One Nice Bug Per Day
will byers stan first human second
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Love Begins
ojovivo
Andulka
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PR's Tumblrdome
noise dept.
macklin celebrini has autism
★
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
YOU ARE THE REASON
Cosmic Funnies
Xuebing Du
Jules of Nature
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Three Goblin Art
DEAR READER
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@tcmartini
Factory Settings
“Eliza, your mother needs to be changed,” David yelled across the classroom.
Six-year-old Eliza threw her multi-colored blocks at the tower she had been creating. The mini architectural masterpiece flew into pieces, adding to the mess of toys already on the floor.
“Already? I just changed her!” She tossed her head back dramatically and stomped over to the corner where the parents were watching a…
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Top Books That Inspire Me
I have been inspired by a lot of books. The stories, the worlds, the characters, the writing, the themes, the tones. It was a struggle to narrow it down to ten, but I think this list represents where I’ve most drawn inspiration as a writer and a person (please don’t be scared by that last part). A lot of them are classics, but a number of classics are classics for a reason. While conventions in…
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Railsea
Railsea by China Mieville is about a boy who finds himself on a moletrain after his guardians find him a job as a doctor’s assistant. He joins the crew in their hunts of the giant burrowing mammals in a world where the trains cross the treacherous land via tangled rail lines much the same way ships cross the sea. Then he finds a photo buried by long-dead explorers under a wreck. Pirates, armies,…
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Violin Lessons
I told you I’d keep you updated on how the violin lessons were going. They aren’t. I loved learning the violin. It did not love me, but that’s hardly inconsistent with my reception by, well, anything. But I digress. I went to lessons once a week. However, every time I went, I had already forgotten what I had learned the time before and had to start over from the beginning. Holding the bow…
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Black as Night Progress
So I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I wrote a novel in under 20 days! The bad news is that it is almost a novella. As an unpublished author, novellas are a notoriously hard sell.
But I love the story. The reason I was able to finish it so quickly (when my previous novel took a year to write—and we’re talking first draft) was that I was so excited to tell the story to…
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Top World-building
World-building is one of the most important components of any speculative fiction story. If the world doesn’t make sense, readers can’t immerse themselves in it. A unique world can change a simple story into an unforgettable experience. These are my favorite examples of great world-building.
Dragonriders of Pern: Anne McCaffrey
This is a world where not only do dragons exist, they are necessary.…
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Big Machine
Big Machine by Victor LaValle is about a former addict who gets a bus ticket and a mysterious note telling him it’s time to keep his promise. As nobody could have known about that promise, he takes the bus to Vermont to find out what the note means. He arrives at a library hidden in the middle of the woods. There, he and other Unlikely Scholars are tasked with scouring local newspapers for…
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I’ve been trying to take on new hobbies lately. I learned to sew (kind of) and made about a dozen tote bags.
I also made a really bad quilt.
But I haven’t sewed anything lately. Instead I tried out knitting.
I ran out of yarn before I finished, so this is just a really short scarf. While it’s not great, this is the first time I have knitted anything since high school, and it turned out much better. That project started out scarf width and ended up blanket sized. So, headed in the right direction. I have since bought more yarn, which has been sitting in a cupboard for the past three months.
My doctor is the one who has been encouraging me to find new hobbies. He’s a funny guy. He’s convinced that I’m a secret extrovert because the activities I choose when I’m on my meds are always more active than passive. My husband almost died trying to hold in his laughter when he heard that.
But who knows? Maybe I am the extrovertiest extrovert that ever extroverted. I did recently start learning to play the violin. Perhaps that will lead to whole new social situations. So far it has just lead to me producing noises like a baby bird being strangled to death and making pained faces at my teacher. But I’ll keep you updated.
Knitting I’ve been trying to take on new hobbies lately. I learned to sew (kind of) and made about a dozen tote bags.
Querying Progress
I queried an agent for the first time today. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything so terrifying in my life. What if I did it wrong? What if they don’t like me? What if my first pages aren’t strong enough?
But I also felt really relieved. After writing and editing my book, this is the most significant step I’ve taken in pursuit of a writing career. It makes me feel like I’m taking control of my…
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Top Weird Fiction
Weird fiction is captivating and thought-provoking. It shook my world when I found it. I still have a long way to go on my weird fiction journey, but so far these are my favorite novels in the genre.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: Amos Tutuola
Ghosts! In the bush! These are not your Victorian ghosts. They are violent and smelly and bananas.
American Elsewhere: Robert Jackson Bennett
Lovely…
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The Deep
The Deep by Nick Cutter is about a world reeling from the impacts of a new disease: a sort of alzheimer’s on steroids, where people forget they are people at all. Luke’s brother is perhaps the most brilliant scientist alive – and also a total sociopath. After a mysterious message telling Luke to “come home,” he must journey to a secret government lab at the bottom of the sea to restore…
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2018 Reading Challenge
My goal this past year was to read 36 books by the end of December. Where I ended up, however, was 80 books. That’s more books than I’ve read in a long time. I made a careful list of what I wanted to read for maybe the first 35 books, but after that I just read whatever seemed interesting. Now, most of the books, by the nature of the word, were average. Some, though not many, were truly awful.…
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This summer my husband and I spent the Obon vacation (graveyard spring cleaning) in Thailand. I’m sure his ancestors felt very neglected. But we had a good time. The food and massages were amazing. I still have flashbacks that regularly ruin what would have otherwise been an entirely decent meal if not compared to the perfection that is Thai food. The temples were also beautiful. The designs are so loud and intricate.
We went to Bangkok and then Chiang Mai/Chiang Rai. Our favorite temple was the White Temple in Chiang Rai. It’s bananas. It’s supposed to depict the passage from hell to heaven.
But hell is filled with this:
And heaven is populated mostly by Batman and Spider-Man (no pictures allowed in heaven).
While my husband preferred our time in Chiang Mai, I liked all the places we went equally. I highly recommend a trip to Thailand if you can swing it.
Thailand This summer my husband and I spent the Obon vacation (graveyard spring cleaning) in Thailand. I’m sure his ancestors felt very neglected.
Rain
Ada listened to the beeps of her heartbeat slow. Each tone sounded softer as her body relaxed its grip and prepared to let her go. The drugs helped. Each beat of her heart wedged them further between her soul and her senses until there was nothing left to hold on to.
“I love you, Mom.”
Ada sighed, and with that last breath, told her baby girl she loved her too.
Her soul drifted up through…
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Top Villains
It’s no secret that I love villains. In fact, whether I like a movie or not almost always comes down to how the villain is portrayed. Here are some of my favorites from books and movies.
Tyler Durden
I gotta say, I think he’s on the right track about a lot of things. I haven’t read the book, so this is just going off the movie.
Crake
Again, his plan is rather elaborate, but I think it’s coming…
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Experimental Film
Experimental Film by Gemma Files is about Lois—a former film critic who stumbles upon footage made by an eccentric woman who was perhaps the first ever female Canadian filmmaker. What follows is her journey to document this haunted and obsessed woman who left behind a series of increasingly disturbing retellings of the fictional Lady Midday fairy tale before mysteriously vanishing. This journey…
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Where I Give You Life
Where I Give You Life
In this post, I will bring you to Life. The supermarket, that is.
For those of you who have never been to a Japanese supermarket, they’re mostly murders of tiny squids:
Massacres of bigger squids:
Slaughters of octopus feets:
And carnages of fish heads:
But they also have multitudes of tofus (which all taste the same):
Swarms of misos (which don’t):
Legions of instant ramens:
Hordes of…
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