this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
"Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me?
Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters."
There's some scoffing at the value of copywriting, but you have to remember that the ability to advertise is an extremely valuable skill. The ability to convince someone to consider a product with words alone is the same skill you need to pitch your story, make a convincing argument, or craft a compelling narrative. It's a writing skill, like any other.
For the @malecdiscordserver's 2025 Mini Bang, I had the honour to create a banner and two moodboards for this incredible story, I See Thy Soul, written by the amazing @nurisiliel.
Their work is just incredible, a story of destiny but also of how you have to put trust into it for making it work. Please, have a go with it and show them all the love they deserve.
10 Non-Lethal Injuries to Add Pain to Your Writing
New Part: 10 Lethal Injury Ideas
If you need a simple way to make your characters feel pain, here are some ideas:
1. Sprained Ankle
A common injury that can severely limit mobility. This is useful because your characters will have to experience a mild struggle and adapt their plans to their new lack of mobiliy. Perfect to add tension to a chase scene.
2. Rib Contusion
A painful bruise on the ribs can make breathing difficult, helping you sneak in those ragged wheezes during a fight scene. Could also be used for something sport-related! It's impactful enough to leave a lingering pain but not enough to hinder their overall movement.
3. Concussions
This common brain injury can lead to confusion, dizziness, and mood swings, affecting a character’s judgment heavily. It can also cause mild amnesia.
I enjoy using concussions when you need another character to subtly take over the fight/scene, it's an easy way to switch POVs. You could also use it if you need a 'cute' recovery moment with A and B.
4. Fractured Finger
A broken finger can complicate tasks that require fine motor skills. This would be perfect for characters like artists, writers, etc. Or, a fighter who brushes it off as nothing till they try to throw a punch and are hit with pain.
5. Road Rash
Road rash is an abrasion caused by friction. Aka scraping skin. The raw, painful sting resulting from a fall can be a quick but effective way to add pain to your writing. Tip: it's great if you need a mild injury for a child.
6. Shoulder Dislocation
This injury can be excruciating and often leads to an inability to use one arm, forcing characters to confront their limitations while adding urgency to their situation. Good for torture scenes.
7. Deep Laceration
A deep laceration is a cut that requires stitches. As someone who got stitches as a kid, they really aren't that bad! A 2-3 inch wound (in length) provides just enough pain and blood to add that dramatic flair to your writing while not severely deterring your character.
This is also a great wound to look back on since it often scars. Note: the deeper and wider the cut the worse your character's condition. Don't give them a 5 inch deep gash and call that mild.
8. Burns
Whether from fire, chemicals, or hot surfaces, burns can cause intense suffering and lingering trauma. Like the previous injury, the lasting physical and emotional trauma of a burn is a great wound for characters to look back on.
If you want to explore writing burns, read here.
9. Pulled Muscle
This can create ongoing pain and restrict movement, offering a window to force your character to lean on another. Note: I personally use muscle related injuries when I want to focus more on the pain and sprains to focus on a lack of mobility.
10. Tendonitis
Inflammation of a tendon can cause chronic pain and limit a character's ability to perform tasks they usually take for granted. When exploring tendonitis make sure you research well as this can easily turn into a more severe injury.
This is a quick, brief list of ideas to provide writers inspiration. Since it is a shorter blog, I have not covered the injuries in detail. This is inspiration, not a thorough guide. Happy writing! :)
Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?
Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!
A nurse has heart attack and describes what she felt like when having one
I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard.
FEMALE HEART ATTACKS
I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is description is so incredibly visceral that I feel like I have an entire new understanding of what it feels like to be living the symptoms on the inside. Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have… you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor the we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack:
"I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up. A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation–the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.
After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening – we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack! I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else… but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.
I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in. I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery.
I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents. Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand.
1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body, not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up… which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a ‘false alarm’ visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that I said ‘Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor – he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.
3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive to tell the tale.“
Reblog, repost, Facebook, tweet, pin, email, morse code, fucking carrier pigeon this to save a life!
I wish I knew who the author was. I’m definitely not the OP, actually think it might be an old chain email or even letter from back in the day. The version I saw floating around Facebook ended with “my cardiologist says mail this to 10 friends, maybe you’ll save one!” And knew this was way too interesting not to pass on.
Reminder that ao3 does not have an app. Any apps you see are third party and are making money off of the writers without their consent. They’re also probably harvesting your data. Do not support this garbage.
I've made an art book and the Kickstarter is about to launch! It has writing, illustrations, and comics similar to this one! It's called Waving at Airplanes and it's probably the largest project I've ever done (I'm quite proud of it).
The book will also include this comic, this one, plus this, and this - AND 6 additional, never-before-seen comics/illustrations! So if you happen to like those comics, it would mean a lot if you considered getting the book! You can check out the Kickstarter page here!
Since the artwork is already done, the Kickstarter is really just a pre-order (to cover the cost of having the books printed and shipped). It launches on 9/9/2024 and will last 4 weeks!
Thank you! These comics may not be my most popular, but they are the most personal to me, and the support for them is really special.
And in the US, because our healthcare system was held together by used chewing gum and hope before the pandemic and has been utilized as a wealth extraction tool by insurance companies and their nefarious agents, private equity and corporate ownership more heavily than ever since 2019, we are experiencing a slow motion collapse of care, and it’s only going to get worse.
Thousands of care providers across all medical fields are gone: dead, disabled, retired, burnt out, unwilling to deal with the daily insults any longer. The waiting time for appointments stretches into months and medical systems cancelling long awaited care the week before or week of is becoming increasingly common, due to lack of personnel and too often, inoperable equipment.
And all of this while an estimated 15 million of us are experiencing new, chronic, often devastating health problems because of that aforementioned airborne vascular virus.
If H5N1 becomes widespread in humans this house of cards will almost surely fold, and if we avoid that, we’ll just be kicking the can down the road because no one is trying to fix things. No one.
I’m not saying this to scare or worry you but to animate you. Connect with patient advocacy groups and professional groups representing the clinicians who want to continue providing healthcare if they can, like nurses’ unions. We need them, so we need to support them as strongly as we can.
Please, reblog! IIt’s called self defense. Apart from having here, in the US, one of the highest cases of homicide and rape in the world and high rate of GBV, think about how this could help your mother or sister
Thanking @crystalmir for this month's theme which is soulmate AU's! The same rules apply as always, one fic per author, even though all of these authors have other brilliant fics you should be reading and if you want to add your own recs in the comments, tags, or reblogs please feel free to do so! 💜
Also, I have tagged the authors whose Tumblr account I know (aka found on their AO3 profile), but if you'd prefer I not tag you, please tell me! I don't want these to be annoying for the authors.
One-shots:
Magnus, How Long Have You Been Twenty by @Master of Unlocking: A soulmate AU where you don't age past a certain age until you've met your soulmate!
Summary:
Soulmate AU where you age to about 18/21, and then you stay that age until you find your soulmate.
The Space Between by @gingersnapwolves: soulmate AU, the usual Clave being awful as well as some Alec and Magnus being badass. I don't know how often I've read and reread this fic by now.
Summary:
Every warlock has a soulmate. 98% of the time it’s another warlock, but sometimes it’s a mundane, a seelie, or even a Shadowhunter. Until their name appears on the warlock’s chest (and their corresponding soulmate’s), there’s no way to know.
Enter Alec Lightwood, who wakes up at fourteen with a warlock’s name on his chest. Horrified at what it means, he keeps it hidden. But five years later, Magnus Bane is captured by a team of Shadowhunters, and it’s only a matter of time before someone sees Alec’s name on his chest.
see me light up from the rooftops by @oh-la-fraise: Short and sweet and fluffy, just the way I like it.
Summary:
“Alec,” Magnus said, his face falling. “Short for Alexander, I assume?”
Alec frowned. “Yeah. Why do you look so disappointed? Are you more of an Alexi kind of guy?”
Magnus smiled for a second, and Alec cheered with victory internally. “No, I just. . .Oh, it’s so stupid, and not something I should be discussing on a first date. It was an Alexander that broke my heart in Paris.”
“Yeesh,” Alec winced. “Well I can promise you, not all of us are complete idiots. Which he would had to have been, to dump you.”
Magnus snorted. “That’s the even sadder part—he didn’t dump me. We never even met.”
Before the Day is Done by carmenlire: Ales as a Head of the Institute but also as an author! Magnus as his kind of pen pal, the High Warlock of Brooklyn and his unknowing fan.
Summary:
Alec reads the email twice through before letting out a breath. He feels anticipation thrumming through him at the invitation and it doesn’t vanish no matter how hard he tries to shove it down.
He’s looking forward to meeting Magnus in person. While there’s still some anxiety lurking underneath it all, it feels almost inevitable.
Truth be told, he’s always felt drawn to the High Warlock. Magnus had been the only downworlder to acknowledge the change in leadership first. He’d been surprising magnanimous in wishing Alec a successful tenure and providing his contact information if he ran into any problems.
Who are you really? by @skylar102 : The scene of Magnus pressing Alec's lost baby blanket to his face as he realizes he finally has a soulmate after 400 lonely years makes me slightly feral.
Summary:
When your soulmate loses something it gets sent to you and vice versa. For almost 400 years Magnus thought he would never have a soulmate until one day a pacifier shows up in his loft.
all these stumbles and falls by @echo-bleu evil on the feels-front like all of Echo's fics, but what else is new. (Love you, Echo <3)
Alec has always kept his male, warlock soulmate a secret. He knows he can never have what he wants. On the eve of his wedding to Lydia, he finds himself on a warlock’s doorstep to finally break the bond, and be free to complete his duty to the Clave and his family.
It will all be fine.
Except that his soulmate mark is desperately clutching at his chest, shaking like a leaf, and its large golden eyes are pooling with tears.
And that said mark looks exactly like a tiny version of the warlock who just answered his knock.
To Touch and Be Touched by TobytheWise: short 500-word ficlet, but still an adorable and enjoyable read nonetheless.
With a black handprint across his cheek, Alec always imagined meeting his soulmate for the first time would be a painful affair. When the day finally comes, Alec is pleasantly surprised.
Multi-chapter fics or series:
Making Memories With Mistletoe by @notcrypticbutcoy is another lovely fic by notcrypticbutcoy. There's a small amount of angst, but it's mostly a feel-good fic for me
Summary:
How was that even possible? How could Magnus’ soulmate be someone who didn’t believe in the concept? The universe had to be playing some kind of cosmic joke on him.
***
When a mysterious and very attractive stranger walks into Magnus’ magic shop three weeks before Christmas, he doesn’t expect it to be his soulmate. Nor does he expect his soulmate to deny the entire concept of such a thing.
Or: in which Magnus owns a magic shop, Alec doesn’t believe in soulmates, and the universe has a funny way of making things work out.
Machiavellian by @alxndrlightwoods: While a one-shot the fic is part of a series that I love even though it's dark and gory - or maybe just because? Warning (especially for the later parts) for Underage, Gore, and some very enthusiastic and graphic murder aka make sure you read the tags.
Summary:
He can see the thoughts whirling in Magnus’s brain. Magnus had managed to make it four hundred years, patiently waiting and keeping a weather eye on the Lightwood family for the majority of that. And his beautiful, perfect, wonderful soulmate hadn’t even managed to make it three years.
They were disgustingly perfect for each other.
The Gift of Choice by @tinylilemrys: Soulmate AU where you can choose whether to accept or reject a soulmate (something I'm personally a huge fan of) and it's just written so well.
Summary:
Neither Alec nor Magnus is particularly thrilled at the discovery of their soul marks. Alec because he knows that the design of it means that his soulmate is a Downworlder, something practically unheard of in Shadowhunter society. For Magnus, the idea of being permanently attached to a joyless demon-killer is hardly a thrill. Given that they can choose if they accept their soulmate or not, the decision seems like a no-brainer.
But when Alec finally meets the beautiful, other-worldly Magnus and Magnus meets the gorgeous, self-sacrificing Alec, it becomes clear that the decision might not be as easy as they thought it would.
it doesn't matter (if it's now or then) by @soveryaverageme: Alec knows Magnus is his soulmate. He also knows he isn't Magnus', but he's fine with it. Really.
Alec’s words were branded across his right forearm, spiraling towards his shoulder. The phrase “I’m Magnus, I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced?” was stark across his skin, as bold as his own love. They were a comfort and a reminder every time he drew his bow back to fire another arrow. He knew every curve and bend of his words. He could trace them without looking.
He had never seen Magnus’ words, but he knew was that they weren’t his.
Through a Glass, Darkly by SolarisRasa: Last but not least on this list, a fic that deserves more love in my opinion. Magnus creating a Veil between the Downworld and the Nephilim is such an interesting concept!
A century ago, Magnus Bane, sick of the struggles between the Downworld and the Clave, created a spell: The Veil. It separated the Downworld from the Nephilim, both sides blind to each other in the world.
A red-head with demands, a sharp spike in demons, a new Head of the New York Institute, and...gardening? Draws Magnus toward the Shadowhunters world again.
With his city slipping, the Clave bearing down, and the High Warlock's demand for better protection, Alec Lightwood seeks a more equal footing with the Downworld.
The saying applies with more than usual force here: if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer: you're the product being sold. (And maybe you're the product being sold even if you are paying for it.)
DO NOT MAKE YOUR PERSONAL PHYSICAL DATA AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE WHO COULD THEN SELL IT TO THOSE INVESTED IN USING IT TO SURVEIL YOU AND POTENTIALLY CHARGE YOU WITH CRIMES.
A good idea that is not implemented is useless. @nurisiliel - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
