Fabruary Eight's Fabulous Books

Fan fiction is one of the great unsung popular literary movements of the past 50 years, but finding what you’re looking for online can involve sorting through mountains of inadequately-tagged and frequently dodgy text. Archive of Our Own makes it easy: it’s the most carefully curated, sanely organized, easily browsable and searchable nonprofit collection of fan fiction on the web, and it serves all fandoms equally, from The A-Team to Zachary Quinto and beyond.

Archive of Our Own makes TIME’s Best Websites of 2013 (via janoda)

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verity @ tumblr: offended by rank OBJECTIFICATION of writers

agrammar:

There is this thing currently going around tumblr about why dating a writer is good. I think it’s nice that this thing is going around, because I like writers, and lots of us could use more dates. As a writer who has dated people, though — including other writers — I would like to offer some correctives to this list.

The items in bold are the alleged reasons to date a writer. I have replaced the original commentary with my bleak corrective, in lightface.

Writers will romance you with words. We probably won’t. We write for ourselves or for money and by the time we’re done we’re sick of it. If we have to write you something there’s a good chance it’ll take us two days and we’ll be really snippy and grumpy about the process.

Writers will write about you. You don’t want this. Trust me.

Writers will take you to interesting events. No. We will not. We are busy writing. Leave us alone about these “interesting events.” I know one person who dates a terrific writer. He goes out alone. She is busy writing.

Writers will remind you that money doesn’t matter so much. Yes. We will do this by borrowing money from you. Constantly.

Writers will acknowledge you and dedicate things to you. A better way to ensure this would be to become an agent. That way you’d actually make money off of talking people through their neuroses.

Writers will offer you an interesting perspective on things. Yes. Constantly. While you’re trying to watch TV or take a shower. You will have to listen to observations all day long, in addition to being asked to read the observations we wrote about when you were at work and unavailable for bothering. It will be almost as annoying as dating a stand-up comedian, except if you don’t find these observations scintillating we will think you’re dumb, instead of uptight.

Writers are smart. The moment you realize this is not true, your relationship with a writer will develop a significant problem.

Writers are really passionate. About writing. Not necessarily about you. Are you writing?

Writers can think through their feelings. So don’t start an argument unless you’re ready for a very, very lengthy explication of our position, our feelings about your position, and what scenes from our recent fiction the whole thing is reminding us of.

Writers enjoy their solitude. So get lost, will you?

Writers are creative. This is why we have such good reasons why you should lend us $300 and/or leave us alone, we’re writing.

Writers wear their hearts on their sleeves. Serious advice: if you meet a writer who’s actually demonstrative, be careful.

Writers will teach you cool new words. This is possibly true! We may also expect you to remember them, correct your grammar, and look pained after reading mundane notes you’ve left for us.

Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for you. Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for writing. Are you writing? Get in line, then.

Writers can find 1000 ways to tell you why they like you. By the 108th you’ll be pretty sure we’re just making them up for fun.

Writers communicate in a bunch of different ways. But mostly writing. Hope you don’t like talking on the phone — that shit is rough.

Writers can work from anywhere. So you might want to pass on that tandem bike rental when you’re on vacation.

Writers are surrounded by interesting people. Every last one of whom is imaginary.

Writers are easy to buy gifts for. This is true. Keep it in mind when your birthday rolls around, okay?

Writers are sexy. No argument. Some people think this about heroin addicts, too.

Alternate solution: it will be pretty much like dating anyone else who likes to do a particular thing, you know?

Anybody who thinks writers wear their hearts on their sleeves has, I guarantee you, never met a writer.

(Source: 52hearts)

1 week ago -

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After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be. (via oliviacirce)

(via chaoticallyclev)

1 week ago -

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Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

(via writingbitsandbobs)

(via short-and-bossy)

2 weeks ago -

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$other-wordly: pronunciation | \zEn-‘zUkt\ submitted by | sehnsucht [thewitchnebula] and Life Ruining via the BBC [liferuiningviabbc]submit words | herewith thanks to | c.s. lewis$

other-wordly:

pronunciation | \zEn-‘zUkt\
submitted by | sehnsucht [thewitchnebula] and Life Ruining via the BBC [liferuiningviabbc]
submit words | here
with thanks to | c.s. lewis

(via kivrinengle)

2 weeks ago -

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You want tangible, social benefits to writing fiction? There are people walking around today because other people wrote words that spoke to them. That’ll do.

- Warren Ellis (via jennirl)

Mmhmm.

(via harperperennial)

2 weeks ago -

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nevver:

Day Jobs of the Poets

High five, Wallace Stevens!

(via gyzym)

2 weeks ago -

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Coralie Bickford-Smith holds exhibition in Malmö, Sweden

Some news just seem to good to be true, yet are. This Saturday, Bickford-Smith’s design will go on display in an exhibition in Rosengård, Malmö titled Yta är allt (“Surface is Everything”) that will run until October 31st. For the opening weekend, the designer herself will be present and give two lectures to the public at both Rosengård Library as well as the City Library of Malmö. As you can tell from the picture above (source here), special artwork has also been created specifically for this show.

I’ll be attending both lectures and the opening this weekend, after a stressful morning of trying to find train tickets I still can’t believe it! I am absolutely thrilled about seeing Bickford-Smith’s art and especially about hearing her speak. That Rosengård, a close to infamous suburb of Malmö was chosen as the spot is also really interesting. Expect some reports at the beginning of next week!

The website for the display with dates and times can be found here (in Swedish).

3 weeks ago -

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deinfidel:

Step-by-step DIY guide to making your own bound book here!

How to make a really unique and exclusive first First Edition of your future bestseller who you can post-fame and success sell on E-bay for thousands of dollars… or just how to make your book an actual book! Amazing whichever you chose.

4 weeks ago -

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covenmouse:

Y!Writer 5

What is yWriter?

yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. It will not write your novel for you, suggest plot ideas or perform creative tasks of any kind. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman!

yWriter5 is free to download and use, but you’re encouraged to register your copy if you find it useful.

If you’re just embarking on your first novel a program like yWriter may seem like overkill. I mean, all you have to do is type everything into a word processor! Sure, but wait until you hit 20,000 words, with missing scenes and chapters, notes all over your desk, characters and locations and plot points you’ve just added and which need to be referenced earlier … it becomes a real struggle. Now imagine that same novel at 40,000 or 80,000 words! No wonder most first-time writers give up.

(Although yWriter was designed for novels, enterprising users have created their own translation files to customise the program to work with plays, non-fiction and even sermons.)

What’s so special about yWriter?

I [Simon Haynes, the program author] really struggled with my first novel because I wrote slabs of text into a big word processor file and I just couldn’t make sense of the whole thing at once. No real overview, no easy jumping from scene to scene, nothing.

Next I tried saving each chapter to an individual file, with descriptive filenames, but moving scenes between files was a nuisance and I still couldn’t get an overview of the whole thing (or easily search for one word amongst 32 files)

My last attempt to use Word involved saving every scene as an individual file - e.g. Chapter 01 Scene 01 - Hal Spacejock Gets a Job.doc. That was fantastic until I decided to move one scene three chapters ahead, and had to manually rename all the files. Then I decided to put it back again! I could never remember which of the 200+ files contained a note I was looking for either.

As a programmer I’m used to dealing with projects broken into source files and modules, and I never lose track of my code. I decided to apply the same working method to my novels … and yWriter was the result.

I realize Word, OpenOffice and other modern word processors have outlining features, but they don’t have snapshot backups to sequential files like yWriter does. Roll back scenes to where they were half an hour ago, or re-read a version from four months ago - yWriter stores them all, automatically.

————————————————————————————————————————-

^—all the above is c/p’ed from the main website.

I just really wanted to share this with others who might be in need of a really, super useful and FREE writing program to help them keep track of their longer works of fiction. While I love using programs like google Docs, and do still use it for my roughs, Y!writer is really helpful to the editing process in being able to easily drag and drop scenes around wherever you want them, or navigate quickly through huge backlogs of material.

It also allows you to create tags that let you know what characters are in each scenes, where important items turn up, what locations you’re at—and will even run reports to see how many instances you’re using of particular words. Best of all, you can easily export the entire project into a word doc, pdf, or (in beta, i think) ebook.

If you haven’t checked this out, it may be worth a shot.

I haven’t tried this out yet but man, this sounds awesome! Having your novel-in-progress in a organised digital pile of notes and scraps can put a real downer or creativity and mostly productivity but a clean up like this can really help (not to mentioning how it would affect the editing)! It might be worth a try for those brave people among doing Camp NaNoWriMo now, let’s give a boost during the final week!

4 weeks ago -

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