we need more fungi in horror. characters infected by spores, their bodies slowly rotting as the mycelium consumes them. fungal eldritch beings being deities of decay. cordyceps vampires. cults worshipping the mycorrhizal network. fungi as a symbol. fungi as an allegory
a messy notebook (I like the Leuchturm bullet ones)
a pen
a beverage for emotional support (or several <3)
how to get started
grab your notebook, and sit down in a quiet moment with enough time so you won't stress even more. The point of a brain dump is to unload all your thoughts, everything that is stressing you is put to paper. not aesthetically, no cutesy Pinterest vibes; we need it plain, unromanticised, and personal.
some prompts to get you going
do I have any deadlines coming up?
have I been making time for myself and my hobbies?
what projects, tasks, appointments, and/ or plans are currently stressing me out?
am I procrastinating anything?
am I properly looking after myself? (mental/physical health, skincare, hobbies, school/work, etc etc)
am I currently working through any challenges, and if yes how is that going so far?
how are my friends/relationships doing?
is there an area in my life that I should prioritise right now?
do I feel confident and comfortable at the moment?
Review and reflect
take some time and go over your writing; you can underline or highlight the points that you find most important. make this whole "brain dump" thing a routine; sometimes it takes a bit of writing until you actually get comfortable with putting your emotions onto paper (it sounds easier than it is..), but the more often you do this, the more comfortable you will get!! <3
As always, please feel free to share your own suggestions and tips in the comments! <3
@madamoisellef asked how I book journal, so I figured I’d just make an entire post
1. Pick your tabs
I like to do this based on the colors of the book cover, so since there’s blues and grays in this one, that’s what I went with tab wise.
2. Make a Key
Normally, I have tabs for (1) quotes, (2) character [which can be character traits or physical traits, things that help me keep the characters straight], (3) plot [important pieces to the plot that I don’t want to forget, ex. foreshadowing], and (4) Random [this is basically anything else I want to write down]
3. Read and Tab
Pretty self-explanatory. Read and put your tabs in.
3.5 Tab Things You Want to Print
This happens when there’s a lot on the page that happens that I think is important and want to remember, so I tab it and usually write “print” in pencil. Then, I go and take a picture of the page, so that I can cut it out and glue it in my book journal later.
4. Write Down the Text Tabbed
I usually do this every 50-100 pages depending on how many things I’ve tabbed.
Repeat steps 3, 3.5, & 4 until you finish the book.
5. Write a Review
I usually give a short summary and then my thoughts on the book along with my rating, which is out of 5 stars.
6. Add Some Color to Things that Stand Out
Sometimes I’ll highlight as I’m going, but more often then not, I highlight after I’m done with the book. I always highlight the page number and then the spot where the quote ends and my thoughts start. I also highlight important parts of the quotes/parts I want to stand out.
7. Print, Cut, and Glue in Pages You Wanted to Print
Again, pretty self explanatory. Print out the pic of the page you took to the size of your liking, cut it out, and glue it in. Then, just write your thoughts under it like you would a quote you wrote down.
8. Write the Book and Rating in the Front Page of the Journal
I always write my stars out in words, too because it’s sometimes hard to tell between a full star and half star.
9. Decorate the Pages as Much as You Like
I hit the photo limit, but I always print out a small picture of the book cover and then glue to to the first page of quotes for that book.
Faeries and Footnotes: The Nerdy Fun of Scholarly Worldbuilding
I have an affection for stories that take a scholarly, dare I say nerdy, approach to their fantasy elements. I’ve recently devoured both books in Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde series, which follows a prickly academic on a field trip into Faerie, filling her journal with footnotes and references to in-universe research on magic along the way. My favourite character in Freya Marske’s The Last Binding trilogy is Edwin Courcey, who helps deliver much of the setting’s lore and magic system via his ceaseless curiosity and very academic and technical approach to how magic works. The scholarly book-within-a-book about portal worlds in The Ten Thousand Doors of January made me whoop for joy.
I can probably trace this back to reading Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at a formative stage of my undergrad studies, at which point I reckon it did something to my brain chemistry. But what, exactly, is the appeal of a series that looks at its magic through the lens of research, and with all the scientific technicalities and academic in-fighting that come with that? It does something unique and very fun to the way these fictional worlds are built, and I want to play with that here.
The ONLY thing that has ever hit me in the deep, warm longing that Howl’s Moving Castle always has is the Emily Wilde series. I can’t explain it but it is one of the most charming series I have ever read. I will sing it’s praises from the mountains. I want to put it in my rib cage and let it sink into my bones. There are plenty of stories where the fairy prince falls in love with the mortal woman but none have hit like this. The feeling of being slightly to the left of normal society and never fitting in, only to find you fit perfectly in what exists slightly to the left. Academia but it’s not dark, The Ancient Magus’ Bride but without the depression. Characters that before entering anything romantic have accidentally woven their lives together so intrinsically and platonically that they incidentally refer to each other as extensions of themselves. The danger that walks alongside the beauty of the Otherworld and the acceptance that you cannot have one without the other.
A romance with characters in their 30s, written with all the lovely charm reminiscent of YA novels. I could not recommend it more.
uhh, hey, your boyfriend accidentally went through the rock tumbler. he fell in while i was loading it and i didn’t notice him. yeah he’s shiny now. no i have to run him through again with the other grits or he won’t match the rest of the rocks. yeah it’s gonna take like a week and a half. sorry.
Sometimes the interpreter’s job is to actually interpret what is being said. Not word-for-word (though that can be quite important), but context-for-context.
[ID: pictures of text from a book, some of which has been highlighted in pink. The highlighted parts read: “I was the first to introduce myself. […] Joy. I’m from Portland and I’m traveling with eight other African American women. […] despite the brevity of my comments, the translator seemed to be going on at length. ‘Is this going to happen after every introduction?’
“I know that I didn’t say very much, so what exactly did you say to them?”
“I said that you were African American women, I needed to explain what that meant. You see, many of the people in the audience are […] the ones who had been stolen away. They were chanting at you, ‘Welcome home.’
“We mourned Martin and Malcolm with you, we are so proud of you, we just wondered when you were coming home.” END ID]
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