wrmbooks

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Always write the thing.

If you have to ask yourself, should I write the thing? The answer is yes.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S BEEN WRITTEN BEFORE?

You didn't write your version of it. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF NO ONE WANTS TO READ IT?

You want to read it. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S DUMB?

Lots of things are dumb. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S SUCH A POPULAR SHIP/TROPE/GENRE/FANDOM THAT IT'LL NEVER GET SEEN?

You'll see it. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S CORNY?

Corn is delicious. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S PROBLEMATIC?

People got problems. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT?

The internets has lots of resources. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF PEOPLE THINK LESS OF ME FOR IT?

They would have found a reason to think less of you anyway. Write the thing.

BUT WHAT IF--

Shh, shh. Stop prevaricating. I love you. Just write the thing, okay? The answer is always to write the thing. Write the thing.

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so true

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a sluge 😔

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I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us! Write it for children, if that’s the way you can give yourself permission to do it. Write it for your ancestors. Use any narrating voice you like. If you’re familiar with a dialect or accent, use it instead of vanilla English. Be very noisy, or be hushed. Try to reproduce the action in the jerky or flowing movement of the words. Make what happens happen in the sounds of the words, the rhythms of the sentences. Have fun, cut loose, play around, repeat, invent, feel free.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering The Craft

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These are impressive, by author Steve Erickson. A small sample, but please go and read the whole:

WE DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF CONFUSING AN IMPERFECT CHOICE FOR AN UNCLEAR ONE Any dispassionate observer can reasonably conclude Biden should drop out of the campaign. It’s not ageist to suggest that though he’s not too old for the job at the moment, he will be sometime in the next four years, and from a political standpoint his age now so permeates the collective perception of him that nobody can see him straight; his poll numbers are almost perversely at odds with everything about his job performance. But presently every indication is that Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, and sometime soon it will be time for the rest of us to just shut up about it. Whatever one thinks of his age or Israel policy or Afghanistan withdrawal or anything else, he’s still the only one of the two prospective nominees who will defend your right to call him unfit for the job. Now and then a choice can be at once profoundly imperfect and manifestly clear anyway. WE DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF DEUS EX MACHINA While wishing Trump to be accountable before the law, we must accept that any trial or decision by a higher court is unlikely to spare the country what it karmically doesn’t deserve to be spared: a national political referendum on who we are as a people. Otherwise Trump will evermore in the eyes of history — not to mention his supporters, who will find a way to believe it in any case — be martyr to a systemic technicality. Trump needs to be rejected electorally by every single patriot who can drag her- or himself to the polls to do so. Which brings us to the final resolution....

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the demons in hell must be having a riot there's all these rumors about crowley and aziraphale dating and allegedly theres a picture of them together and then 90 years later you hear that a demon and angel ran off to alpha centauri and you're like oh must be crowley and aziraphale they've been a thing for ages but NO its your boss beelzebub (ex boss now, apparently) and heaven's supreme archangel fucking gabriel. like how do you go back to work after hearing this

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Available as an open-access PDF via the publisher or @jstor, this sourcebook takes in a wide range of genres to look at histories of disability in medieval Europe. You can also get a hard copy for under $30 if you feel like supporting an indie publisher. Any royalties are donated to causes related to disability justice.

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The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

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Love how holmes is clearly very good at his work, but he’s good because he puts the effort in. People are like ‘wow holmes you’re a genius’ and he’s like honestly not really please just read my fucking monograph about cigarettes and you’d have come to the same conclusion and they’re like ‘wow I just don’t know how you do it’ and he’s like please for the love of fuck I am telling you exactly how I did it and how you can do it too I am begging you to listen to me and do some research

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Sherlock Holmes will be allowed to respect women in 420 days

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Don't Write What You Know, Write Genuinely

                One of the most common pieces of writing advice other than “show don’t tell” is “write what you know”. It’s said so much that I think it’s lost a lot of meaning, and people tend to only focus on the literal meaning of ‘write about things that you know about’, which would completely erase fantasy, sci-fi, or just about any slightly fantastical fiction.

                So rather, you should think of it as ‘write genuinely’. Connect with yourself to connect with your readers, create emotional ties to your work, write with empathy, write what you know.

                There’s three things we can do to help connect us with concepts/places/experiences we don’t know, that’ll allow you to basically write whatever you want. Here’s what I do:             

Research

Anything you can learn about what you’re writing about can come in handy. I tend to avoid scholarly articles or Wikipedia when researching because I find having a list of facts doesn’t help as much as having a library of experiences. If I’m writing about California but have never been there, I could learn that rain is pretty uncommon and temperature averages however much during the summer, or I could read about someone talking about their childhood summers in heavy heat and icecream that melts faster than they can eat it.

                Essentially, unless you’re writing something with the intention of educating others—don’t worry as much about the facts, look for more about the feelings. Blogs, vlogs, personal journal entries, and other pieces of fiction is where it’s at.

2. Substitution

This is a method I learned in directing (created by Lee Strasberg) that’s a little controversial when using it with actors, but since we’re using it for ourselves it’s fine. Essentially, if actors are attempting a scene about a situation they’ve never been in before (I’ll use the example of moving out for the first time) the director will ask them to recall a situation with similar emotion even if the situation was different.

                So in our example, if you haven’t moved out yet but are writing a scene where your character is leaving home for the first time, you might be able to emotionally connect to that scene through recalling the emotions you went through the first time you went to sleep-over camp. Or the time your parents left you alone for the weekend for the first time. Anything with the similar emotions you imagine the situation would bring up (fear, anxiety, but a sense of freedom, excitement, unsureness).

                The reason why this is a bit of a controversial technique in directing is because asking actors to recall or share painful memories to get into a scene can be very upsetting or uncomfortable for them, so if you’re a director, be cautious with this!

3. Experiencing

Of course, this all comes back to what we talked about a couple weeks ago. Experiencing to know more. The more you know, the better you can write genuinely about it—so go out and gather some unique experiences!

                Good luck!

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this should be a tweet but I don’t want to deal with people on Twitter. everyone stop having every character in your fiction talk like their goal is to get an A in therapy. 

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everytime I see you on my activity page I'm like

I hope you are well 💜

🥹🥹🥹 think you for thanking of me. I'm very well! And i hope to be coming out of hibernation soon!!

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I meant to make this meme ages ago when pride month was still on but yeah gé (pronounced gay) is the Irish for a goose.

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happy pride month to lgbt people who are really boring. we deserve love too