Brian Van Reet

Husband to one, dad to two, writing books for you, doing jiu jitsu, just for me, and practicing radio silence for goodness sake. I was a soldier once, and dumb.

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

The Wall Street Journal called SPOILS "the finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American." Did you read it? No? That's cool, we can still be friends, but my chances of ever getting another book deal thank you in advance for your continued support:

https://t.co/6yO16Oy8ya

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Science progresses one funeral at a time.

- Planck's principle

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Happy Veterans Day to everyone but the warmongers, chickenhawks, and defense contractor executives hiding sequestered off-world technologies!

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

The Entangled app by @AdamsLab is a very cool idea, worth putting on your phone if you're interested in consciousness as a quantum system.

https://t.co/7g6V6w7Qq7

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

This is how we turn humans into the willowy hairless gray alien AI-controlled drones of the future.

Who will then have to time travel back to last year (or before) to fortify their starved pale bodies by eating young pre-protein powder-ban gym rats.

See how it works?

(Kidding!)

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

@MattGallagher0 My daughter is a vegetarian and loved Hatchet. Hatred of this book is a strong indicator of a silly sensibility.

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

@elonmusk @tetsuoai There are literally tens of thousands of credible reports, if not more.

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

If you love writing short stories, do so. If you're writing short stories because you want to write novels someday, start your novel now. #Writing

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

A minority of Americans (49%) now believe all UFO sightings are explainable by earthly phenomena.

37% believe at least some are aliens.

13% have no opinion on the question!

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

If you're struggling to make progress, give yourself permission to be sloppy with the first draft.

Don't eat your own tail. Stop editing yesterday's work.

Move forward and build momentum until you reach the story’s end. Then backtrack, rewrite and revise. #WritingTips

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

Here at last is my new book, out next June, but available to order now. Please, please do. It's the story of an uncanny journey across a sublime but troubled country, chance meeting by chance meeting, refecting on what we've lost and what we've kept and where I feel, in my deepest self, we're going. It's the strangest, most soul-searching story I've ever written, purely devoted to life and truth and spirit.

Your preorders will mean everything to its success.

Homesick: A Drive Across a Dazed America https://t.co/dOwRLBymiJ

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

The easiest way to tell a story is to know where it ends before you begin. There'll be surprises en route but it's finite, like following a map.

The harder way is to wander the wilderness, searching for a lost city of gold. Maybe you're lucky and find it. Maybe. #WritingTips

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

If your argument against psychic stuff is, "But science!" ENTANGLED MINDS by @DeanRadin is excellent on how quantum physics makes the seemingly impossible, possible.

https://t.co/eH0gWF4krK

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Conflict, handled badly, makes a banal story.

But a dilemma with high stakes is inherently interesting.

Conflict is commonly resolved by a character making a hard choice, often one the reader can tell is apparently correct.

With dilemma, there is no good choice. #WritingTips

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

If you missed my review of CHERRY, it's here:

https://t.co/17NR7YJuHY

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Nico Walker (author of CHERRY) has a new novel coming out next year. DEATH OF A CLOWN. Not a war novel. "Professional clown Eugene Lovecraft is once again down on his luck." I'll read it.

https://t.co/jpW63eZUud

[Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates]

Toni Morrison was a unique voice, a poet in prose. equating Toni Morrison with a generic person of color is well-intentioned but like equating James Joyce with a generic Irishman or William Faulkner with a generic Mississippian man of his time---no, no, & no. great writers are masters of language & their visions transcend their identities.
however, it is not wrong to suggest that the writer becomes a unique expression, of sorts, of their "people"--Joyce empowered by his Irishness, Faulkner by giving up "large" subjects & focusing on a single mythic county in Mississippi. loving a writer is always good no matter the reason or reasons.

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

@StevenVolynets Facing the fear is a lot of the draw for me. Lost the finals match to a very large and friendly blue belt. But he didn’t tap me, so as in life, I count mere survival as a minor victory.

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Hard-fought Saturday morning, among friends

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

@sadarlo1 Unpopular among whom?

[Brian Van Reet @brianvanreet]

Literature is alive. The genre called Literary Fiction is death rattling.