letters to Lamed

counting pomegranate seeds until our vessels are sealed in gold --- stars//planets//prose --- #writing for Mine

[apocryphics]

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

This is a nice sign to look at. 10/10 for composition.

he looks so confident

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

don’t give me ideas

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

some design concepts

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

minor arcana concepts

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

Yes, the aces are zeros. Deal with it.

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

I'm nearly done with the first draft-- I just have to figure out what the face cards should be for the swords

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

I think I should write a guidebook to go along with it.

I know nothing about tarot, so it'll just be giving the names of the symbols, giving explanations of what the symbols literally mean, and giving examples of symbolism-rich objects/substances they could apply to

[luna-azzurra]

Things to consider when writing a character!! --1

⊹ What do they want vs what do they need. these should not be the same thing. what they want is the surface goal ( the job, the person, the revenge, the answer.) What they need is the thing underneath that they can't name yet. The story is what happens in the gap between those two things. if they're identical your character has nowhere to go.

⊹ What are they wrong about. Not morally wrong necessarily. just. what belief do they hold that the story is going to test. What assumption do they make about themselves or the world that turns out to be incomplete? A character without a wrong belief is already finished. They have no arc, give them something to learn even if learning it hurts them.

⊹ How do they talk when they're nervous. Do they go quiet or do they talk too much? do they deflect with jokes? do they get weirdly formal? do they ask questions instead of answering them? the way a person behaves under pressure is who they actually are. And it should be different from how they behave when they're comfortable.

⊹ What do they find funny. this one sounds small and it is not small at all. Humour is worldview. What makes someone laugh tells you what they value, what they're afraid of, how they handle pain. A character with no sense of humour is just flat. even the gravest person finds something absurd. find the thing.

⊹ What are they ashamed of? not their tragic backstory. their actual shame. The small ugly thing they would never say out loud. The time they were a coward. The feeling they pretend not to have. The desire they think disqualifies them from being a good person. Shame is where the most interesting character work lives and most writers skip straight over it :(

⊹ What do they do when no one is watching? how do they move through a space alone. What do they reach for when they're sad. What do they do with their hands??? Public behaviour IS performance. Private behaviour is truth. you don't have to show all of it but you have to know it or the character will feel hollow in a way the reader notices without being able to name.

[soospiritualjourney]

Stop Forcing It: The Real Meaning of Mars Square Pluto.

Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything physically goes wrong?

Lately, my life has felt like a series of minor disasters. My fridge started acting up, my washing machine glitched out, and I found myself rushing I ended up with painful physical mishap. It’s easy to feel targeted by the universe when things break in succession so I took a look at the transits!

Right now, we are heading straight into a tense, volatile Mars square Pluto (exact on Tuesday, May 26). It’s tempting to point at that aspect and blame it entirely for my broken appliances, and bleeding finger.

But here’s the reality check we all need: blaming the stars completely misses how these transits actually manifest in our daily lives. The planets aren't reaching down from the sky to break anything. They are impacting my internal state, which causes me to mishandle things.

Why the Accidents are Actually Happening

Astrological aspects don't wait for the exact minute to activate; they build up in an "orb" of influence. Mars (ruling action, sharp objects, and machinery, accidents on roads, around you) has been grinding against Pluto (breakdowns, power struggles) all week, compounded by the lingering, erratic aftermath of the recent Sun-Uranus transit.

When this energy hits our physical bodies, it shows up in two distinct ways:

Rushing and Force: Mars-Pluto energy creates a massive internal buildup of pressure and a subconscious desire to "push through" obstacles. We apply too much force or move too quickly because of a background hum of tension. This is why you stub your toe on the coffee table, drop your favorite ceramic mug, or slam your laptop shut in a mini-fit of digital rage. The physical mishap isn't bad luck; it's split focus and rushed energy.

Mechanical Stress: Appliances like fridges and washers operate on motors, electrical currents, and precise cycles. When our own energy is hyper-stressed or chaotic, we tend to slam doors, overload drums, ignore minor warning noises, or misjudge maintenance. We project our internal pressure onto our physical environment.

The Trap of the Next 48 Hours

If you look at the cosmic timeline right now, we are heading directly into a highly volatile bottleneck. Between the Moon shifting signs, Mercury opposing the Black Moon, and the Sun squaring the Nodes, we are in a danger zone for high friction.

If we remain on autopilot, we are highly likely to break something else, lash out at someone, or hurt ourselves out of pure impatience.

My Actionable Protocol to Survive the Transit

We cannot change the transits, but we can change how much force we exert on our environment. Here is how I am handling the next 48 hours, and I suggest you do the same:

1. The 10% Physical Slow-Down

The 10% Physical Slow-Down

Intentionally move, walk, and handle objects 10% slower than your instincts dictate. If a drawer is stuck, a lid won't open, or an appliance door won't latch, do not force it. Stop immediately. Mars square Pluto wants to use brute strength to override resistance, which is precisely how plastic snaps, car keys bend, and we end up hurting ourselves. Close doors gently. Type with less aggression. Make every physical movement deliberate.

2. Digital & Mechanical Triage

Do not attempt to DIY repair your appliances or electronics while this energy is peaking. If you try to fix it now, you will likely strip a screw, break a clip, or escalate the damage. Call a professional or wait until Wednesday when the energy shifts. If an appliance is glitching, safely unplug it and leave it alone.

3. Burn Off the Pressure Valve

This energy demands physical exertion, but it must be controlled. Don't let it sit in your body as anxiety or frustration. Go for a run, lift weights, or do some exhausting yard work—somewhere you can safely burn off the physical tension without endangering your fingers or your major appliances.

Take a breath, slow down your movements today, and let's get through this bottleneck intact.

[lamed-moon]

Wincing on the MBTA

Green

lines gotten mixed up in Letters

D took me to a past-future bigot

E takes me now to a pay check

A decade in between and it's still a jilted dyslexia

Stations running parallel in space

Seeing her old dorm, remembering

city sleepovers

Visits laden with nearly spoken judgments.

Leaving her new hatred that replaced

friendship rooted in curled hair for dances

A loss

A letter

A ghosting for the better

Red

route is out of my current commission

Revisiting that one results in rougher minding

Tough titties, getting gladly bitten in the neck

Formative acquaintances on Square streets

Lucky misses of more meth

Lucky strikes snagged on a damp sidewalk

I resisted despair on granite steps but

cried on the commuter rail, dreading Cape Ann.

Pulsing shingles on my ribs from the stress,

unsure where I'll sleep that night.

Wincing from a burning,

itching chest

Lost in my ending adolescence, distressed.

Orange

Shiny new trains take me home now

I almost slip off the plastic.

Quick trip with the briefest of a Mystic viewing

Hankering for a shower and my love

30's got me tired and calm.

In essence it's a simple transfer

Cross the river to the right bus

Putting things in the right pockets

of my coincidentally orange bag

And somehow sipping on an equally

matched Dunks cup

Blue

Brings me clear to the beach

Toes in the Revere sand

Scanning for needles ahead of

sitting serenely on damp granules

A free ride home from a late night

with friends, writing hot takes

on a board and pouring box wine

into cups that harken to years ago

But now conversation includes

swollen feet from pregnancy and

A slow-rolled announcement of

engagement, swapping options

on which sea streets to walk down

to celebrate

I have funny friends

I have a funny life that's brought

me back to these colors

These lines and threads

Lucky lucky

Lucky to hang numb fingers on

the rails

Give up my seat

and bear the burden of my bag

Sunglasses on and off

over my seeing glasses,

Keep the Boston sun from burning

Keep the college kids from falling

Small winces in comparison to the

free life i feel on the subway now,

different from then.

My lion roar silent for a yawn

This Train is mine

Fuck you if you think you'll keep me

From getting home.

[kjscottwrites]

[consolecadet]

These remind me of this drawing by Franz Kafka from the 1900s. We've been feeling this way for a long time.

[smol-civet]

prev, i'm sure you mean my guy Leonid Pasternak

[rowanisawriter]

imo the pov character should be lying to themselves and concealing shit from themselves constantly

[rowanisawriter]

interrupting others who might say something revealing or important, thinking around things, using words like “didn’t” or “doesn’t” or “imagines” to describe actions not taken or half taken, dreaming things and never talking about them or thinking about them during waking hours, lying to people, hiding true feelings, sitting in shadow or low light to keep any accidental flicker of emotion hidden, writing in obtuse ways that doesn’t let the reader know what they’re thinking or planning, avoiding adverbs in tense moments, describing actions in straightforward and almost clinical ways sometimes, hiding the truth from the character and the reader even though you both know or suspect but there is just enough space there to fill with doubt

[gatheringbones]

“Nobody hurt you. Nobody turned off the light and argued with somebody else all night. The bad man on the moors was only a movie you saw. Nobody locked the door. Your questions were answered fully. No. That didn’t occur. You couldn’t sing anyway, cared less. The moment’s a blur, a Film Fun laughing itself to death in the coal fire. Anyone’s guess. Nobody forced you. You wanted to go that day. Begged. You chose the dress. Here are the pictures, look at you. Look at us all, smiling and waving, younger. The whole thing is inside your head. What you recall are impressions; we have the facts. We called the tune. The secret police of your childhood were older and wiser than you, bigger than you. Call back the sound of their voices. Boom. Boom. Boom. Nobody sent you away. That was an extra holiday, with people you seemed to like. They were firm, there was nothing to fear. There was none but yourself to blame if it ended in tears. What does it matter now? No, no, nobody left the skidmarks of sin on your soul and laid you wide open for Hell. You were loved. Always. We did what was best. We remember your childhood well.”

—

carol ann duffy, we remember your childhood well

[girlactionfigure]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"This is going to drive me into my own heart"

[lost-in-eriador]

in 2026, remember how GOOD writing feels. remember how satsfying it is to get your characters to the point you have been dying to get to, where they will experience the love, fear, relief or whatever the feeling you want to bring to life may be. let this year be the year of writing, prgress and of satisfactory endings.

[seth-whumps]

takes you by the hand. please please please if you're stuck on your WIP or you can't figure out how to progress the scene PLEASE skip ahead. skip a few lines ahead. skip until the next Thing you can think of happens. skip to it skip to it skip to it. you may uncover what you were missing in the midst of your next scenes and you may discover that just transitioning straight to Next Part works flawlessly. skip it. don't sink. skip.

[seth-whumps]

if you're stuck writing something, it's a good practice to ask "okay, why am I stuck? what am I stuck on?" because sometimes the answer is "i don't know what happens next", to which you choose a direction and commit to the bit, and sometimes the answer is "i don't want to write the beginning", to which the answer is even simpler: don't write the beginning

[teaboot]

no lie this is how I’ve written the best and longest fics. Went from painful jagged 1k chapters to blinking and finding myself 5k deep on something *I THE WRITER* enjoy reading later. Get stuck? Skip ahead. Write the next bit. Fill it in on the next read. Or don’t! Who the fuck cares!!!!

[foragerknits]

Sometimes I think about how in order to be a writer today you cannot have internet privacy. I was reading an article in which a journalist recalls collaborating with Mary Oliver, who was notoriously private. Oliver refused to communicate with them through fax or email and said (through her publisher) that she would hand them written notes at an event she was doing in New York City. It struck me that Mary Oliver in 2024 would have almost no chance of becoming a successful poet. Writers today have to have a social media presence to have a built in audience so publishers can be assured that they will get sales and to bear the brunt of social media marketing. They have to be available and put themselves on the internet in every way possible.

More and more I read interviews from artists across many mediums talk about how if you cannot market on Tik Tok your chances of success diminish. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be an online influencer and I am surely not saying that the author-influencer is a new phenomenon, but it should not be a pre-requisite for being a successful writer. I love that writers like Mary Oliver, Elena Ferrante, and Donna Tart exist, and it is not talked enough about how they could not begin a career in 2024 and achieve the same amount of success unless they were well connected or extremely lucky. It makes me sad that this is the state of publishing.

[lamed-moon]

There will be two different kinds of stuffing tomorrow.

I will also be holding two parts of myself together.

Dinner disguised with civility; inside screams.

The stitches in my sternum are reinforced.

I have a sidekick in my corner.

A distracting aunt whom I love.

I will be fine.

But.

The corner of wallpaper I scraped with my teeth

is still there flaking in the kitchen.

I feel taller under the ceiling but I still see the blood in the chipped porcelain sink.

The taps - ancient witnesses to my unraveling.

Baby books and school photos ilicit a smile and a wrench in my gut.

Questions running of whether they even deserve my company.

Am I sabotaging my self honor by providing them some hours of grace?

Letting lie the latent pain - apologized to in their hollow desperation for the desired big sweep under the rug.

I don't roil anymore. But my scars still ache with neglect. Grief for what they never were for me.

Trying to just think about the green beans.

[gatheringbones]

[“Immersion in other people’s stories cultivates empathy. When we are reading or listening to stories being told, provided there is enough tension in the narrative, our brains release cortisol into our blood to help us focus and concentrate, and also oxytocin, the chemical related to care and empathy.

Theatre and music have long been arenas in which we examine our moralities and consider our shortcomings, as well as celebrate our virtues. Think of the tragic plays of ancient times. We watch the hero in denial of their weakness eventually fall because of their self-blindness. Think of the old folk songs, sagas of betrayal, pride, murder. Juicy morality tales, not unlike present-day TV dramas. All with lessons to teach about how best to approach the problem of living a life, that encourage us to greater compassion for those whose struggles we recognise.

Stories and songs bring us into contact with our best and worst natures, they enable us to locate ourselves in other people’s experience and they increase our compassion. But these things in a vacuum are useless. A story doesn’t cultivate empathy just by virtue of its having been thought up; it must be engaged with to become powerful; the story must be read, the song must be listened to, in order to acquire its full charge.”]

Kae Tempest, On Connection

[gatheringbones]

[“It’s tempting to define talent comparatively, but you are not in competition with anyone but yourself. You are trying to be a better writer (or lover, or friend, or human) today than you were yesterday. Bettering anyone else is entirely without consequence. But how do you know you’ve done that? How can you tell if you’ve improved, if you are ‘any good’ without relying on the barometer of other people’s acceptance, approval or recognition?

The creative compass is the instinct that drew you to your discipline in the first place, and when you are in connection with it, it will tell you everything you need to know about how you’re doing with your work. It will guide you through difficult creative decisions and will help you distinguish between a motivation to act from a need for approval on one hand, and a genuine creative compulsion on the other.

Sometimes, the creative compass, a wounded pride and a fragile ego feel similar. They all want you to prove yourself. How do you know which is compelling you? How do you ‘refind your soul’? You learn by getting it wrong. Once you’ve gone miles down the wrong path and ended up in a creative dead end, you learn something about how it feels to have got ahead of yourself. It is extremely important to learn this way. Things will go wrong. You will make mistakes. You will end up doing things that don’t feel entirely right. This is how you learn how to dig at your compulsions, and really feel where they’re coming from. It’s a process of sensory reanimation. You are learning a new sensibility. Or, maybe more aptly, remembering an old one. There’s nothing wrong with writing to get the approval of your peers. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a singer because you think singing is cool. There is something wrong with allowing yourself to be coerced into action because you haven’t come to terms with what you yourself want or don’t want from your creativity.”]

Kae Tempest, On Connection

[saturniandragon]

23 years old and I just made the connection that people on the northern hemisphere have a different view of the moon than people on the southern hemisphere.

[saturniandragon]

[bomberqueen17]

I was a whole like, 40ish years old when I went to the equatorial region for the first time. My North American ass went to Colombia and first off, could not fuckin handle the fact that while it felt like summer (80-90F, humid), the sun went down on the dot of 6pm every night and rose at 6am every morning. There I was at 7pm fully beliving it was midnight, because it was both dark and hot. Like, I'm used to early dark! but it's cold when it's dark early! I could NOT handle it.

And then, there in the dark, pitch-midnight-summer-black at 7pm, up pops this lovely crescent moon and it is

fucking SIDEWAYS

i had NEVER EVER EVER realized, despite knowing my whole life that the moon is a spherical object rotating around Earth, also a spherical object, that it would be at different angles from different spots on Earth.

It's the MOON! How can it be DIFFERENT! My poor patient partner drew me a diagram and I was like listen I know all of that but I cannot actually handle it. Nobody warned me the moon looks different.

So yeah my feeble mind was BLOWN, all y'all world travelers/residents can laugh at me now. Knowing it is one thing, experiencing it is something else, and I did NOT see it coming.

[jackironsides]

I remember being in the pagan scene in my twenties and being faintly annoyed by the omnipresent triple moon symbol: )O(

... because I'm from the southern hemisphere and it Doesn't Look Like That here. And (O) does not look anywhere near as cool.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

The wikipedia article on Lunar Phases has really cool videos of the moon’s phases this year for both the northern and southern hemispheres! It’s highly detailed and shows how not only are the phases different in shadow but also that the face of the moon looks different in each hemisphere too!

Also a big fan of this diagram which shows the phases at more specific latitudes (including the “sideways” look at the equator!):

[snigepippi]

We need more ways to show the moon

O)(O

ᴖoᴗ

)O(