Short stories

[spectre-like]

Hugger-mugger

noun (hugger-mugger or huggermugger)

confusion, disorder [i.e. The crowd turned to huggermugger as the doors opened for the biggest sale of the season]

secrecy [i.e. the cult-like religious order demanded huggermugger of its converts to avoid the ever-present and lingering eye of law enforcement]

Can also be used as an adjective as in:

Confused, disorderly

secret, clandestine

[sunnydwrites]

The 2022 Ultimate Writing Spreadsheet

Hey everyone, Sunny here once again! I’m coming at you today with some pretty exciting news regarding a big project I’ve been working on for the past few months. Y’all know how much I love to organize, so I figured I’d start to do that with my writing. Which brings us to this!

This is a spreadsheet I’ve been working on creating since, like, August. It’s fully automated that includes:

Individual project stats

Daily, monthly, and yearly stats

Color-coded calendar days

Automatically generated word count goals

And more!

And it’s free for general use!

You can find this spreadsheet and the user guide here.

I’m dropping this a month early so that everyone has the time to experiment and get acquainted with how the sheet works. Please make sure that you play around with things and get yourself oriented before you start changing or deleting things; some “blank” cells have code in them!

As mentioned before, this sheet is free for everyone to use. You’re welcome to share it with your friends and fellow writers as well - spread the love!

If you’d like (and I would appreciate it very much) you’re also free to send me a tip or a note on Ko-Fi! I plan on doing projects like this in the future and I’d love to hear from you guys.

Happy pre-2022, and happy writing!

[sunnydwrites]

Happy 2022!

[catchymemes]

[peneigh-dzredfohl]

Can everyone who reads this PLEASE reblog it?!?!?  Libraries literally saved my life as a child!

Being abused at home, bullied at school and lost in the world, the library and all the books I could escape to the most amazing worlds, kept me alive!

I would walk to the library, and spend all day, from 10 am to 9 pm reading there!! I got special awards for how many books I read, I wrote little blurbs on why i loved the books (probably why I love to BETA and do ARCs) 

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Just hit the green arrows and the reblog!!!

As a 50 year old woman, the library offers me so much. Digital art pads to borrow, 3D printing, book clubs that are face to face (yeah, the introvert likes face to face because a moderator will stomp on anyone getting snarky)

New books in LARGE PRINT! I’m visually challenged and as much as I love my kindle, The feel of a real book in my hands will always be a beloved feeling!

Our library also has quarterly books sales of almost free books!! For 5$USD we get in a day early and can buy as many as we want. Anyone else has to wait and there is a limit for the first 2 days.

[stevviefox]

Also many, many libraries have inter library loan(it may be called something different). This means if they don’t have the item you want, they can get it for you. This may include photocopy/pdf of articles. This can also include along with books and DVDs, microfilm/fiche which is also a huge resource. Check around for libraries that are listed as depositories if you want to look at government documents.

Remember that many colleges and universities have open stacks for the public. You will likely have to pay a membership fee but you will get to stuff.

[psi1998]

I love the library ☺

[icycove]

The library was one of my favorite places to go as a kid and I still live to go and just. Sit and read. Or do homework. The university I’m at has a massive 8-story one I love to just wonder around in~ Great places

[jaks21]

Libraries are amazing places, we need to protect them to ensure their continued existence.

[spectre-like]

Libraries are the best! ❤️

[ebookporn]

How Many Books Does It Take to Make a Place Feel Like Home?

There’s a reason that some people won’t let go of their physical books — and a new term for it: ‘book-wrapt.’

By Julie Lasky

At the turn of the millennium, Reid Byers, a computer systems architect, set out to build a private library at his home in Princeton, N.J. Finding few books on library architecture that were not centuries old and in a dead or mildewed language, he took the advice of a neighbor across the street, the novelist Toni Morrison.

Ms. Morrison “once famously said if there is a book you want to read and it doesn’t exist, then you must write it,” recalled Mr. Byers, 74, in a video chat from his current home, in Portland, Maine.

The project stretched over a generation and culminated this year in a profusely illustrated, detail-crammed, Latin-strewn and yet remarkably unstuffy book called “The Private Library: The History of the Architecture and Furnishing of the Domestic Bookroom,” published by Oak Knoll Press.

"Mr. Byers coined a term — “book-wrapt” — to describe the exhilarating comfort of a well-stocked library. The fusty spelling is no affectation, but an efficient packing of meaning into a tight space (which, when you think of it, also describes many libraries). To be surrounded by books is to be held rapt in an enchanted circle and to experience the rapture of being transported to other worlds."

The opus arrives at an ambivalent time for book owners. As the pandemic’s social and economic disruptions have nudged people into new homes, some are questioning whether it is worth dragging along their collections. Given the inflated costs of real estate and the capacity of e-readers to hold thousands of titles, maybe that precious floor and wall space could be put to other uses?

Lisa Jacobs, the founder and chief executive of Imagine It Done, a home organization service in New York City, said that out of hundreds of projects in the past few years, she can recall only three requests to organize books. In one of those examples, the arranged books were treated as a backdrop — to be admired, but not read. “The clientele that has collected books through the years are not as numerous for us,” she said.

And yet there are clear benefits in a pandemic to having a private sanctuary programmed for escapism.

READ MORE

[spectre-like]

Waiting—Afield at Dusk - Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,

This is where I got the name for my blog. I like the otherworldliness of the nighttime atmosphere that he describes.

[spectre-like]

Captain Cher hummed to drown out the sound of co-pilots and panicked personnel running around the room screaming incoherently at one another.  “Captain Cher the ship is going down!” someone shouted in her ear. She remained seated with her eyes closed. “Go get the pilot, I’m meditating.” “The Pilot’s dead, captain.” “Do you know how to pilot the ship in a crash?” “No!” Cher sighed, stood and stretched. She considered the news of her pilot’s death as she walked to the control panel. The temperature throughout the ship was dropping, and wreckage of another spaceship floated across the large video screen at the front of the room. There was a distant boom, and the ship shook. “Oxygen levels are low,” a metallic voice informed the crew. Cher carefully maneuvered the ship away from the wreck and sent up a message for help. Panicked screams dribbled into tears, and the deck was almost silent as they waited for a response. Cher returned to a seated position on the floor and closed her eyes to mediate once more. She slowed her breathing and emptied her mind allowing the distant ring of sirens to glide over her, until everything was silence. The cackle of a radio message broke her quiet concentration. Everyone else had passed out and lay collapsed against one another around the edges of the room. Cher stood and answered the call, then sat in the pilot’s chair to enjoy the remaining moments of quiet before the rescue team arrived.