagine living in a shitty one-bedroom apartment with your wife and two kids and working days at an industrial laundromat and spending nights writing on a shitty wobbly desk in the laundry room, and you get your first manuscript accepted for publication, and eventually the paperback rights go up and you think you might get $60,000 if you’re really lucky, and then one day while your wife and kids are visiting the in-laws you get a call from your agent telling you that the paperback rights for your book sold for $400,000 and 200K of it is yours. that’s just literally. unfathomable to me lmfao.

10. what do you feel about the idea of someone unearthing your unseen or discarded drafts someday, long after your death? what about your personal journal? it’s really hard for me to imagine that happening, i think bc i tend to see myself as really like. insignificant or unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so i can’t imagine any part of me lasting beyond my life. also, it’s very hard for me to imagine someone i don’t know personally reading my work, probably because my work (especially a personal journal) is a window into me, and i have a hard time even letting people i trust see into that window sometimes, much less a stranger.

11. do you prefer to write in silence or listen to something? what do you listen to? i definitely prefer music in the background, although i can work in silence. i tend to gravitate to music that goes with the scene i’m writing, if i’m writing fiction (often i work music into my fiction, so if there’s a song playing in the scene, i’ll listen to that song), and if i’m writing poetry i tend to just listen to laid-back music (unless i’m writing from a place of grief or sadness, in which case i listen to sad music lmfao). i do also love writing when it’s storming outside and just listening to the rain and the thunder as i write.

12. has an image ever impacted your artistic lens/inspired your work? absolutely! less often than music, but visuals can inspire me on occasion. i once wrote a poem based on this image. i just couldn’t get it out of my head, so i decided to figure out what it was saying to me.

13. how would you describe the experience of writing itself? as in putting the words to paper, not planning or moodboards etc. do you agree with the common idea that the satisfaction lies in reading your work after you are done with it, rather than the process of writing itself? i think the process can be arduous sometimes, and other times it can be incredible. sometimes i write very slowly and haltingly, sometimes i write at a normal pace and it feels like the work it is (bc i am trying to write professionally), but sometimes the magic tap in the mind turns on and it starts flowing. that being said, i don’t necessarily agree that the satisfaction lies only in reading your work rather than also in the process. there’s a certain fulfillment in watching everything come together and knowing it’s going to be good.

14. how often do you write? it varies. i would like to write more often than i do, now that i have a full-time school schedule and work part time friday-sunday, but i think i still get a decent amount of writing done, when i can actually sit down and motivate myself to get the words out.

15. how disciplined are you about your writing? not very, in the creative sense - as discussed above, i don’t write as often as i should/would like to, and don’t hold myself to much of a schedule. however, as far as the business side of it (submitting to magazines/contests), i’m pretty disciplined, and i’m usually pretty good about keeping all my “good” pieces in circulation at a couple of places at a time.

16. what was your last long-lasting spurt of motivation? maybe last night? i worked on a couple of pieces and then submitted a few groups of poems to some magazines. i also did some decent work on thursday while i was in my campus starbucks waiting for my zoom class to start.

17. have you ever been professionally published? are you trying to be? i have been professionally published! i got my first acceptance back in 2018, and now i’ve had poetry published multiple times and fiction published twice. i’m still trying to publish more of my work, but i think i’ve had a decent start.

18. do you read literary magazines? not regularly, although i entered a fiction contest for into the void last year, and since it came with a year-long subscription, i’ve been browsing the fiction there periodically. into the void tends to publish good short/flash fiction, so anytime i feel like reading some new stories, i head there.

19. a lesser known writer you adore? idk if she’s necessarily “lesser-known,” but i loved ally carter’s gallagher girl series when i was younger. the first four books were immaculate (although i do remember that the last two books seemed almost unnecessary, and the ultimate end of the series was anticlimactic).

20. do you write short stories? do you read them? i write and read them! up until october of last year i could never figure out how to write a short story and effectively resolve a conflict in 5000 words or less, but then suddenly (like. literally overnight), a switch flipped in my head and i could do it. as far as reading them, i don’t read a ton anymore bc of my busy schedule ( :( ), so sometimes if i’m in the mood to read i’ll opt for a short story online or a book of short stories instead of a full-length novel.

21. do you prefer to involve yourself with literary history and movements or are you more focused on the writing itself? any favourite literary movements? i’m typically more focused on the writing itself, although i do love to learn about the horror boom from the 50s-80s (if that counts as a literary movement lmfao). i also do particularly love work from the era of deconstructionism, which i think took place in like. the 40s-60s, if i’m not mistaken. i enjoy that era bc of its symbolism and abstract nature - a lot of the work leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions.

22. are you working on anything right now? not particularly? i have a few works in progress that i tinker with now and then, but i’m not seriously working on anything in particular.

23. how did you get started with writing? i honestly don’t even remember. i remember the first time i realized that i really liked writing and had fun doing it (in fourth grade, for a school competition), but i know that even before then i was writing stories and poems.

24. do you have any “writer friends”? most of my mutuals are writer friends! but i don’t have any irl. i almost made one in my math class last semester, but we lost contact when our university shut down in march.

25. what is your earliest work you can remember? the earliest work i can remember is when i was really young (maybe like. five or six?). it was about our dog being pregnant (which she was at the time) and able to talk (which she was not).

26. have you found your writer’s voice yet? does your work have a distinct tone? absolutely. i’m very confident in my style and the distinctiveness of my voice - it’s been there pretty much since i first started writing. i’ve improved since then, honed my voice and made it more sophisticated and effective, but at the core, it’s still me, like it always has been.

27. do your works share themes/are commonly about certain topics? or are your subjects all over the place? in poetry, i think i tend to write about grief or loss of some sort or another often, bc it’s something i tend to feel often - either that or a false bravado (but ig that’s more of a tonal device). as far as fiction, i like to write about religion gone wrong (false religion, religion as a front for personal gain and corruption, religion gone too deep into obsession and mania, etc.), and i like smart underdog-type characters that fight and have a lot of grit to them.

28. what does writing mean to you? to me, writing is catharsis, a bloodletting. this particularly applies to poetry, but it also applies to fiction. poetry shows you the things you’re regurgitating up-front, but fiction does it slyly, in a mirror or through a distorting lens. regardless, both stand to offer release and healing.

29. in an alternate universe, imagine you had not found writing. what do you think would be your fixation otherwise? honestly, i’m not sure. probably acting or theater. something creative, for sure.

30. do you feel defined by your work? maybe a little, but not to a large or limiting extent. like, in a new class, my interesting fact about myself will probably always be “i’m a writer and i’ve been published a few times,” but i think that i’m a well-rounded person and that once people get to know me, my writing is just a part of me, not my whole identity.

31. have you ever written/considered writing under a pen name? if you would be okay saying, why? no, i don’t think i have. while a pen name can be a good tool, depending on your goals and what you’re writing, i have a Thing about getting credit where i’m due credit lmfao. i don’t think i’ll ever use a pen name bc if i know something i do is good, i want my name on it.

#asks #anon #thirty-one asks for writers #JAKFJDLJDALKJ this was so long thank you for asking

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sheehan-sidhe · 4 years

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1. What's your favourite kind of fic to write.

Probably mutual pining but I've recently realised I have a knack for smut 🤭

2. What fic of your was the hardest to write?

Probably one of the hundreds I left unfinished. I'm undecided between "The Most Precious Thing In The Universe" (DW) and "As long as the sea is bound to wash upon the sand" (mdzs daemon au) which wasn't hard per se but so long it was still harrowing.

3. Which was the easiest?

Maybe one of my DW oneshots.

4. Favourite story you've ever written?

As long as the sea is bound to wash upon the sand, 100%.

5. Do you write from start to finish or do you hop around?

Start to finish. I might only draft some scenes if I fear I could get stuck on them or just I don't want to write them atm.

6. Have you ever deleted a published fic?

No.

7. What's the best writing advice you've ever received?

After you've written your chapter, copy it on a new sheet and type it all over again instead of just correcting it. It will improve 100%.

8. What's the worst?

Do people give bad advice? I think it depends on what works for you.

9. Have you ever collabed with a another writer?

Yes! We wrote a comic crackfic with final fantasy's characters. Soooo many years ago. It was hilarious.

10. How many WIPs do you have right now?

So. TECHNICALLY one, since I'm finishing writing "As long as the sea is bound to wash upon the sand". If we consider two fics I have on hiatus... then three. But I have like 6 plot bunnies running wildly in my head atm.

11. Story you are most proud of?

Maybe "I've hungered for your touch". My first smut. My first fic in English. And a lot of people liked it ❤

12. Favourite story of another author?

I'm going to be here all day!!! There is so many... I'll focus on mdzs fic since I've been reading those lately (bc you have NO idea of the number of fic I've read in my life). Beneath six layers of silk by darkredloveknot; Maybe you're the reason by clearpearls; no new age by everythingispoetry; Survival by jinko. And so much more. There are so many talented author out there 😭

13. Best review you've ever gotten?

"GUH. Excuse me while I compose myself.

... ok I’m good now.

WOW, this was amazing. You described LWJ’s headspace so vividly. And the praise kink *chef’s kiss* Incredible. 10/10. This part here:

Lan Wangji quivers at the praise. “Am I still good?”

BROKE me 🥺 I am SO WEAK for a Lan Zhan with a praise kink and this was so so good.

And Wei Wuxian was such a good dom. So sweet and gentle. He loves his husband so much 😭

Thank you for this lovely fic. And thank you also for contributing to the noble cause that is sub!bottom!LWJ."

By Milk_Tea_Fantasy on my fic "I've Hungered For Your Touch"

14. Worst review you ever gotten.

Every comment was out of love, so no it doesn't apply.

15. If you could write the sequel or prequel to a fic currently on AO3 other than your own, which fic would it be?

Listen. It's hard enough writing my own fics. Should I write someone else's? But of I could FORCE a writer to finish their own stories it would be "Maybe you're the Reason" by clearpearls, the "Yin and Yang" series by Milk_Tea_Fantasy, "Survival" and "Power Addict" by Jinko.

16. Do you reread your own stories?

Generally, no.

17. Do you want to be published some day?

First I should write something that is not fanfic.

18. Favourite character to write?

LAN WANGJI.

19. Least favourite character to write?

Maybe Jiang Cheng. I don't know.

20. Do you set yourself deadlines or goals?

Write everyday. One line is enough. But everyday.

21. Name three favourite fic writers.

@tierfal @jinkohhh @loquaciousquark

22. Is there a trope you've never written, but want to?

Omegaverse. Soulmate AU. Time Travel.

Listen, I've been back to the writing scene only recently. There's a lot of things I still need to write.

23. Is there a trope you will never write?

MPREG.

24. How long have you been a writer? I think I started when I was in middle school. I wrote occasionally up to 2010 more or less... 10 years of hiatus and now I'm back all thanks to The Untamed.

25. What/who are some influences on your writing?

Tierfal writing style, for sure. And all the bottom!sub!lwj I read shaped the way I write Lan Wangji.

26. Hardest part of writing?

Finding a way to make the sentences flow smoothly.

27. Easiest part of writing?

Is there an easy part? Deciding what should happen, probably.

28. Best part of writing a fic?

Seeing your vision coming to life.

29. Share the plot of a WIP you haven't published yet.

The Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi Daemon AU. Starting from the school days and questioning what can influence a Daemon settling in their final form. It's a drama retelling where the Daemons save the day. Featuring: pining Lan Wangji.

30. Tell us something unique that you bring to all your stories.

I... don't know? 😅

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #fanfic #fan fic #fan fiction #wrap up #doctor who #2020 fic writer wrap-up

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notesofarichlycolorednight · 6 years

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Get to Know the Writer Tag Thing

idk if that’s the actual name lol, i just copied and pasted the questions and came up with my own title ^_^;

was tagged by @queen-of-ice101, thanks babe. these are always fun to do

1. Pen or Pencil

i don’t think i’ve written fanfic on paper in forever wow, but when i did (or occasionally will do), i always used pen. i hate making mistakes and having to clumsily cross it out, but pens are smoother and don’t make noise. honestly writing with a good pen on a thick pad of paper is a stim for me

2. Have you ever drawn your OC’s?

twice. and of only one of my ocs. both for inktober 2018. other than that, not really. i’d like to get into drawing more, but i’m just really more of a writer at this point in my life. also drawing ppl??? is so hard???

3. Does your writing ever make you cry?

not that i can remember. chapter 49 in i need another story almost made me cry, but mostly when i’m thinking abt painful scenes, my heart aches. even then, once i’ve envisioned it a lot, the ache eventually disappears. unless i forget abt it, then come back to it, or if it’s just a really painful scene, then the ache never really goes away when i’m thinking abt the scene

but no, bc i guess they’re my ideas. i’m expecting them, i’m writing them, and eventually become desensitized to them

4: If your Muse was a person, what would they look like?

okay so i’m confused by the wording of the question. bc at first i thought muses could be anything. then it occurred to me that they might only be ppl??? or at least take human-like shape bc they’re, i’m assuming, based on the nine muses of greek mythology, who take human shape/form.

maybe i’m reading too much into the question. anyway, my muse has never been a person/taken human shape if i’m honest. it’s been more of an amorphous blob that i haven’t really felt the need to give shape/form to. so to tell you what it would look like as a person...don’t know if i can do that lol

my muse is way more abstract, and i’ve never felt the need to make it concrete in any way

5: Which of your pieces would you choose to be remembered for?

like most writers, i’d like to be remembered for a published book of my own work. read riordan gave me an idea to base a book around chinese mythology, and which takes place in china. who knows, i may even write it in chinese first bc i’d like to become that fluent. the trick to this answer is that right now, this idea is also just an amorphous blob rn lol. i don’t have the time to do the research or flesh out the plot/characters (i don’t even really have those two things lmao). much too busy for that i’m afraid ;_; there is a one-act play i wrote for my creative writing class i’m particularly proud of currently

if i were to pick my fanfic i’d prob have to say itps--the oc pjo story. but only bc i’ve worked so long and so hard on it, and on my oc. if you asked me again in five years, i’d probably tell you smth different.

and i mean that’s the thing to this question. i’m still super young, and i have so much time to write more and continue to grow as a writer, so to choose smth to be remembered for so young almost seems unfair, tbh

6: How much have you written or worked on your WIP so far today?

LMAO ZIP, ZLICH, ZERO

my amorphous muse has gone dormant. i wouldn’t say fled if only bc i think i’ve unconsciously made it dormant so i can focus on finishing my master’s thesis

like would i love to write??? YES OF COURSE, I WOULD BE DOWN TO WRITE ANYTHING AT THIS POINT

but when i go to write, i find i physically cannot (bc smth psychologically is going on up there; could be stress, could be writer’s block, it’s probably those two and a multitude of other things). bc part of me knows that i can’t involve myself in such a big project (even small one-shots) bc i need to be completely focused on my thesis. the other part of me feels unable to control this ability to start writing. which is the worst part

schrödinger’s amorphous muse: when will my muse return from war? my muse has already returned from war.

woe is me

7: Have you ever based a piece (or a portion of a piece) on a dream?

don’t think i have. my dreams tend to be too weird to base a piece or portion of a piece on. if i was writing a fantasy story, it may fit in better. but currently, i write stuff that is based in more realistic-fiction worlds so

like i have very weird dreams. also many of them are stress dreams related to bathrooms (ugh) and school (ugh x2). as if i want to base smth that brings me joy on smth that stresses me out

8: Do you prefer silence, a little noise (music, ambient noise, fan etc) or a lot of noise when you’re writing?

it really depends on the mood i’m in

sometimes i’ll want to listen to talking, but it has to be smth i’ve watched a million times or don’t care abt at all if i am to concentrate on writing. they could be tv shows or video essays, etc. but that’s mostly if i’m not writing like fun/fictional stuff with plot and storyline, bc the talking then just interrupts my train of thought. unless i’ve seriously watched it so much/couldn’t care less abt what i’ve put on

mostly i’ll listen to music. i don’t have playlists, as much as i wish i did. my music library just isn’t that big. i’m such a picky person when it comes to music. and also i have so many other things i want to do than make playlists honestly. like i’m envious of ppl who make playlists, and i’m not saying that those who do make playlists have nothing else to do like at all. not my intention at all. however, at the same time, making them isn’t one of my top priorities

anyway, depending on my mood i’ll listen to the same song(s) on repeat again while i write. sometimes the song matches the mood of the scene i write, but it doesn’t always have to

sometimes i’ll start a song but get so into the scene that when the song ends, i don’t turn it back on anymore bc i don’t need it. sometimes some scenes require a lot of concentration that i can’t listen to anything. i actually need/prefer silence

i’ll only listen to ambient noise if i’m trying to drown out other noises, and only when i’m writing academic papers lol

9: Do you have any routines before you sit down to write?

nope lol. some scenes i’ll imagine for weeks before sitting down to write them bc thinking abt how the scene will play out helps me fall asleep, but also helps me figure out exactly how the scene will play out so when i do sit down to write, it flows so easily onto the page

unfortunately this doesn’t happen with everything i write--only the big, emotional scenes. and even then, i imagine these scenes as movies scenes, so when i go to write, there’s a lot more detail i have to think abt and add in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

other than that, i don’t really have any routines i absolutely need to do before i sit down to write...i mean does opening all the folders i need, including the folders on my flashdrive so i can easily save and then transfer the saved document to my flashdrive count?

10: Have you ever participated in NaNoWrimo or a Camp?

i wish! but no. never had the time. like WHY NOVEMBER DO YOU KNOW HOW BUSY STUDENTS GET DURING NOVEMBER THAT’S LIKE THE ABSOLUTE WORST TIME TO HOLD IT FOR WRITERS WHO ARE STUDENTS

and like i get that the whole point of it is to get ppl who say things like “never had the time” to write. but that’s the thing, it’s not like inktober, where it encourages a very armature artist (i.e., me) to draw at least one thing everyday. i already love to write and i already write when i can if i don’t have writer’s block and my amorphous muse wants to cooperate

so when i say “i don’t have time” it’s bc it’s in the middle of the fucking semester and i’m swamped with midterms and papers and my ga-ship which requires me to help everyone else who are also scrambling on midterm papers like jeezums i’m not bitter or anything

i know that camp tho has other sessions that aren’t in novemeber, so we’ll see if i decide to participate in those. i can really only focus on one story at a time, esp if it’s a big story i’m really invested in. so participating while i’m researching and writing fanfic would be difficult for me. also the pressure to do the research i want to do in such a short amt of time would probably not be conducive for me, just personally. esp on top of another story where i’m researching and writing (even if i do put it aside to focus on camp) but since i’ve never participated, i wouldn’t know if any of that is necessarily true

thanks again for tagging me! i’ll tag two ppl i know who are writers lol; and as always with these things, feel free to fill this out or not: @talking0fmichelangel0 @lucifers-favorite-child

if you follow me or we’re mutuals and i have failed to realize you’re a writer, feel free to fill these out but tag me so i can read your answers

#about me #dat writing life got me like #fun stuff

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i-want-my-iwtv · 7 years

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heyyy yy i’ve been out of the fandom for a while but i heard a new book about lestat and atlantis has been published. now, i don’t think i’m going to read it since i was pretty disappointed by the previous one so, could you please give an honest opinion on the book, if you’ve read it?

Hey, welcome back!

Indeed, we have Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (PLROA). It’s the most recent book. We’re expecting at least one more installment after this one, no date has been given yet.

@bluestockingcouture — Ok I can’t phrase this very well, but tumblr won’t let me tag them, so I made a link to my reblog of their post in which they share that they wrote a 1,800 word review of PLROA that quotes Rousseau, so you might want to check that out on goodreads. (spoiler cut is there)

Here’s another by Kirkus Reviews 2016-10-19. (spoilers in full view)

To be honest, near the end of PLROA I had to put it down bc it was about to launch into a monologue from a new character who I don’t really feel much affection for, and so I still haven’t finished it, but I am thoroughly spoiled as to what happens bc I love being spoiled.

There were many moments where I smiled bc it reminded me of the way the characters behaved in earlier books, there’s some development as to their current status, there’s some great little moments between them, and I think it’s worth reading for those gems.

I’ve always been able to read VC and cherry pick the things that I like (a good chunk of dialogue here or there, or something that seems to give more clarification to the established world/characters, etc.) and I have a flexible headcanon, so I can accept or not accept things based on the fanfic I’m reading, too, depending on what canon it relies on.

Having said that, PLROA feels very much like what would happen if one novel you were working on needed life support and you added your much more popular character(s) into it as a means of rescuing it.

“I was working on a novel called Born for Atlantis, and I just couldn’t get it to work. I thought, “What if I could somehow combine this with Lestat and the vampires?” And it was like, everything worked. Something happens to me when I write from Lestat’s point of view. There’s no question about it. By the time I was done, it felt inevitable, like it always had been…. It was a rare experience.”

^Anne Rice, Entertainment Weekly (August 5, 2016) [X] I’m glad that she shared that with us, because it explains why she brought these things together. Even if she hadn’t admitted as such, I think we would have been able to piece that together.

Some things are good on their own, some ideas can be brought together and the result is wonderful alchemy! But I think in this case, it felt like someone had dumped a river of ketchup on an icecream sundae. PLROA might count as what the fandom used to lovingly call the Vampire Crackicles.

Back then, we could have a good time, even when canon was wild. We could make fun of Lestat being a huge baby about his foot size in Blood Canticle:

Seldom did I see my feet in black socks. I knew almost nothing personally about my feet. They looked rather small for the twenty-first century. Bad luck. But six feet was still a good height.

Or, also in Blood Canticle, Lestat fixated by ice cubes:

…the sparkle in the ice cubes, the Miracle of the Ice Cubes.

^Our old familiar canon Rice Caps! Why can’t these things be funny anymore?

Or are the wacky things in PLROA too wacky to even find endearing? We do tentatively joke about PLROA, but not as robustly as we did over those older Vampire Crackicles. Maybe in a few years we’ll be more vocal about it, bc there will be even crazier canon. Lestat goes to Mars! Lestat ages backwards like Benjamin Button! Lestat accidentally destroys Alaska!

So IDK, I always recommend that ppl read the books before they judge them, but I think it’s easier to enjoy the wackiness if you can take it less seriously.

#Anonymous #anon #ask #review #bluestockingcouture #kirkus reviews #PLROA #prince lestat and the realms of atlantis #Lestat #Lestat de Lioncourt #the Vampire Lestat #vc #vampire chronicles #vampire crackicles #iwantmyiwtv has opinions #memeything #crossover #arrested development

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jeonfinite · 7 years

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end of the year fic meme

total number of completed stories: 5 total word count: 51225

Overall Thoughts Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I wrote way more than I predicted bc I never thought I’d produce fic at all, but I actually published a oneshot or chapter at least once a month since june. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? I would’ve never guessed I would become 100% certified jinkook trash this yr and would’ve laughed in your face if you told me otherwise lmao. I didn’t even know who jungkook was until feb!! in fact despite always having a soft spot for bts and following all of their music releases I was like actually ‘I don’t think I’ll ever truly stan them’ lmfao. my life is a joke. What’s your own favorite story of the year? forever yours. it’s basically everything I ever want to happen in a fic. seokjin as an academy award winning actor? jinkook writing a song together? jinkook going on cute dates and continually supporting the other as they fall deeper in love? ugh my heart. the idea is so dear to me and it’s my baby. and even tho bangtan disbanded in the fic, they all found their own success and they’re rly close friends. I fucking love the ending too omg. I did my best to make it rly gratifying and make up for all the stuff jungkook went through earlier. plus I love fics based on idol/band verse, canon/divergence/future fic and I liked weaving in canon elements to it. it makes it feel more real imo.

Did you take any writing risks this year? uh, not rly? other than writing and publishing my first fic ever. and I guess actually shading big hit/bang pd lmao. as far as I know of, no one has done that before? and multiple ppl have called me brave for doing so lol. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year?

to try to write longer fics I guess. there’s this 10k fic I’ve been planning forever but still haven’t gotten around to even tho I kept meaning to write it next lol.

From my past year of writing what was… My best story of this year: definitely forever yours. honestly sometimes I feel like it’s my peak lmfao. like I will never able to match some of those descriptions ever again. whenever I’m struggling to write something and I go back to it I’m like HOW DID I WRITE THIS?? and when ppl tell me I’ve made them cry and laugh omg. I almost don’t believe it. I don’t think any of my fics have elicited such a reaction and I think it’s the one that affected me most. I hurt my own non existent heart. My most popular story of this year: forever yours lmao. not only does it have the most hits/kudos/comment/bookmarks, but it’s the fic I most often see ppl reccing, screaming about, and quoting on twitter. I love it tho. pls continue screaming about it and @ me!! The story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: lights go on again. it’s gotten the least attention of all my fics so far. idk if it’s bc ppl are sick of me already or if I rly offended that many ppl by insulting their precious bang pd oppa lmao. also yo where all the jin stans at? I thought at least they’d appreciate its contents lmao.

but also rollin’ the deep bc I actually like that one a lot now and it’s the second least popular lol. but it’s on par with light me up and I expected that based on the content. ofc the fics with jin winning an oscar and shitting on the mother/son trope would gain the most traction so I’m not surprised. The most fun story to write:

us against the world! the idea of everyone hitting on jin and jungkook getting jealous was too good to pass up. I had so much fun writing taehyung’s scene omfg. I actually started it with it lmfao and it seems like most ppl agree. hoseok’s always makes me laugh and ngl I feel like a genius whenever I reread that fic lol. :’) definitely my peak humor and probably the funniest/crackiest thing I’ll ever write.

Story with single sweetest moment?

it’s a tie with forever yours’ birthday scene and light me up’s christmas decorations. but overall rollin’ the deep made me melt the most with how overwhelming sweet it was. I live for soft sweet jinkook doing grossly romantic things for each other ok. The story with the single sexiest moment:

jungkook wearing lingerie in light me up, definitely :x tho the smut scene in forever yours is infinitely better imo. I will unfortunately never able to write a smut scene that good again but I think it’s the intimacy of the moment and the way it’s written that makes it so special, hence why I like it so much. The most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:

idk? me attempting smut even tho I’m terrible at it? quoting myself I actually said “writing sex is honestly so hard already I would never waste my time writing it just for the sake of it if it didn’t have any meaning” yet the smut in light me up was the first scene I started writing. I am a goddamn hypocrite lol. but it’s sth I thought I’d never be able to write bc a few years ago I would get so embarrassed by the idea and would want to throw myself off a cliff at the thought lol. The story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

none of them rly. I just write jinkook like I how see them. their interactions just come so naturally to me that it’s one of the easiest and most fun things to write in my fics. The hardest story to write: honestly… light me up. all my fics get rly hard to write one point and I always start off hating the first drafts bc they’re complete garbage but I fucking suffered the most writing that one. literally took fucking forever to wrangle the sex scene into what it was. it was hot ass fragmented mess that I had to slowly unravel and reorganize one sentence at a time. I didn’t even want to look at it bc it was so bad lol. and two of the most pivotal points; the lights and lingerie were awful at first so I struggled to make them good enough to rly stand out and to a standard I was pleased with. and transitioning the first scene into the second one where jinkook kiss under the snowfall and the ending were fucking hell too. you can ask kaleidotears, I was bitching to her the entire time lmao. albeit vaguely bc I didn’t want to spoil anything. I started a month in advance bc it usually takes me that long to produce something and as the date approached closer I was lowkey panicking and almost thought I wouldn’t make it lol. The biggest disappointment:

lights go on again. not only is the reception lackluster compared to my other fics, but it’s honestly the weakest thing I’ve written so far. I’m seriously considering orphaning it but idk :( The biggest surprise: idk. I was honestly fucking shellshocked when us against the world got over 1000 hits in less than 24 hrs tho. I never expected that kind of reaction, especially for my very first ever fic. I honestly thought no one would want to read my fics lol. but also when ppl say I’m their favorite or one of their favorite authors?? like in what in the hell. I consider myself an amateur bc I have never written consistently before in my life. I’m new to the whole fic writing scene. I’ve actually spent the majority of my life hating my writing lmao. or when ppl praise things I think I’m shit at lol. I also like rollin’ in the deep a lot more than I thought I would considering it was just a dumb fluff piece to satisfy my thirst. I wrote the first 1300 words in a waiting room and I was like I don’t have to make this perfect bc it’s stupid fluff but I legit melted writing it. oh and publishing the first chapter of forever yours in two weeks after my first fic. how in the hell did I ever write 9k that quickly I will unfortunately never able to do that again.

The most unintentionally telling story:

I’m not sure what this even means? a lot of myself does bleed into my stories I think. like even if the mood varies depending on the scene I feel like my voice carries through? they just sound like me and it’s something that can’t be repicated lol. like my fics have a shit ton of cussing which is part of it lmao. but also sometimes I give jinkook aspects of myself like seokjin doing aegyo and being clingy when drunk (which is actually real omfg I’m a genius sorry) and jungkook not realizing when other ppl like him. also by reading my fics you can tell which groups I stan, what foods I like, etc. and ofc when I start waxing poetic about their looks or voices or talents that’s all me lol. Highlights + Wrap-up Favorite Opening Line(s): “And the Academy Award for Best Actor goes to… Kim Seokjin!” — forever yours; ch1 twenty four

The world is fucking taunting Jungkook.— forever yours; ch2 fiction

Jungkook feels sick. Bile mounts up his throat; it tastes like bitterness, hurt, betrayal, anger, resentment, and heartbreak, flowing through him in chaotic discord. His voice breaks underneath the staggering weight. — forever yours; ch3 smile, again

they’re all from forever yours lmao. the first one is for very obvious reasons but the other two I find the most riveting. I tend to start my fics with dialogue or with “seokjin/jungkook …” bc I’m so creative lol Favorite Closing Line(s): they lose themselves in each other until the world fades till there’s nothing but seokjin and jungkook, just their mouths and bodies and hearts uniting into one against the world. — us against the world

I’m forever yours. — forever yours

I like connecting the endings to my titles clearly lmao. but those endings are the strongest and the ones I’m most proud of. the other ones are all kind of similar and end with jinkook in a bed saying I love you haha. Favorite 5 10 Lines from Anywhere:

it’s relatively quiet outside and the weather is beautiful; the clear, azure skies provide an obstructed pathway for the gleaming sunshine to burn the foliage in a palette of fiery crimsons, rich golds, and vibrant oranges. the oppressive summer heat has finally faded into a cool, refreshing breeze with the advent of autumn. seokjin tugs jungkook into his side for a surge of warmth as they amble towards the car, the crisp air nipping at their skin, rustling through his bunny ears, and fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet. — rollin’ in the deep

Snowfall blankets the landscape like an instagram filter, casting a creamy, dreamy lighting over the scenery. It looks like they stepped into a fairytale. — light me up

Jungkook hums sweetly, toying with the strands of hair behind Seokjin’s nape. The melody is so soft and sweet like a souffle that Seokjin wants to devour it—so he does, capturing Jungkook’s lips and licking the inside of his mouth. — light me up

The parade marches through as they eat, a symphony of prismatic floats and musical instruments decorating Main Street with whimsy. Seokjin sways alongside the music and Jungkook joins him, their bubbling giggles adding another layer of sound to the percussion. — forever yours

Seokjin is so beautiful but he’s never been more gorgeous than when his chiseled, naked body and pink strands glisten with sweat while thrusting deeply into Jungkook, dark eyes smouldering with lust and headiness, handsome face contorted in concentration intent on pleasuring Jungkook, and plush, pretty, pink mouth falling open as melodic sounds escape his lips, sweeter than his blessed high notes. It’s too much for Jungkook. — forever yours

“You’re gorgeous. My beautiful baby boy. Sweet marshmallow bunny.” — light me up

the bright white of the headband contrasts with his dark hair, haloing a soft crown of light around him, and coupled with the afterglow of his orgasm, he looks angelic. seokjin tells him as much and he flushes a pretty pink, a perfect complement to his ivory rabbit ears. — rollin’ in the deep

jungkook licks his lips as they stroll past a lone vendor selling hotteok, and when seokjin kisses him, cornering him in the enshrouding, secluded thicket of maple trees, seokjin tastes sweet like brown sugar, like cinnamon, like the warming comfort of fall spices and home-baked treats. — rollin’ in the deep

It’s empty this late at night, their only company being the summer breeze rustling through their clothes and the mild rippling of the waves. The water glitters beautifully underneath the stars in the darkness but it pales in comparison to the way the moonlight dances off Seokjin’s freshly dyed pastel hair to illuminate his gorgeous features. He looks magical, bright eyes sparkling and pink strands shimmering. — forever yours

The kiss is everything Jungkook dreamed and fantasized about but beyond his imagination. Seokjin tastes like coffee and chocolate and cream, their dessert lingering on his tongue, and Jungkook licks up every last morsel of flavor. He can’t get enough; Seokjin is so sweet and soft and warm against him like a freshly baked cake. He’s addicted. He wants more. — forever yours

also the iconic:

“Fuck PDogg hyung and Bang PD hyung” — forever yours

you know what this is too fucking hard. I’ll do a separate post with my top 5 lines from each fic. these are just 10 lines I’m particularly fond of and rly wanted to highlight bc no one else has.

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

1. JUNGKOOK WEARING LINGERIE AND BUNNY EARS but particularly the part with jungkook sitting on seokjin’s lap growling he’s sexy and seokjin laughing at him for being adorable. literally if my drawing skills were good enough and I had a tablet I would fucking illustrate this myself

2. seokjin gifting jungkook diamond studs on the balcony underneath fairy lights and the seoul night sky

3. jinkook kissing under the snowfall and surrounded by christmas lighting + decorations

4. jinkook holding hands while walking outside in the fall foliage and seokjin kissing jungkook in a thicket of maple trees

5. JINKOOK PERFORMING THEIR FUCKING DUET AT JUNGKOOK’S SOLO CONCERT

+ bonus sakura petals swirling around seokjin with seokjin cornering jungkook against a tree to swipe stray ice cream off his lips and licking it off his thumb and watching the fireworks at disneyland with seokjin’s head nestled onto jungkook’s shoulder and arms wrapped around his waist.

Fic-writing goals for 2018: to finally write the ideas on my ever growing list. my last three were completely unplanned and were random spur of the moments. but I wanted to write something for jin’s bday. I could’ve written something short from my list but I wanted to do christmas lights and jungkook in lingerie so :x also to take my sweetass time until I’m perfectly happy with everything before publishing and not rushing out fics anymore. I’ve learned that when I try to write something as fast as possible for others—it goes wholly unappreciated like the last chapter of forever yours and light me up. like half of the original commenters disappeared despite finally getting the happy ending they cried for and being so excited for the fic? lol idk what happened but there’s no way I could’ve messed up the last chapter that badly… but yeah it’s just not worth the stress lmao. ppl just don’t understand the effort, time, and pain it goes into producing something.

#jinkook #writing #meme

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jacobhinkley · 6 years

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Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer: Jamie Redman Has Over 2,000 Articles Published

Journalist Jamie Redman is a pioneer. He’s one of first writers in the world to make his living by covering the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Readers count on his good judgement, perspective, careful study, and nonstop production to give them insight literally no one else can. He’s also the lead writer at news.Bitcoin.com, and is prized by colleagues for his energy and positivity. He’s recently crossed being published over 2,000 times here at the news desk. The number is impressive for sure, but it is also time to reflect on his body of work, which is a documentation of crypto history itself. Exhaustive, comprehensive, and original – meet the man behind the words.

Also read: The Heroic and Maddening World of Crypto Wallet Recovery

Jamie Redman is Crypto History in the Flesh

News.Bitcoin.com (BC): Tell us a little about your personal journey to bitcoin, crypto. How did you find it?

Jamie Redman (JR): When I first heard about bitcoin it was around 2011. It started when I was frequenting online forums and social media groups that discussed libertarianism, anarchism, and free markets. I asked my wife if she wanted to buy some, and at the time we both had no idea what we were buying. It was only a speculative investment. A month or so later, I began studying and writing about cryptocurrencies every chance I could. I realized that bitcoin would be a revolutionary currency, unlike anything we’ve seen before. So, I wrote a lot about the technology and shared my work with my friends online. I did some videos and writing for the Art of Not Being Governed, and realized I would gear my career towards working within this industry. The biggest thing that astounded me was how big and valuable bitcoin had become without the need of any one person or group, not the state, and in the absence of a corporate entity. I also created a large assortment of memes that I shared as well, and from there I was offered a position at a cryptocurrency news outlet because the CEO really liked my work.

Bitcoin has changed my life and my family’s as well. We have been living off of cryptocurrencies for over three years. The reason for this is because I am extremely passionate about the technology for one main reason – the hope that someday my children’s money will be separated from the state.

In addition to writing, Jamie Redman is also a graphic artist.

BC: You grew up in New England, right? I remember we discussed your love of music too, and how you traveled in dedication to it. Did those experiences influence how you approach your craft today?

JR: I grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and then a few areas on the South Shore just outside of Boston. When I was 18, I decided to use my graduation money to travel with the jam band Phish instead of going to college right away. I traveled around with Phish for five years selling t-shirts and grilled cheese sandwiches, and basically living in the moment. I think my travels with Phish helped me form my hustle, as I am very proud of how hard I work. That stems from living on the road with just a backpack. That experience inspired my first time to really write, and I started to compose an autobiography about my experiences traveling around the US with Phish-heads. It further provoked me to be less dependent on the state.

Jamie Redman with Dr. Ron Paul

Anarcho-Capitalist

BC: Tell us about your personal worldview, your anarchism. How’d you get there?

JR: Phish travels definitely helped, but learning about Dr. Ron Paul in 2008 really sparked my interest in libertarianism. The Occupy Movement also pushed me towards really studying these ideologies with a fine-toothed comb. After Occupy happened I really began researching all types of philosophies and the wide variety of “isms.” Many writings about Austrian economics, objectivism, agorism, relativism, nihilism, mutualism, and even Marxism changed the way I think about the world.

So right now I consider myself an anarcho-capitalist because it seems to fit with the way I think the world should be, but I know that’s not for me to decide. So I think people should try many things, and with true testing and experimentation, society will emulate the best and most efficient practices. Like over time things get worse, but eventually, they do get better after the chaos. These days in my humble opinion, people are free-range slaves with 9-digit numbers and they are allowed to choose an occupation but are forced to pay tax. That’s definitely an improvement from chattel slavery (taking 100% of a person’s labor), but the slavery (taking a percentage of one’s labor) itself still exists. I hope that someday the chains that bind us will be cut and I’m pretty optimistic that they will, but it could be a few more generations away. Innovations like cryptocurrencies, much like the printing press, will help sharpen the blades that cut our current chains. I truly believe that, and it’s why I do what I do.

BC: What are some of the crazier, more memorable stories you’ve covered?

JR: Some of the most memorable stories I’ve covered have been interviewing all kinds of random people within the cryptocurrency space. Some of my most favorite interviews in the past are with people who are actually doing really cool things and not some idolized big wig Bitcoin luminary. Most of those people are pretty boring, but chatting with someone no one knows, who is blind, and learning how they deal with bitcoin transactions and wallets is far more interesting. Most stories like this don’t get as many clicks as when the subject involves idiots like Jamie Dimon, but I think those kind of stories are better. One favorite interview of mine is the Onecoin Buyer Beware interview which went viral all over the world. The article has been translated in multiple languages, and it’s good to expose scams and fake blockchain projects like Bitconnect and Onecoin.

Family Man

BC: What are your thoughts on the current state of the ecosystem, given your perspective?

JR: The state of the cryptocurrency system is still raw, exposed and nascent. I’ve been in the crypto-community for a very long time now, and some people would consider me an “early adopter.” However, I still think it is super early as far as cryptocurrency adoption is concerned, regardless of a coin’s current price and market statistics. So, people just getting into learning about digital assets right now in 2018 are still way ahead of the game.

The current state of the ecosystem to me is like when Windows 95 and personal computers blew people’s minds. Exchanges and wallets need to be more friendly in my opinion, and onboarding people is still a bit difficult, but way easier than when it was back in the early days. But even though I think wallets could be a lot more user-friendly (so my grandma can use them) I say to myself — I wasn’t complaining when I was using dial-up — Because at the time just surfing the net was revolutionary back in the early nineties. That’s how I look at the cryptocurrency space today. It’s so early, and it will be way more advanced 5-10 years from now.

The Redmans, as photographed for VICE.

BC: This is a wildcat world you’re in professionally. How do you balance work and family life?

JR: I love my job. I enjoy researching and writing about cryptocurrency solutions and blockchain technology. So because I don’t do a job where I’m stuck in a position where I hate my day-to-day employment, I have a good balance between family life and work. My family sees that I am extremely passionate and happy with what I do, and it pays off with my work production as well. Further, my family and I homeschool our two sons, so with me working from home, all of us are always together. We are a tight bond and live very different lives than most families. Cryptocurrencies are very much a part of our lives and we deal with them on a day-to-day basis. But honestly, with all that said, I have no clue how I balance it all, and I’m cool with that. Bitcoin life is one giant experiment and I accepted those terms the day I jumped into the game.

Do you have a favorite Jamie Redman article? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Jamie Redman.

Check out Jamie Redman’s author archives. It’s an encyclopedia, a living history of crypto.

The post Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer: Jamie Redman Has Over 2,000 Articles Published appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer: Jamie Redman Has Over 2,000 Articles Published published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

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OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT SUCCINCTNESS

And yet a large number of Americans are deeply religious, and the people involved. I think everyone knows now that good hackers are much better than mediocre ones.1 People make it. Economically, the print media. Trevor. It certainly is possible for individual programs to be written too densely. Technology is a lever. Conversely, a language that talks down to them.

One reason the young sometimes succeed where the old fail is that they don't share the opinions of other investors. In fact, if Bill had finished college and gone to work for someone else would get an even colder reception from the 19 year old was Bill Gates? Maybe the situation is similar with malaria. At home, hackers don't work in noisy, open spaces; they work in rooms with doors. And you know, Microsoft is remarkable among big companies in that they give more power to startups, which is one of those rare people who have x-ray vision for character. But VCs are mistaken to look for it—to realize that it was a description of Google? A rounds. I have not yet seen evidence that seemed to me conclusive, and I feel as if I've learned, to some degree, to judge technology by its cover.2

And that takes some effort, because the less smart people writing the actual applications wouldn't be doing low-level stuff like allocating memory.3 For describing pages, we had a template language called RTML, which supposedly stood for something, but which in fact I named after Rtm. They'll simply refuse to work on your own projects than an undergrad or corporate employee would. So naturally the people at the startup work a lot harder when they have options. I suspect the most productive individuals will not only be disproportionately large, but will actually grow with time.4 When startups tank they usually do it fairly quickly.5 At Y Combinator we came up with the phrase that became our motto: Make something people want.

Perhaps the CEO or the professional athlete has only ten times whatever that means the skill and determination of an ordinary person.6 I think this sort of trick to pledge publicly not to. Craigslist. And you can quote me! There was that same odd atmosphere created by a startup as if it were merely a matter of implementing some fabulous initial idea.7 The Ajax boom didn't start till early 2005, when Google Maps appeared and the term Ajax was coined. Hypothesis My hypothesis is that succinctness is what programming languages are supposed to do, or by going to work for people with high standards. In fact, it may be both.8 And there is a common thread.9 As Fred Brooks pointed out, small groups are intrinsically more productive, because the rate of a successful startup out of curing an unfashionable but deadly disease like malaria?10 But here too we see the same principle: the way to get rich. Increasingly, startups are taking charge of their own stock in later rounds unless something is seriously wrong.

We've learned a lot since then, but if feeling you're going to succeed makes you work harder, that probably improves your chances of succeeding, but if I were drawing from life. If you do manage to threaten them, they're more right than they know, because the young have no performance to measure yet, and any error in guessing their ability will tend toward the mean. Most investors know this m. A Photoshop user needs Photoshop in a way that no one needs a particular song or article. In fact, the most innovation happens.11 Not surprisingly, people do what you want. Before ITA who wrote the software inside Orbitz, the people at Yahoo had managed to create a company worth about $8 billion in just six years.12

Now even the poorest Americans drive cars, and it also tends to make startups more pliable in negotiations, since they're usually short of money. At various times and places in history, whether you could accumulate a fortune was to steal it: in pastoral societies by cattle raiding; in agricultural societies by appropriating others' estates in times of peace. This essay developed out of conversations I've had with several other programmers about why Java smelled suspicious. It's like importing something from Wisconsin to Michigan. And fortunately at least two of these three qualities can be cultivated. Just be sure to make something people want is to be able to increase your ambition. A culture of cheapness keeps companies young in something like the way exercise keeps people young.13 Back when I was a kid. In most startups, expenses people and decreasing expenses. It's in their interest for content to be as cheap as possible, and since they own the channel, there's a lot they can do with it is enormous. This bodes ill for Sun's future.14 In it he said he worried that he was fundamentally soft-hearted and tended to give away too much for free.

Notes

In other words, it's usually best to err on the side of the 70s, moving to Monaco would only give you more by what you've done than where you get a low valuation to see what the valuation of hard work is a self fulfilling prophecy. Many people feel confused and depressed in their graves at that game.

Perl has. Success here is that present-day English speakers have a connection with Aristotle, but there has to be naive in: it's not uncommon for startups.

You're investing your own. Patrick Pantel and Dekang Lin. Median may be some part you can fix by writing an interpreter for the sledgehammer; if you include the prices of new stock.

If you're not consciously aware of it, is that it is generally the common stock holders who take big acquisition offers that super-angels gradually to erode. I managed to get to be so obsessed with being published. Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, but in practice investors discount merely predicted revenue, so we hacked together our own startup Viaweb, which merchants used to end a series of numbers that are only arrows on parts with unexpectedly sharp curves.

More precisely, investors treat them differently. Most people should not always tell this to realize that. I'm not claiming founders sit down and calculate the expected value calculation for potential founders, because you spent your summers. It's when they're really saying is they want it to the same attachment to their work.

So if you're good you'll have to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

Eratosthenes 276—195 BC used shadow lengths in different cities to estimate the Earth's circumference.

This is why, when Subject foo not to stuff them with you. Thanks to Daniel Sobral for pointing this out. It seems to have balked at this, I put it here. I know of a business, and as an employee as this.

They won't like you raising other money and may pressure you to stop, but it's always better to embrace the fact that established companies is that you'll expend a lot of detail. The angels had convertible debt is little different from technology companies. VCs.

If a big chunk of time on applets, but starting a company in Germany told me they do care about Intel and Microsoft, would increase the spammers' cost to reach a certain field, it's easy to get at it.

How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, but this advantage isn't as obvious because it might take an angel-round board, consisting of two things: the separate condenser. This seems unlikely at the company's PR people worked hard to erase from a few actual winners emerge with hyperlinear certainty. Selina Tobaccowala stopped to say for sure a social network for x instead of working. Several people I talked to mentioned how much we really depend on Aristotle more than their lifetime value, counting users as active when they're on boards of directors they're probably a real poet.

A termsheet with a million spams. Super-angels gradually to erode.

Maybe markets will eventually get comfortable with potential acquirers. This is almost pure discovery. The point of a stock is its future earnings, you don't need empathy to design new languages.

Design ability is so hard to compete directly with open source project, but investors can get very emotional.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Ken Anderson, and Travis Deyle for their feedback on these thoughts.

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fesahaawit · 7 years

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How I Slowly Grew My Blog My Own Way

There are a lot of blog posts out there that can help you launch a blog; and launch a blog that gets a lot of attention and success early on; and then use that success to turn it into a blog that not only helps people see you as an expert but also makes you a lot of money. I can’t write a blog post like that. Some of my friends can! I have friends who are really smart and know everything it takes to build a successful blog with a huge mailing list that proves you are an expert and can make you a lot of money. But I can’t.

Instead, I can write a blog post that tells you I launched an anonymous blog on October 1, 2010 to document my debt repayment journey. I can tell you I deleted the first version of that blog in early 2011, then restarted it when I was completely maxed out. I can tell you I connected with a few people and companies I loved on Twitter, and ultimately got my first two freelance writing jobs from doing so. I can tell you I wrote my blog anonymously for close to two years before I grew tired of lying to my family and friends about my “double life”. And I can tell you that, shortly after that, I got a full-time job offer from a company in Toronto.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. I moved to Toronto in 2012, then moved back to BC in 2013 and continued to work remotely for that same company. I built more relationships and got more freelance writing work, and then I quit my job in 2015 and have been self-employed ever since. Working for myself was never part of the plan. I always thought I was going to climb a corporate ladder, then maybe jump off one ladder and onto another. I never thought I would be my own boss, and I especially never thought that this blog would make being my own boss a possibility. It wasn’t part of the plan.

For the past seven years, I’ve shared all of this + the ups and downs of my life here with you. I didn’t start this blog to get attention from the press or reach any level of success, or to grow a huge audience or make a lot of money. I started it to document my debt repayment journey. The success that has come from it has been a result of consistent writing, plus a lot of careful considerations, and the intentional decision to forego all the usual advice and do things my way. It’s also a result of putting people (YOU) over profit. It’s been slow and steady, but I’ve stuck to my gut and built something that feels GOOD.

That’s the best blogging advice I can give: do what feels good. Click To Tweet

But for those of you who have asked for more of a step-by-step solution for growing a blog, here is the list of rules I’ve created for myself.

1. Reply to Comments

Those of you who have been reading (and commenting) for a while know this to be true. It’s the first blogging rule I made for myself: if someone takes the time to comment, I will take the time to reply. It’s not only a sign of respect, it also helps us have actual conversations (vs. one-sided responses) and has, in turn, created a real community here. As the years have gone on, I’ve changed it slightly so I usually only reply to comments that come in within the first 2-3 days of a post going live. But this same rule applies to email, too. Depending on how flooded my inbox gets, it might take a couple days or even a couple weeks to reply to them all (and it took even longer after the girls died). But I read everything and I do reply.

1b. To go along with the first rule, I’ve also always monitored comments and sent trolls to spam. It’s fine if someone has a different opinion from me or disagrees with something I say, and I’ll publish anything that’s constructive, or challenges me to think or even change my mind. But I won’t let trolls come in and dominate the conversation, and I especially won’t let people be mean to other people. If you don’t like me, save yourself the energy and just don’t read what I write, because I won’t publish your comment. This is a safe space for people to open up and have conversations, and I won’t let anyone come in and take that from us.

1c. I’ve also always been the one who responds to comments and emails personally. I know bloggers and business owners who hire virtual assistants to do this work, but that has always felt disingenuous to me and is something I can’t do. People write to you because they want you to read their words and they think you will be the one who replies. Even if it means there is a delay, it has to come from me.

2. Support Other Bloggers

A couple weeks ago, Stephanie asked if I could recommend ways for writers to “get their blogs out there”. My first response to this question is always the same: support other bloggers. And don’t just visit their sites and write short comments like “this was a great post” or “I do the same thing”. Write a comment because you care about this blogger and you want to see them succeed. Write a comment because you read someone else’s comment and you want to help them succeed. Write a comment because you want to be part of a community. And then share the post with everyone who follows you online, because you want to help this person’s message be heard.

When I first started blogging, I engaged with a lot of bloggers who were also documenting their own debt repayment stories. We cheered each other on, celebrated our successes, and helped each other with any challenges we had. It was not a strategy to get more readers or rack up pageviews. We were a community within the personal finance community, and I don’t know what they thought of me but I needed them. No one in my real life knew what my financial situation was, except for my blogging friends. I was more honest with them than I was with my own family. So, I always treated them like friends because that’s exactly what they were (and are).

When I finished paying off my debt, I gave a huge amount of credit to my fellow bloggers because I truly felt that I couldn’t have done it so quickly without their support—and I’ve always wanted to give that same support back to others. For years, that support took shape in the form of comments I would leave on people’s posts. I would comment because I read a post and thought OMG I NEEDED TO READ THIS and it felt really good to connect with like-minded people. And I would comment to thank someone for sharing their story, or for being honest and vulnerable, or for writing something that made me feel a little less alone in this world.

Again, as the years have gone on, I’ve had less time to comment on posts but I’ve found other ways to support bloggers. For starters, I help curate all the personal finance content you read on Rockstar Finance, which means I skim hundreds of blog posts each week and share my favourites with Jay. I used to share a lot of posts on Twitter, but now I compile a list of the ones I love and put them into my newsletter. And when something really touches me, I email the blogger personally. So no, I don’t comment as much anymore, but I still find ways to say OMG I NEEDED TO READ THIS and THANK YOU and then share it with my readers.

3. Write What Feels Natural (Not What Will “Perform” Well)

One thing I see over and over again in emails from people who are considering starting blogs is that they get overwhelmed by all the steps it will take to build something “the right way”. They think they need to have the perfect name and the perfect look and a bunch of perfect blog posts, before they can go live. Trust me when I say that it doesn’t need to be perfect. For over a year, the majority of my posts were just weekly spending reports! Go read one. I promise you there was nothing perfect about it. I often think about deleting them all, but people still tell me they enjoy reading them! So, they are here to stay in all their non-perfect helpfulness.

On top of feeling like things need to be perfect, there are also a lot of formulas out there for what could make a blog post rank high in Google or get more shares or even go viral. Here’s the only personal lesson I can share about that. Whenever I have tried to write a post that was more formulaic, I hated the process and hated what I was writing and usually deleted it. Whenever I write something that’s on my mind, the writing flows naturally and it gets a great response. Here’s a good example of that. The point of this post was to simply share exactly what was happening in my life. It was honest and personal, and it only took me a couple hours to write. The result: it got over 100 comments, even more emails, and pictures of online friends all over the world who smiled for the camera and told me they were here for me. Who the heck cares about ranking high in Google? I could never have asked for a better response than that. <3

Oh, and my advice for anyone who is thinking of starting a blog: write a handful of blog posts first. Write them on your computer or in a Google doc or by hand or whatever you like. Just write the first few posts that come to mind and see if you actually enjoy the process. At the end of the day, if you want to maintain a blog, you just have to enjoy writing stuff and putting it out into the world. If you like those first few posts, come up with some ideas for your next ones and then start getting the technical stuff setup. But always start with the writing. Everything else will come together, after that.

4. Don’t Worry About the Numbers

There are a lot of numbers you could consider, as a blogger: your pageviews, your unique visitors, the number of comments you get on posts, the number of times your posts get shared, the number of people on your mailing list, all the followers you have on social media, and so on. And there are a lot of ways you can boost each of those numbers. But, to go along with the idea that you don’t need to force yourself to write content that will “perform” well, you also don’t need to do other things strictly so it will boost your numbers. You can, if you want to. But you don’t need to—and here’s why I don’t.

I didn’t start my blog with the intention that I would ever make money from it. And, unless you’re trying to make a lot of money from ads or affiliate links on your site, these numbers are just a vanity metric. Nobody cares if you have 1,000 followers on Twitter or 10,000, except for you. It doesn’t mean anything. And for that reason, I won’t play games online that do things to dramatically increase the number of readers or followers I have. Continuing with the example of Twitter and even Instagram, some bloggers follow tons of accounts in the hopes that many of those accounts will follow them back. I’m not kidding. This is a thing. It is a vanity metric, and it is also a false way of determining someone’s potential “reach”. (That’s a note to companies who pay “influencers”.)

Instead of worrying about increasing your numbers, focus on engaging with the readers and followers you have right now. This goes back to my first rule: reply to comments and emails. Also reply to people on social media. There are people right here and now who are interested in what you are saying. Say hi to them! Answer their questions. Help them in any way you can. They are human beings, not numbers. And if you become focused on getting the next 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 followers, you will look past the ones you already have—and those are the ones who matter most. So don’t worry about the numbers, and instead put your energy into fostering relationships with the people who are here and now.

For bloggers who are curious how this rule affects your numbers, I opened up my Google Analytics, mailing list, social media accounts, etc. and looked at how it affects mine. As far as blog traffic goes, I’m on track to have the same number of pageviews I’ve had for the past two years (so now three years in a row). I finished 2016 with about 20,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and currently have about 25,000 (+5,000 in 9.5 months). And I went from having 6,300 people on my mailing list at the end of 2016 to 9,600 right now (+3,300 in 9.5 months). With so many people out there writing about how you can grow a blog quickly, these aren’t exactly numbers to write home about.

You know what two numbers I find interesting, though? My bounce rate was just 7.09% in 2016, and the open rate on my mailing list is 50.92% so far in 2017. People are engaged. And the community we’ve built together here means more than any number could.

5. Put People Over Profit*

I’m adding an asterisk to this point because I need to start by saying that this all depends on the reason you are launching your blog in the first place. If your goal is to make money, great! You probably don’t need to read this point. But if money isn’t your goal, that’s ok too. That also doesn’t mean you’ll never make a dime from your blog; it just gives you more control over how you want to earn that money one day. Here’s my story.

At some point, every blogger starts receiving emails from random companies all over the world who ask if you accept sponsored content (they will pay you to write a post about their product) or paid links (they will pay you to add links to random words in old blog posts). There is a lot of money to be made in this world. I have friends who make anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000/month in sponsored content alone. Add banner ads or sidebar ads to that and they are laughing—at me. I say “at me” because I have turned every single one of these offers down and earned exactly $0 from advertising on my blog. In fact, I even have a line on my contact form that tells people I don’t reply to these offers. I delete the emails.

There are so many reasons I don’t advertise on my blog, and they all come back to putting myself in the shoes of a reader. I hate going to sites and being bombarded with ads, so I don’t want anyone to have that experience when visiting mine. That’s also the same reason I’ve never added (and will never add) a pop-up to my site. Seeing those on other sites almost always makes me click “X” in my browser and then never visit them again. I don’t care about having a bigger mailing list. I care about my readers and the experience they have on my site—the experience that helps us build and foster a community. And let’s also remember that I am in the space of telling people to STOP BUYING THINGS THEY DON’T NEED. Can you imagine if I placed a banner ad at the top of that message?

At the end of the day, I won’t advertise on my blog because it just doesn’t feel good to me. I know this rule has probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars. My old boss once told me I could earn a minimum of $3,000/month from banner ads alone based on my traffic. But I don’t care and I won’t change my stance on this. It doesn’t feel good to me, and I’ve always told myself I could earn extra money in other ways—ways that do feel good to me. For years, that took shape in the form of freelance writing and even a few public speaking events. Yes, that means I actually had to work for the money (vs. earn passive income from my blog) but those opportunities came from having my blog and they felt good. Looking back, I can see they also helped me get my name out there in ways that posting sponsored content never could.

That’s not to say I’ve never made money from my blog. Going back to the first paragraph in this point, it just gave me more control over how I wanted to earn the money. In 2015, I decided the one way I would be comfortable making money from my blog would be by creating a useful tool and selling it. Since April 2015, I have profited exactly $26,807.34 from something I made for you: Mindful Budgeting. The print templates that I originally charged $20 for but are now free, and the physical 2016 and 2017 planners. I made those for you, and built a community around it for you, and have earned an average of $893.58/month for doing so (minus the 5% of sales I give to charity). It’s a tool that I know has helped people, and I made it myself vs. had a company pay me to tell you about it. That feels good to me. It’s not a product everyone needs and I’ll likely never earn a full-time income from it, but that’s ok. It feels good to me. (And I’ll be launching a new version for 2018 later this month!)

6. Always Be Gracious + Grateful

This last rule is one that is mixed into all the others. The kind way of saying it is: you should always be gracious with people + grateful for the opportunities that come your way. The simple but more brash way of saying it is: don’t be a jerk. One of the most interesting things I have observed as some blogs have grown is that egos grow right alongside them. I will never understand this. Of course, I think we are allowed to be proud of our work, and be proud of the blogs and businesses we’ve built. But at the end of the day, we aren’t saving lives. We are just people—humans who are trying to make it in this world, just like everyone else. And if we aren’t kind to the people around us, why would anyone want to read what we have to say or even work with us?

It starts by being gracious with your readers. If no one read your blog, you wouldn’t be where you are. Then, be grateful for every opportunity that comes your way—even the ones you don’t take. Whenever someone in the media contacts me for an interview, I genuinely still think to myself: really? Me? That’s so cool!!! The same goes for freelance writing and public speaking opportunities. And you can’t even imagine how literally every step of the book publishing process has made me feel. I’m constantly pinching myself asking if this is real life.

This all goes back to the golden rule you’re taught as a kid: treat others how you want to be treated. I don’t think the world owes me anything. And I don’t do things because I’m looking for something in return. In fact, I think blogging with zero expectations of what kind of response you’ll get from others is what helps you stay humble and so appreciative of whatever does come your way. As for me, I’m just over here documenting my life and all the experiments I’ve done in the past seven years, and feeling extremely grateful for everyone who has been interested enough to read, say hi and share it with others.

Before I wrap up this 3,600-word post, I want to add that I didn’t write this list of rules before I started my blog. It is something that has slowly developed over time, as every new interaction, opportunity and period of growth has occurred. And it took this shape because I always had my readers in mind. Some of these rules were made only after playing around with certain things the “experts” say we should do and quickly realizing it didn’t feel good to me. So yes, I have experimented with their ideas, and I think it’s perfectly ok for people to follow all of the advice and/or do things in whatever way feels good to them. It just doesn’t feel good to me.

I always knew there had to be another way, and there is—it’s called “your way” and you make all the rules. Mine will result in slower growth and will probably make you less money. But it puts people first and helps you stay humble and grateful for whatever comes from it. And in my experience, looking back now, I know that some really amazing things can come from it.

Do you have any other questions about blogging that I didn’t answer here? I’m happy to answer them (or share links to sites that can)!

How I Slowly Grew My Blog My Own Way posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

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universalessays-blog · 8 years

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Contemporary History Research Paper has been published on http://research.universalessays.com/history-research-paper/world-history-research-paper/contemporary-history-research-paper/

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Contemporary History Research Paper

This sample Contemporary History Research Paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. Like other free research paper examples it is not a custom research paper. If you need help with writing your assignment, please use research paper writing services and buy a research paper on any topic.

Abstract

Contemporary history ends with the present. Its starting point is contentious and depends upon the topic of study. It has been practiced since ancient times but has become most popular since the 1960s. It has been criticized by conventional historians for the difficulty of examining the recent past objectively and the absence of adequate documentation. These arguments are rejected since they apply equally to all periods. Like the study of other periods, it has been influenced by changes in the contemporary world and by the changing interests of historians such as the growing influence of social and cultural history since the 1960s.

Outline

What and When Is Contemporary History?

The Long History of Contemporary History

Contemporary History since the 1960s

Approaches, Sources, and Methods in Contemporary History

Bibliography

What and When Is Contemporary History?

Periodization in history is always problematic and contentious, no less for contemporary history than for any time period. Unavoidably, historians of all times and places find it hard to agree on precisely when the period they identify with begins and ends. This is partly because historians have diverse preoccupations, necessarily if we are to gain a reasonably comprehensive understanding of the past, and because nations and societies do not experience all-pervasive breaks, even following a serious crisis such as war, revolution, occupation, or plague. Some features of the society may continue, such as religious faith or family structure, which will preoccupy some historians, while others focus on the experience of rupture.

However, one essential element of periodization is agreed among contemporary historians: their period ends with the present. It includes the history of the very recent past, so the end point of contemporary history is agreed but is constantly shifting. Where it begins is more contentious. Some have argued, in the past, that contemporary history is the history of the generation now living, or events within the lifetime of the historian. This will not do because generations overlap and some lives are very long. This definition leaves us with “ever-changing boundaries and an ever-changing content, with a subject matter that is in constant flux” as Geoffrey Barraclough wrote in his Introduction to Contemporary History (1966: pp. 13– 14), the first modern work in English to tackle the subject. As he pointed out, at the time he was writing (the book was first published in 1964), it was still possible to meet people who had conversed with Bismarck, and others “for whom Hitler was as much an historical figure as Napoleon or Julius Caesar” (p. 13).

Barraclough proposed two complementary definitions of contemporary history. Firstly, it was the history of a time period: he argued that contemporary history should be dated from the late 1950s, when an array of major historical changes were clearly established, including the emergence of the United States and Russia as ‘superpowers’ and the weakening of Western Europe; the breakdown of empires; ‘the readjustment of relations between white and colored peoples’; and the thermonuclear revolution and other technological transformations. ‘Taken together’ he argued “they give contemporary history a distinctive quality which marks it off from the preceding period” (p. 17). But, Barraclough argued, to understand the nature and significance of these changes the study of contemporary history should begin around 1890, when ‘the forces took shape that have molded the contemporary world.’ At this time, among other things, economic exchange became truly global; empires reached a peak; labor movements grew and strengthened and socialism became a strong force; more nations moved toward modern democracy; and European nations adopted alignments that would lead to two world wars.

But still, warned Barraclough, “we shall do well to beware of precise dates. Contemporary History begins when the problems in the world today first take visible shape” (my italics: p. 20). He recognized that, in order to understand certain contemporary phenomena, a much longer timescale was needed than for others. We might today give the examples of wars in Afghanistan, or of financial crises, understanding both can benefit from historical analysis but the timescales are very different. The second definition of contemporary history, he believed, was its capacity “to clarify the basic structural changes which have shaped the modern world,” which “may take us far back into the past.” (pp. 16–17). Hence “we cannot say that contemporary history ‘begins’ comprehensively in 1945, or 1939 or 1917 or 1898 or any other specific date we may choose”(p. 20). The beginning depends upon the aspect of the contemporary world under scrutiny. However, for practical purposes, such as teaching courses in contemporary history, a time frame must be chosen. When the aim is to teach the history of the recent past, or to convey a sense of it to a wide audience, rather than to explain a particular event or set of events, the choice may be somewhat arbitrary, determined by what is manageable in the time available.

Dating key features of the contemporary world to the late 1950s made sense in 1964. Fifty years later we might think differently. Since 1989, Communism has almost vanished from Europe and socialist ideas are more fiercely challenged everywhere than before. The Cold War is over and the Russia is much less influential, and so, more gradually, the influence of the United States has begun to dwindle, while China (still officially Communist) has become increasingly powerful in the world economy and politics. Versions of Islam influence world affairs as they have not for centuries, as do the politics of countries in which it is powerful. The invention of the World Wide Web has revolutionized communications, pervasively influencing everyday life including in entertainment, shopping, and politics. Though these changes need to be seen in context. As David Edgerton has argued, old technology has never ceased to be important. The world consumed more coal and steam power was more widespread in 2000 than in 1950 or 1900 (Edgerton, 2006). The bicycle is still an important, and in Europe a growing, means of transport, much encouraged as a source of exercise and good health. Similarly, old ideas, sometimes very old such as religious faith, and practices, political, social, and cultural as well as technological, have not disappeared but profoundly influence day-to-day life.

The Long History of Contemporary History

Contemporary history became a notably active preoccupation of historians in the 1960s, hence Barraclough’s book, but it was by no means a new concept. As with many contemporary themes we need to probe far back into the past to understand its origins and development. Benedetto Croce claimed in 1917 that “every true history is contemporary history” (Croce, 1917). He meant something different from Barraclough and most contemporary practitioners in the field, that the work of the historian of any period is influenced by present preoccupations and by the historian’s personal experience. This is widely agreed. The term has come into common use and into university syllabuses relatively recently, since the 1960s, especially since the 1980s, but it is older than Croce. It made an early English-language appearance in the Edinburgh Review in 1808 (vol 12: p. 480) with the (now contentious) comment:

There is this general distinction between Contemporary History and all other history- that the former is a witness, the latter a judge.

Yet the practice of studying the immediate past, up to the present, is a great deal older still. Thucydides, recognized as one of the greatest ancient historians, writing about the Peloponnesian wars as they happened (431–404 BC) and in which he had fought, rested his narrative “partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me,” aiming to record the war accurately, in view of its intrinsic interest and importance, and to provide political lessons for the future. He hoped that his History would be useful to ‘those who desire an exact knowledge of the past as a key to the future, which in all probability will repeat or resemble the past. The work is meant to be a possession forever, not the rhetorical triumph of an hour.’ His ruling principle was strict adherence to carefully verified facts:

As to the deeds done in the war, I have not thought myself at liberty to record them on hearsay from the first informant or on arbitrary conjecture. My account rests either on personal knowledge or on the closest possible scrutiny of each statement made by others. The process of research was laborious because conflicting accounts were given by those who had witnessed the several events, as partiality swayed or memory served them.

Problems that present day contemporary historians will recognize and which have been analyzed extensively by practitioners of oral history (Perks and Thomson, 1998).

Through the next 2000 years others wrote the history of their own times, designed to convey lessons as much as to expand knowledge. In England, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, adviser to Charles I, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II, late in life wrote The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702–1704), which he had experienced and with which he had no sympathy, a work designed to justify and praise the restoration of the monarchy. Thomas Babington Macaulay, politician and imperial administrator, part of a newly influential professional middle class, wrote his widely read four volume History of England (published 1848–1861, the final volume after his death), as uncritical celebration of the period since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He described it as a time of brilliant progress, unique to England at the time, culminating in the Great Reform Act of 1832, which brought the middle classes into political power, and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, which established free trade and further economic expansion, making England the dominant world economy. Democracy, he argued, had then gone far enough and acceding to the growing demands of the lower orders for inclusion could only undermine England’s greatness.

Interest in studying the immediate past has often been sparked by a specific crisis – in Macaulay’s case, the stirrings of working class discontent in the early nineteenth century – and the desire to understand its origins and impact. For some European historians in the nineteenth century, the French Revolution of 1789 was such an event, though historians of different political persuasions appropriated it in different ways. For conservatives, the French defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1870 demonstrated that the Revolution of 1789 had undermined national cohesion. Hippolyte Taine’s Origines de la France Contemporaine (1875–93) explained what he believed to be the debility of contemporary French society as a legacy of the Revolution. The Société d’ Histoire Contemporaine, established in 1890 by Catholic conservatives, espoused such views, while the Left developed its own version of recent history, celebrating the revolution. Emile Bourgeois (1886) rejected Taine’s interpretation while accepting that his work was no less valid than writing the history of earlier periods. The Republicans created a Chair in Modern and Contemporary History in Paris in 1884 and, once established in the University, historians of the Left founded the Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, also in 1890. The two factions fought for control of the official history texts taught in schools, which included, from the Left, Ernest Lavisse’s 10-volume Histoire de la France Contemporaine de la Révolution à 1919, one of several texts he produced for schools in the 1880s and 1890s (Noiriel, 1998).

As History became professionalized as a university discipline from the later nineteenth century it defined itself strictly as a study of the ‘past,’ of times beyond the memory of the living. It sought clearly to differentiate itself, its subject matter and its methods from the other emerging disciplines of the day, as universities themselves emerged in their modern forms and grew in number and diversity of areas of study. The past was the domain of the historian, the present and recent past that of the emerging disciplines of politics and economics, later also of the newer fields of anthropology and sociology. Professional history’s source materials were, above all, documentary archives, the remnants of the past. This was despite the fact that one of the dominant figures in the nineteenth-century professionalization of history, Leopold von Ranke, himself lectured on events in German history occurring during his lifetime, including the revolution of 1848 and the founding of the German Empire in 1871, as did a number of his contemporaries.

The highly committed, politicized nature of much that calls itself contemporary history, as in nineteenth-century France, probably hardened resistance to it among the majority of the earlier generations of professional historians. They believed that the practice of history required total emotional detachment from the subject in hand, that it was necessary to establish ‘the facts’ wholly objectively, regarding this as an essential dimension of their professional identity, which they were convinced was unattainable when studying the times the historian had personally experienced. Ranke urged the need to extinguish oneself (sein Selbst ausloeschen), all of one’s values, in order to engage in reliable historical research.

For even more historians in the twentieth century, it was the Nazi regime and the horrors that resulted in an apparently civilized continent that required understanding. In the early 1920s, Dr Alfred Wiener, a German Jew, was horrified by the rise of antisemitism, campaigned against it and collected documents about it. These were lost when he fled Germany in 1933, first for the Netherlands, then for London, but he carried on collecting. After the war, the collection became the Wiener Library in London, still a preeminent archive of Nazism and antisemitism, which assisted the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials, amassed early survivor testimony and helped shape the academic study of the Holocaust which emerged after the war. It later also took the name Institute for Contemporary History (www.wienerlibrary.co.uk).

Also in 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany, soon after its own establishment, set up the Deutsches Institut für Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Zeit in Munich for, as its name suggests, study of the Nazi period. In 1952, it was renamed Institut für Zeitgeschichte and gradually broadened its interests in recent German history (www.ifz-muenchen.de). Meanwhile in France, in 1944, shortly after the Liberation, de Gaulle’s provisional government established a commission on the history of the occupation, resistance, and liberation, which, in 1951, became the Committee on the History of World War II. In 1978, this became, and remains, L’Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, with a wider historical remit (www.ihtp.cnrs.fr). After the downfall of communism in Europe, institutes were established in postcommunist countries to examine their recent histories, including the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovenia. The Slovenian Institute, in Ljubljana, was established in 1959 as the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement. It included an archive of the wartime occupation and resistance movement. By the 1970s, it was studying the history of Slovenia throughout the twentieth century. After the end of communism in 1989, it persuaded the authorities to rename it the Institute of Contemporary History and it gradually broadened its interests to cover economic and social history (www.inz.si/history.php). The histories of these institutions in themselves tell us something about contemporary history.

The origins of Nazism and the war, and later of Communism and its effects, had deep and long roots and the problem of where to begin to study such major themes remained, as Barraclough realized when writing his first book, The Origins of Modern Germany, published in 1946. This covered the period 800–1939, with a concluding chapter, “Germany yesterday, today and tomorrow.” He started to write it during the war, while serving in the UK Royal Air Force, following 15 years studying German history before the war. He brought it as close to the present as he could at that time.

As the practice of contemporary history grew, most strongly from the 1960s, 1945 became a favored starting point, probably because contemporary history, like most professional history, tended at this time overwhelmingly to focus on political history, national and international. And post-1945 politics – the world of the Cold War and decolonization – seemed very different from what had gone before and to require new explanations and forms of analysis. But many historians recognized that analysis of the post-1945 world could not begin in 1945 if it was truly to be understood. When what became the leading international journal in the field, the Journal of Contemporary History – its founding itself a sign of the substantial new interest – was established in 1966, shortly after Barraclough published his book, it set out to study mainly European history throughout the twentieth century. Its founding editors were George Mosse, a German-born, Jewish American who had published widely on Nazism, and Walter Laqueur, also American and Jewish, who published on the history of fascism and communism and was then director of the Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History in London and professor at Georgetown University in the United States. Their own professional preoccupations did much to shape the journal in its early days. They acknowledged in their opening editorial that their definition of the field ‘is bound to be to a certain extent arbitrary both in time and space.’ They were ‘aware that the first world war (not to mention more recent events) cannot really be discussed without reference to trends that go well back into the nineteenth century.’ They also recognized that Europe did not exist in isolation from the rest of the world. They pledged to ‘try to be sufficiently elastic in their editorial policy to accommodate contributions that at first sight seem to transcend the Journal’s frame of reference’ both in time and space. So the journal has done and its subject matter has reflected changing preoccupations in the broad field of contemporary history.

Contemporary History since the 1960s

The longer time span has become more commonplace in European university courses and journals since the 1960s, above all because of the evident difficulty of explaining important features of the world since 1945 without looking at least back to the later nineteenth century. Also the generation was emerging for whom ‘Hitler was as much an historical figure as Julius Caesar’ and they had wider interests, influenced by the changing world around them. It was impossible, for example, to understand the then rapid process of decolonization, for example, without a sense of how Empires had come about and their effects; or why West European countries felt a need to develop ‘welfare states’ after the war without understanding the extent of poverty and inequality past and present; or why, from the 1960s, women, excluded racial groups and homosexuals, among others, were demanding equality so fiercely in so many countries, without awareness of the long history of the inequalities they had experienced.

Also, from the 1960s, the range of professional history writing widened and subspecialisms grew, challenging the dominance of political history. This was less wholly new than some thought at the time. In reality, political history had not held exclusive sway for some time. Economic history had begun to develop in the interwar years, closely linked with what came to be called social history. In 1926, R.H. Tawney, in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, traced the origins of modern capitalism (of whose unequal outcomes he was a critic, actively supporting and advising the British Labor Party) back to early modern times and stressed the formative influence of protestant religion, combining cultural and economic history. Eileen Power, one of the first female professors of Economic History, at the London School of Economics, and a feminist, wrote and broadcast in the 1920s on the new medium of radio, about medieval women and other aspects of medieval social and economic history (Berg, 1996).

In France, the journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale, was founded in 1929 as a direct challenge to the dominance of political history in France. It aimed to integrate the study of society, economy, politics, intellectual life, geography, and demography, ideally over long time periods up to the present, in order to understand the complex interactions that constitute a society, regarding the present as history as well as the distant past and skeptical about the existence of radical breaks in history. The annalistes, a self-conscious ‘school,’ drew on the growing insights and methods of the social sciences to enrich historical research.

In Britain, G.M. Trevelyan’s British Social History: a survey of six centuries, Chaucer to Queen Victoria, written before the second world war in Britain, published in the United States in 1942 (perhaps with the original intention of informing a nation hesitating to enter the war on Britain’s side, before it was impelled to do so by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941). Trevelyan argued for the importance of social history not, as he is constantly misquoted, as ‘history with the politics left out,’ but as “the required link between economic and political history . without social history, economic history is barren and political history is unintelligible” (1942/ 1967: pp. 9–10). Trevelyan was concerned with a very contemporary question, the characteristics of the British culture that the nation was fighting to defend in the second world war, recognizing the need to trace its construction over many centuries, examining as many dimensions as possible: “the daily life of the inhabitants … the human as well as the economic relation of different classes to one another, the character of family and household life, the conditions of labor and of leisure, the attitude of man to nature, the culture of each age … took ever-changing forms in religion, literature and music, architecture, learning and thought” (1942/1967: pp. 9– 10). He aimed originally to bring the book up to the time of writing, but “the war has rendered it impossible” (p. 9) though he hoped it would still serve its contemporary purpose.

These historians, and others in Britain and elsewhere, challenged the dominance of political history before the 1960s (Floud and Thane, 2005), but social history became much more prominent from the late 1960s. It was partly impelled by very contemporary concerns, of a newly active Radical Left, often influenced by Marxism, challenging continuing social and economic inequalities, allied with emerging antiracist, feminist, and gay campaigning groups. These movements influenced and extended the work of professional historians, some of whom were activists themselves, into topics, such as the histories of slavery and colonialism and their legacies, of gender inequalities, and of repression of homosexuality, for which the conventional political boundaries, such as the dates of wars, were largely irrelevant. It was also influenced by the gradual entry of rather more women and members of other excluded groups into what had previously been an overwhelmingly white, male historical, indeed wider university, profession.

Such histories challenged and extended conventional narratives about the contemporary world. For example, for some time, influential Anglo-American sociologists had explained the characteristics of the family in the contemporary ‘developed’ world in terms of the increasing isolation of the ‘nuclear’ core of parents and children from wider kin, as industrialization and migration disrupted ‘traditional’ agrarian society, which was supposedly static and composed of co-residing, co-working family groups, whereas, they believed, fast-moving modern society divided the generations geographically and emotionally, creating, it was said, unprecedented problems of isolation for older people and less grandparental care for the young. This tidy scheme owed nothing to historical research. From 1964, the demographic, previously intellectual, historian, Peter Laslett, in Cambridge, drew on the methods of the Annales school and the novel, if still cumbersome, aid of computers to explore the history of the family in England using parish records of births, marriages, and deaths back to their origins at the Reformation and the formation of the Church of England in the sixteenth century. New technology assisted new approaches to the history of the recent and the more distant past. Laslett and his colleagues in the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, which he founded, examined the actual history of English family structures and asked whether change had indeed taken the form that the sociologists claimed. They discovered a preindustrial society in England that was far from static, in which migration over long distances in search of work was common, large co-residing kin groups uncommon and nuclear families as normal as in the twentieth century, while higher death rates and lower life expectancy at all ages often left children without grandparents and older people without surviving children. Family structures had changed much less than had been believed. Findings that were later replicated for other parts of Northwestern Europe (Laslett and Wall, 1972; Wrigley and Schofield, 1989). Study of a key social institution over several centuries deepened understanding of its contemporary characteristics, leading to recognition that intergenerational ties were at least as strong, and possibly stronger, than in the preindustrial past in the contemporary world where life expectancy was longer and modern technology assisted communication between kin over long distances in unprecedented ways. They demonstrated that studying the history of social as well as political institutions could extend knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues.

Flexibility over the appropriate time period to study continues to characterize contemporary history. The journal Contemporary British History, founded in 1986, focuses on the period since World War I, yet in a special issue on health inequalities in the later twentieth century the editors thought it helpful to publish an article on dimensions of inequality, 1700–2000 (Contemporary British History, Autumn 2002). Similarly, for reasons of manageability in the time available, contemporary history courses in European universities mainly focus on the period from the early twentieth century, examining still earlier periods when the topic requires it.

Approaches, Sources, and Methods in Contemporary History

Contemporary history may be pursued out of simple curiosity to explore and understand the recent past in all its dimensions, or in order to understand the origins and effects of a particular event or set of events or processes, sometimes for overtly political reasons such as to influence policy decisions, though often not. As the practice of contemporary history grew after 1945, it was much criticized on the grounds familiar since the nineteenth century, that the objectivity required of the professional historian was impossible toward events in the historian’s own lifetime, which might have touched her or his own existence. This implied that distance in time necessarily created an objectivity that was impossible in relation to recent events. This overlooked the passionate partisanship professional historians could display over many other themes, such as long past events like the English Civil War of the seventeenth century; the deep repugnance of many of them toward slavery and long past repressive acts by imperial powers; and partisan conflict over the impact of industrialization on working-class living standards such as that waged between Marxists, who took a doom-laded view, and their more optimistic opponents in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (Hobsbawm, 1964; Hartwell, 1961).

The first editors of the Journal of Contemporary History countered with the argument that ‘Distance in time … involves remoteness, lack of immediacy, difficulty in understanding the quality of life of a period that is hard to describe and define, but which may become as important as all the documents in the archive.’ Indeed there were those who argued, in relation to World War II, that only those who had been closely involved, as victims of perpetrators of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps or Japanese prisoner of war camps, could truly understand all dimensions of these experiences. These were not new observations. Alexis de Tocqueville, reflecting on the French Revolution commented that what contemporary writers:

know better than does posterity are the movements of opinion, the popular inclinations of their times, the vibrations of which they can still sense in their minds and hearts. The true traits of the principal persons and of their relationships, of the movements of the masses are often better described by witnesses than recorded by posterity. These are necessary details. Those close to them are better placed to trace the general history, the general causes, the grand movements of events, the spiritual currents which men who are further removed may no longer find since these things cannot be perceived from the memoirs. (Quoted in Schlesinger, 1967)

Or as George Santayana later put it:

It is not true that contemporaries misjudge a man. Competent contemporaries judge him . much better than posterity, which is composed of critics no less egotistical, and obliged to rely exclusively on documents easily misinterpreted. (Quoted in Schlesinger, 1967)

Also, for historians to believe that objective study of the contemporary world was impossible was, somewhat arrogantly, to dismiss the work of social scientists, who engaged in just that, and to refuse to recognize that historians could learn from their methods and experience. Indeed, the growth of the social sciences after World War II encouraged the spread of contemporary history, by making more widely accessible techniques for analysis of the recent past, previously neglected or scorned by historians, such as interviews, the use of contemporary documents such as letters, sources such as newspapers and such new resources as film and sound recordings. Contemporary history was frequently criticized by university historians on account of the limited availability for the recent past of the historical documents conventionally used by political historians. Political history relied predominantly upon government archives, which in most countries were closed for at least 40 or 50 years (in the case of the most sensitive for much longer or forever), as were many personal archives of prominent people, including monarchs and presidents. Since such sources were not accessible for the period of closure, it followed that, for conventional historians, contemporary history was impossible.

Nonetheless, the first editors of the Journal of Contemporary History were optimistic that

there are few major secrets in modern democracies that can be kept for longer than a year or two; the time lag in dictatorships is unfortunately considerably longer, but it seems doubtful whether anything really important can be kept secret for very long even there. In any case, more often than not, the contemporary historian of Europe or America in the sixties is more likely to be confronted with a surfeit of source material rather than to suffer from a lack of documentary evidence. (JCH: p. iii.)

Indeed, extensive government archives were themselves a relatively recent phenomenon, following the growth of large and effective bureaucracies in more developed countries in the later nineteenth century. For previous periods, documentary sources were often patchy, selective, and biased toward an elite, male minority whose papers survived and therefore might dictate possibly selective readings of the past. This view also overlooked the selective nature of government archives even in the more recent past. There was, and is, no means of knowing which sensitive papers might have been destroyed or withheld. Only in 2011 was it discovered that the British government withheld from public access, and stored secretly in the British countryside, 8000 shelves of documents concerning the British army’s maltreatment of insurgents during the independence struggles in Kenya in the 1950s. Under the then-prevailing 30- year rule, they should have been released to the National Archives in the 1980s. They came to light only when some aging survivors of British brutality sued the British government, successfully, in 2011, and because UK Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, passed only in 2000, permits requests for access to hidden documents (though these are not always agreed readily or at all). The furore that resulted when the existence of the documents was reluctantly revealed, was supported by many historians. This led the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, equally reluctantly, to reveal, in 2013, that it had a further 1.2 million files hidden in another country store, some going back at least to the Treaty of Paris of 1856 which ended the Crimean War, but too sensitive to release for over 150 years. It later became known that substantial numbers of documents had been destroyed, on the instruction of government ministers, to prevent material that ‘might embarrass government . police, military forces, public servants or others’ being revealed to post-independence governments (The National Archives, November 2013; The Guardian, 29 November 2013).

Such suppression by governments of shameful episodes in history, leading to pressure from historians for greater openness has not occurred only in Britain. To give just one example, Japanese governments have been very reluctant to respond to historians’ demands to inform schoolchildren about Japanese atrocities during World War II, especially in China. Furthermore, the museum commemorating the atomic devastation of Nagasaki in 1945, providing what appears to be the official view, gives notably little indication of Japanese war guilt, in contrast to the museum in Nanjing, China, which commemorates the well-attested Japanese massacre of that city in 1937.

All such revelations justify the suspicions of skeptical historians that we cannot rely on official archives to reveal all the truth about history, that historians of all periods must be wide ranging and inventive in their search for sources and be well aware that all historical findings, about any period, up to the present, are provisional and can be overturned by discovery of new sources and new research at any moment. The belief that historical research, in any time period, seeks objective, factual truth rather than being part of a process of gradually, partially, piecing together an understanding of the past, can no longer be sustained and very few historians would try. This applies as much to historians of the contemporary world as to all others.

Despite closures, over time more official documents have been opened at earlier stages than before, facilitating contemporary history. Franklin D. Roosevelt set an example in the United States by decreeing that his personal papers should be donated to the national archive after his death and be made quickly accessible. His successors followed his example, establishing Presidential archives that are no longer closed for a generation. Since the death of John F. Kennedy, Presidential archives have included interviews with prominent figures and observers of the period of office of the President in question.

FOI, the right of historians and others (often journalists or campaigners) to request access to documents falling within the designated period of closure has spread over a similar period. It was introduced by law in the United States in 1966. But it is only a partial blessing to historians. Requests can be refused and government departments have various means of evasion: in Britain, a request can be refused if it is deemed too costly to make the required search, as it frequently is. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice, which administers FOI, further refused to publish statistics of successful appeals against refusal on the grounds that this also would be too costly (Hansard, House of Lords, 6 November 2013). Furthermore, there is the very real danger that, as historians in Sweden have put it, FOI leads to ‘the emptying of the archive,’ to politicians and civil servants committing fewer sensitive issues to paper for fear of exposure (Kandiah, 2008). Sweden was the first country in the world to guarantee public access to government documents in its constitution of 1766. But, even in Sweden, legislators can deny access to specific documents. There is a right of appeal, but appeals are not invariably successful. Of course historians have never had access to past face-to-face conversations about government business, which might be crucially important, or, since the invention of the telephone, to communication by that means. Newer technology is creating further obstacles. Students of history since the 1990s may find surviving official sources dwindling ever faster as communications by e-mail and other forms of new technology are preserved imperfectly, if at all.

Such problems have made contemporary historians inventive in their use of sources. They have been assisted by the availability of a wider range of sources and helped as well as hindered by new technology. Oral history came widely into use as a direct response to the growth of social history in the 1970s, with its growing interest in the history of the everyday lives of ‘ordinary people’ and awareness that their experiences and opinions rarely surfaced in official documents. A pioneer was the American Studs Terkel (a popular, not a university, historian, among his many other talents) who used oral history to explore social inequalities in the United States, published as Division Street America (1966), Hard Times. An Oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working (1974). The journal Oral History started in Britain in 1972. Oral history drew on the experience of sociologists and anthropologists for interviewing techniques, greatly assisted by new technology, as increasingly portable recording machines became available from the 1960s. Again, it faced the skepticism of conventional historians that individuals were less likely to tell ‘the truth’ in an interview than in a written document. This overstated the reliability of many documents as well as the gullibility of historians, who learned to interpret interviews as skeptically as any document and, as with documents, to seek corroborating sources for any assertion, while recognizing that the story presented by an interviewee represented one version of the events in question, which required careful interpretation. (Perks and Thomson, 1998).

The recent past has created ever newer media representing aspects of the contemporary world – film, television, sound recording – which demand new skills for their interpretation, as do the study of the press, memoirs, letters, diaries, and other personal documents, which it has become more common to use by political as well as social historians. New media will present new challenges to future contemporary historians, and others as they recede into a new past. Contemporary history must continue to be inventive, as it has always been while keeping up with an ever-changing present.

Bibliography:

Barraclough, G., 1966. An Introduction to Contemporary History. Penguin, Harmondsworth, England.

Barraclough, G., 1946. Origins of Modern Germany. Blackwell, Oxford.

Berg, M., 1996. A Woman in History. Eileen Power 1889–1940. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Bourgeois, E., 1886. L’histoire contemporaine et la science de l’histoire. Armand Colin, Paris.

Croce, B., 1917. Teoria e Storia della Storiografia. Laterza, Bari, Italy.

Croce, B., 1808. Edinburgh Review 12.

Edgerton, D., 2006. The Shock of the Old. Technology and Global History since 1900. Profile, London.

Floud, R., Thane, P., 2005. Sociology and history: partnership, rivalry or mutual incomprehension? In: Halsey, A.H., Runciman, W.G. (Eds.), British Sociology. Seen from without and within. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 57–69.

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Schlesinger, A., 1967. ‘On the Writing of Contemporary History’ the Atlantic Magazine. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/1967/03/

Terkel, Studs, 1966. Division Street America. The New Press, New York.

Terkel, Studs, 1970. Hard Times. An Oral History of the Great Depression. The New Press, New York.

Terkel, Studs, 1974. Working. The New Press, New York.

The Guardian, 29 November 2013. Revealed: The Bonfire of Papers at the End of Empire. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/29/revealed-bonfire-papers-empire

The National Archives, 2013. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/colonies-and-dependencies/

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Wrigley, E.W., Schofield, R.W., 1989. The Population History of England 1541–1871: A Reconstruction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.