Jonathan Gunson. Writer

Writer & Illustrator

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

Being a good writer... is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet. #amwriting #kidlit

[The Royal Family @RoyalFamily]

Our very special guests! 🧁☕️

The Queen has hosted a tea party for children supported by Dreams and Wishes, a charity dedicated to helping seriously ill children and their families build precious memories.

🫖🥪 After travelling by horse-drawn carriage from The Royal Mews, the children sat down to sandwiches and cakes with Her Majesty at Clarence House.

The Queen’s Equerry, Major Treasure, also set the children to task with a treasure hunt… leading to the stash of chocolate coins hidden under the Grenadier Guards’ hats! 💂🪎

Dreams and Wishes was established in 2011 and is entirely volunteer-run, with a dedicated team committed to making every child’s wish a reality.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@sungirl_leo Not the easiest road for sure.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

This Writing Life.

[Supersonic Redhead🛫 @Supersonic_Red]

Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, ‘Casino Royale’ dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.

Happy Birthday
Ian Fleming

People often ask me how to start writing a book. My answer is always the same. Start writing.

Do not sit there trying to perfect every sentence while you’re still creating the story. That’s how many people talk themselves out of finishing altogether. Write first. Keep going. Edit later.

Even Fleming understood that looking back too soon can kill momentum and confidence. The first draft is not supposed to be perfect. It’s supposed to exist.

You cannot edit a blank page.

Good morning-

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Finnish scientists trucked in real forest dirt and grass and laid it over the gravel at four daycare yards. They let the kids dig around in it for a month. The blood tests came back with changes the researchers hadn’t expected to see so fast or so clear.

The study ran at ten daycares in two Finnish cities with 75 kids aged three to five. Four of the yards got the forest treatment: about a tennis court worth of soil and grass laid over the gravel, plus planters and peat blocks the kids could dig and climb on. Three others stuck with their normal gravel yards. The last three were daycares where the kids were already visiting real forests every day.

After one month, the variety of bacteria living on the kids’ skin shot up, and the kind that helps train the skin’s immune defenses jumped the most. Their gut bacteria started to look like the gut bacteria of the forest-visiting kids. Their blood showed more of the immune cells whose job is to keep the body from freaking out at harmless stuff like pollen and peanuts, and overall inflammation dropped. The kids on the plain gravel yards showed none of this.

Childhood asthma in the US doubled between 1980 and 1995. Food allergies in kids jumped 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, then jumped another 50 percent between 2007 and 2021. And peanut allergies in one-year-olds tripled between 2001 and 2017.

The Finnish researchers think one of the reasons is simple: kids today don’t get dirty enough. 37 percent of American preschoolers now spend an hour or less outside on a normal weekday. Their immune systems are getting trained in environments stripped of the bacteria humans have always lived around.

Aki Sinkkonen, who led the study, put it in plain words: “It would be best if children could play in puddles and everyone could dig organic soil.” The Finnish government is now helping pay for daycares across the country to make the same changes.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@GrizzyB92 Yes, it does give one cause to pause for a moment, then realize that, while all families bicker and scrap, under that shallow surface they all love each other madly.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

The Family Of Writers

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@SteveLinder1 @dicentra33 "Grocer's Apostrophe". I shall stash that gem away for later use thank you.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

The curse of high apostrophe intelligence.
#editors #authorslife

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@JamesRoderickB Charles Penrose ... that was was while ago.

[Ethel Braithwaite @Ethelbrait1941]

Never stop saying "dozen" and "half dozen". Never stop using the word you read in an old novella. Never stop using your regional jargon. Don't succumb to an internationalized English stripped of its whimsy and romanticism in the name of streamlining global commerce.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@sottovoceinora 😆

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@DontSayThatDad @OldHollowTree A great pity that, but will probably improve.

[Old Hollow Tree @OldHollowTree]

I am writing a reflection on May right now. Out of curiosity, I popped it into an AI detector and it came out 22.3% AI-written despite being original and typed by hand.

I don't really know what to do about this.

It bothers me, it makes me sad. These tools are flawed.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@FiatManifestum @Martin_5318008 Solid argument

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@OopaliOperajita 'Leading' ... Jeeez!

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@Martin_5318008 @FiatManifestum True. 🤣

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@FiatManifestum @Martin_5318008 Nah let's dumb it all down. (Left the comma out after 'yeah' and now 'nah' - we don't need one if we follow your rules.)

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@MargeeMcC 😅

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@FiatManifestum @Martin_5318008 It wouldn't 'be' dumbed down.
And 'it's' is not a possessive.

[Jonathan Gunson. Writer @JonathanGunson]

@FiatManifestum @Martin_5318008 Yeah let's dumb it all down.