Where the magic happens in your writing: my takeaways.
Draft 1 - shit (idea stage)
Draft 2 - plugging narrative gaps
Draft 3 - write into it more because gaps lead to more gaps, some gaping
Draft 4 - frustration, because it is not coming together the way you want it to. 1/n
People say there’s no magic in books but the fact that you can string words together to create a series of visions in someone else’s brain is still our greatest achievement as a species.
There are still people who ask “what’s the point of reading” and the best answer remains “because it’s FUN.” Fiction is a pleasure. Learning is a pleasure. Reading is not a chore but our greatest escape from the pressures & perils of living.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bibliophile in possession of a great number of books must be in want of a bookcase-lined room with a rolling ladder.
For this Women's Day, I asked my friend and collaborator @thatwritestuff to write a guest post for my website. She wrote about our friendship: built on mutual introversion, the writing life, and love for the written word.
https://t.co/t6qIV2Z9vl
Ugh just read a Substack article by a lit mag editor that I'm almost certain was edited with AI. The style is so common:
* short, punchy sentences
* "This, not that" construction. ("It's not a rejection; it's a sign the process is working...")
* Things in threes. ("Not a no, not a rejection, not a closed door. A window to something better...")
I cannot say it enough: writers & editors, please stop relying on AI to help you edit your stuff.
AI strips you of your own voice & makes you sound like a machine.
It's utterly depressing to read such pieces from writers and lit mag editors.
I’m rather fond of quirky old fashioned words. Here are some of my favourites:
Skedaddle
Nincompoop
Highfalutin
Malarkey
Comeuppance
Skullduggery
Kerfuffle
Flummoxed
Thingamajig
Tomfoolery
Shenanigans
Hoodwink
Blethering
Hullabaloo
Curmudgeon
Whippersnapper
Bamboozled
Tech companies made a choice to get people hooked on social media when they were kids, knowing it increases loneliness & depression. Now they're selling products, like AI companions, to cure the very despair they caused. Real joy is found in books, in friends, in logging off.
Ray Bradbury once said "Get passionate about ideas. Cram your head full of images. Stay off the internet & all that crap. Read all the great books. Read all the great poetry. See all the great films. Fill your life with metaphors. And then explode."
I think about this every day.
The climax of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) unfolds on Halloween night, when Scout and Jem are attacked while walking home from a school pageant. This scene introduces Robert Duvall in his first credited role as the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley.
"Hey, Boo."
Inspired by @gregmushen I have been doing 2-5 minutes of cardio every 30 minutes (almost) every day for about 6 weeks and trying to get 10,000 steps. Here are my observations:
I hope every P.G. Wodehouse fan gets to see this passage 😄🤞🏻
(Includes a delightful description of an Autumn morning, an opposition to lunching on raw carrots, and the most terrific word in 'rannygazoo': an old American slang term for a scheme, or a foolish carrying-on.)
Hear me out. Scraping papaya entrails is the existential metaphor for why some people lean towards the concept of salvation in midlife.
Because no one wants another lifetime of dealing with *that*.