From the Purple Notebook

Hello, Cecilia here. I started this blog to motivate myself to create more.

[mrgaretcarter]

Prissy Andrews’ growth

[colemckenzies]

- This incident is very different. - The only difference is that you found me worthy of defense. And now you’re hanging Josie out to dry because she’s not your daughter.

[chibird]

[chibird]

Downtime is important! You can’t be focused and working all the time- resting and relaxing actually help make you more productive in the long run! Bringing back this reminder from 2016! 

[on-poetry]

A list of things that every english major, ever, has heard:

so you wanna be an english teacher?

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

Hi duke! Re: amazon. I work in publishing, specifically in sales. I sell to small independent stores mostly, and so many have been angry to see how much books are being sold for on amazon. To the point that the wholesale cost we offer them is about the same as they can buy on amazon. It’s so sad, and you just have to hope that people will support their local businesses.

Yep. At the Publishing Institute way back in 2014 everyone talked about Amazon like it was the Antichrist and having seen what it does to brick and mortar stores, authors, and the industry at large–both as an author and a bookseller–I have to agree with them. (And the really insidious part is how far its reach goes. For instance, people are always surprised to learn that Amazon owns Book Depository.) And what a lot of people don’t realize is that Amazon is actually losing money on all the books it sells at a fraction of the publisher’s price; the reason they can afford to do that is because they sell so many other things that the loss doesn’t actually hurt them because guess what? They’re not a bookstore. They don’t care about books and they don’t care what their price-gouging tactics are doing to an industry that actually does care about books. They’re forcing publishers to put out garbage they know will sell while making it much harder for them to take chances on new authors or market the midlist authors they already have, because a publisher can’t make up for lost profit with a million other products. (Not to mention, Amazon isn’t paying editors and designers and publicists and all the other people who bring a book into the world. Publishers have expenses which Amazon does not, because Amazon is basically online WalMart, doing everything as cheaply as possible regardless of human or industry impact.) Tl;dr Amazon hurts everyone in the reading community, whether they realize it or not. 

[badsciencejokes]

…I almost killed myself

I put on my sunglasses, to hide my swollen eyes, over my tears. I cried all my makeup off. Went inside to have a milkshake. I don’t know why. I wanted something to drink as I figured out what I would do. I got a soda and a milkshake. Medium. The cashier looked at me and with a line around the corner of the counter he rushed away from the counter “Hold on “ he yelled to a coworker.

I filled my soda and went back and saw him looking all over. I go up and he gets close and says “I made it a large”.

That was seriously enough for me not to do it. His kindness. Someone went out of their way and as I went back in my car to cry I realized I could muster through a few other days. A few more weeks. Then I came down from that panicky high of anxiety, depression, and pain. I finished my shake. And it was enough time to let me feel better. I… I’m alive. I’ll make it through.

Try and be nice today. Tomorrow. Something as much as a smile. It helped so much.

Thank you man at McDonalds.

The milkshake saved my life

[blackheartseverywhere]

I hope you all can read this and remember to be kind

[the-quiet-priestess]

The smallest of gestures can save a life. My Mum answered her phone when I called and I am alive today because of that.

[badsciencejokes]

I’m glad you’re here.

It’s a phone call, a milkshake, a friend.

[badsciencejokes]

I feel like I shouldn’t keep reblogging this but when I do more people see what kindness can do…. I don’t know. Love everyone as yourself.

[nunyabizni]

Nah, keep rebloging it. It gives hope.

[evilerthanthou]

walked sobbing around a city once wearing a summer dress in mid-september thunder and rain. basically dragged myself into LUSH as the smell of the store always made me smile. the shop was empty and dead due to the weather, just this blonde short woman behind the counter who smiled at me. i stared at her feet and asked ‘do you have anything for people who are scared a lot?’ (i was so out of it i had no clue). she showed me two bath bombs, one pink and one blue, and said both were good - i chose the pink, paid for it and left. i then sat at a bus stop clutching the LUSH bag in one arm and my prescription meds in the other - i’d lied and ordered a refill so i could just drift away with sleeping pills. when the bus arrived and i was out of the rain, i decided to have another look at my bath bomb, smell it and what not. opened my bag and saw she’d put the blue one in there for me as well and written on the receipt ‘feel better soon :) hope you like x’. 

no one had ever been so selflessly kind to me before, i didn’t know what to do with it except hang around long enough to use the other bath bomb. 

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

Actually I’m going to reblog this again because of the truth of the inverse: think of any time you have been casually cruel or petty to someone for humor or because you weren’t in a great mood. 

The power of small gestures goes both ways.

[yesterdaysprint]

Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, July 9, 1920

[dont-do-murder]

When I’m his wife again~

Bertha’s Attic Song - Disney Princess Jane Eyre Parody - Sinead Persaud (Apr. 28, 2014)

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

“Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts. What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have.”

— Mark Vonnegut, introduction to Armageddon in Retrospect (via m-l-rio)

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

*curtsies* I’m starting my gap year soon and finally have the time to widen my literary repertoire outside of school assignments. What would you recommend I read? I’m open to any form, genre and style

*Curtsies* I’d recommend you read what you want to read. It’s a very rare time in life that you’re free to follow your own curiosity, and I can’t even tell you how much you will miss that luxury when you no longer have it. So instead of reading some random person’s list of recs, I’d use this time to read what’s caught your eye, what you’re interested in, what you always meant to read but never got around to, etc. If you’re planning on going back to school or work (which it sounds like you are) there will be no shortage of other people telling you what to read in your future. Keep this precious time you have for you for you.

[constant-diablerie]

any noun can become a verb if you don’t care enough

[yupokaysuremhm]

This point is invalid unless you use an example in your sentence

[constant-diablerie]

I CAN SENTENCE HOW I WANT THANK

[yupokaysuremhm]

BEAUTIFUL

[fellowfeline]

you see thats why i love english

[ailithnight]

I like to velociraptor around my house at 2 in the morning.

[constant-diablerie]

GOOD

[standing-in-peace]

My headache makes me want to clothesline into a wall

[edelvicess]

why do these make some semblance of sense 😨

[roseverdict]

Because brains don’t brain logically

[couldbeglorious]

Brains do brain logically! But when english doesn’t logic englishly, brain brains by itself to logic that english !

[swampxwitchxhattie]

I hate that this makes sense

[allthingslinguistic]

Languages making up new words and using old words in new ways is a feature, not a bug! 

Think how dull it would be (not to mention, difficult to talk about new things) if we didn’t have ways of making new words! New metaphors, so we don’t get bored with old cliches! New verbs, for when the old ones don’t vivid enough! New slang, so that kids can differentiate themselves from their elders! 

It’s not just an English thing, it’s an every language thing, and that’s because it’s actually vital to how language works that it’s flexible and adaptable and we can express ourselves and figure out meaning even when words aren’t quite grammaring – otherwise we’d have a hard time understanding small children or new language learners or people with food in their mouths.

English IS logicking Englishly, because part of the logic of a language is its creativity.  If you could only ever do things in a language that you’d heard someone else do already, we’d just gradually lose things and never grow anything new to replace them. And that is not a way I want to world. 

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

[kikiliacee]

“Hope is the thing with feathers” - Emily Dickinson

Trying digital drawing with something other than MS Paint. Not my best work, but this is the first thing that came out 🤷🏻‍♀️

[wilderebellion]

Reblog if you would spend money on a calendar of all the Ladies of Shipwrecked photoshoots

[kikiliacee]

9/100: York Woods

Birthday library adventure of 2018

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

*curtsies* what books do you think are essential to read before turning 18? (I just feel like I haven't read enough and have a lot to "catch up" but don't know where to start)

*Curtsies* I’ve answered a lot of variations of this question and this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but there’s no such thing as “essential reading.” What’s considered canon was mostly determined way too long ago by a bunch of straight white men who had no interest in any narratives but their own. (There was actually a real-life illustration of this on last night’s Jeopardy: one of the categories was “American Nobelists” and one white dude ran the whole category, then got to the last one and couldn’t come up with the title of a Toni Morrison book.) Feeling like you haven’t read enough is pretty common, and I think a type of impostor syndrome common among English majors and people who want to call themselves “readers” or “book-lovers” but feel like they have to earn it. And I’m here to tell you that is bullshit. Life is too short to waste time reading stuff you don’t want to read because you feel like you have to be abstractly qualified for some literary version of life. Just read what you want. And if you’re one of those people who’s about to start an English major or other lit degree worrying that you hadn’t read enough yet, stop. That’s what school is for, to teach you stuff you didn’t already know. Take the pressure off yourself and follow your own interests.

[incidentalcomics]

My Holiday Wish List

For the NY Times Book Review. You can also add my book, THE SHAPE OF IDEAS, to your list!

[yesterdaysprint]

Anna May Wong, drawn by Peter Baxendale (pseudonym of artist Amy Baxendale), 1929