Helpful Reminders + Ways To Support Abortion Seekers In The US Right Now

Hey btw, here's a piece of life advice:

If you know what you'd have to do to solve a problem, but you just don't want to do it, your main problem isn't the problem itself. Your problem is figuring out how to get yourself to do the solution.

If your problem is not eating enough vegetables, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make vegetables stop being yucky". If your problem is not getting enough exercise, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make exercise stop sucking ass". You're not supposed to just be doing things that are awful and suck all the time forever, you're supposed to figure out how to make it stop being so awful all the time.

I used to hate wearing sunscreen because it's sticky and slimy and disgusting and it feels bad and it smells bad, so I neglected to wear it even if I needed to. Then I found one that isn't like that, and doesn't smell and feel gross. Problem solved.

There is no correct way to live that's just supposed to suck and feel bad all the time. You're allowed to figure out how to make it not suck so bad.

42+ ways to fix a story in progress

(Also posted on: 42+ ways to fix a story)

Here is a list of (some) ways to fix a draft or story in progress. I started it in the observation journal when I was struggling with some story changes.

In summary, these can be reduced to intensify; focus/tighten; swap/invert. But in a tight spot, specifics are often more useful. And making the list was also important, because it reassured me I knew all these techniques, and had used them before, and should calm down.

List 10 terrible endings (adapted from a Helen Marshall exercise), or just 20 endings. Or 100…

Re-outline it

Map it onto another story (I like to quick-outline fairy tales until one resonates, and then identify the parts to strengthen)

Fill it out as a synopsis questionnaire (I used to use Sue Dennard’s 1-page synopsis to trap story ideas)

Ask — what is the story behind the story?

Change the place

Change the era

Genderflip main character

Genderflip everyone

Change the genre

Change the adjectives

Describe the story in one emotion, & align/adjust

Do the same for each scene/section (see also three moods)

Flip (main) character’s personality (quiet to loud, etc)

What happens after

What happens before

What’s happening at the same time

It’s a metaphor for: ___

Pick/change emotional note for end

Scene-map

Match to 3-act structure

Match to 5-act structure

Give characters a preoccupation or secret

Start it later

Start it earlier

End it earlier

End it later

Map it onto a song

Blow something up

Make everything worse

Change [define & intensify] the aesthetic

Explain the reasons

Invert

Make it/ the weak bits A Whole Thing

Make it/ the weak bits a Good/Bad Thing

Make it/ the weak bits The Shape of the World

Tell from a non-obvious point of view (see also: by whom and to whom, and some less common points of view)

Change the type of character in the role (think archetypes and stereotypes)

Change drama – pose (?)

Change motifs

Change sentence structure

Change form, shape (e.g. list, pastiche, non-fiction)

And to these I’d add:

change voice, and

change age.

I might add more as I go. But in the meantime: hey, my debut collection of short stories, KINDLING, is now out from Small Beer Press (in the USA, and coming soon to Australia). It includes the new story “Annie Coal”. And if you look closely at the journal page above, you’ll see that was the story I was editing when I made this list.

Crazyheadcomics

Recreated Van Goghs ‘Wheatfield with cypresses’ 🌿 by Maybemysunrise

Friendly reminder to not punish yourself for creating. 

people think they shouldn't vote as a protest or whatever because they've been raised on boycotts. which do sometimes work.

boycotts deprive the target of money.

not voting does not deprive the government of money.

it does, however, deprive you of power.

it's not like a boycott.

And if that's too much, take it breath by breath.

the key to surviving grad school (also maybe life but definitely grad school) is to pick a side quest every few months or so. something that brings you joy and that you can get better at over time, independent of whether or not your research or classes are going well. put your need for academic validation to use in a non-academic setting and everything will feel less dire and you will learn you are more than your work

Ilia fucking Malinin’s world record breaking free skate