Wininoid

I write and illustrate kids books, design and play games, and invent toys. By day, I'm a mild mannered robot repair guy.

[literaticat]

It took me a while to stop crying and resolve to help people who will be targeted (starting 1/20/25). I am also trying to reconnect to even a scrap of joy, by tiptoeing back into writing. But...I keep analyzing my WIPs through the lens of how That Guy will be making half the country feel, wondering, "Is X funny enough? Is Y topic too serious?" Help?! Is it worth writing/querying anything that's not totally escapist? Are there genres that should just stay in a drawer right now?

No need to wait until January to help people! :-)

As to the writing piece: I think you are overthinking it. And hey, I get that! Half the country is still somewhat in "reeling mode", it hasn't even been a month, no need to make any huge decisions or change the course of your writing life or fret about queries that you aren't ready to send anyway right this second. Give yourself some grace. Do some deep breathing.

Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Hey, maybe people will want to read more than they ever have and publishing will thrive across all genres. Maybe there will be an unforeseen trend of books about cowboys in space or something that will make a genre flourish that we haven't ever even thought of before!

Or, maybe the tarriffs will eff publishing up so badly we won't need to worry about ANY genres anymore. Maybe he'll sell us all to Daddy Vladdy for a nickel or start Civil War II and we'll all have to become resistance fighters. (Or, maybe we'll get lucky and the meteor will come; that might be better, because I don't have much to offer in the way of actual resistance fighting unless the troops need children's books or cookies!)

But since none of those lines of thinking are particularly helpful or healthy, maybe let's not focus on speculating about all the random possible scenarios. It's too much! Your brain will break!

Here's what is within your purview: YOUR LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD. That includes your work, yes, but also your home, your family, your personal behavior and habits, your physical and mental health, and the well-being of your communities (both literal, like, the people who live near you, and figurative, the people near you or even across the country or the globe with whom you have shared values, etc)

I'm not an expert obvs, but I do feel like, when I stop "reeling" and thinking about whatever bizzaro outrage some politician is perpetrating and start thinking about what tangible things I can do to help support MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD, I feel a lot better. More useful.

(Like, how about instead of doomscrolling, I actually take that time and put my impotent rage to use pulling out the dying tomato plants and getting the yard ready for winter? How about instead of crying into my pillow, I gather a bunch of stuff to donate to a local charity? OH LOOK, I FORGOT ABOUT THE NEWS FOR A WHILE AND GOT THINGS DONE AND MADE MY CORNER OF THE WORLD BETTER! And now I'm tired and can take a nice shower and watch something silly on TV and go to sleep! Yay!)

What I'm saying is, AFTER you do the deep breathing and give yourself grace and all that stuff -- maybe DON'T think about your WIPS through the lens of "OMG what horror show is that freak in the white house doing" or "what will random terrible people think about what I'm doing" -- but rather, think, how do *I* feel about what I'm doing?

We have limited time on this earth -- do you WANT to spend your time on this? Will working on this bring you joy? Does the idea of writing it excite you? Will it reading it bring other people in your communities joy, or hope, or escapism, or important information, or inspiration, or *something else positive*? Those are the kinds of projects you should focus on, imo.

Obviously I have no clue what "Trends" will be coming up in the future, or what the publishing landscape or the world will look like at all -- but I DO SUSPECT that what we will need the most is books that bring something positive to the table. Whether that means a book full of pure delight/escapist entertainment, or reminders about what is beautiful in the world and special about humanity, or tools to help people enact change, or fuel for the next generation of rebels and resistance fighters, or whatever it is.

And, I think that "something positive" could come in the form of fiction, nonfiction, and pretty much ANY genre or category.

(Probably not a great time for extremely bleak / hopeless books, and certainly not a great time for books that you yourself are not passionate about. Writing and publishing is hard enough - don't do the projects that are a misery on top of all that!)

[rsingwriting]

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

[theamyrlinsofa]

This is the second time this post passes on my dash and it’s the best advice I ever got. I can’t write consistently in one go, it’s always about 50 words and then I get distracted and just have to do something else for a while. Do the math quickly: trying to write 2000 words a day takes a looooong time that way. So there were many days where I just didn’t even start writing, cause I wouldn’t reach my goal anyways and feel like a failure. Then I stumbled upon this post and I thought: hey, let’s give this a try. And it works! I set my goal between 200-400 words a day and that’s perfectly doable. Some days I get into the flow and I write a whole lot more. On other days, I struggle to get those 200 out but hey, at least I wrote 200 words and reached my goal. Whatever the outcome, t makes me feel good and accomplished. 

Writing takes practice, so even if it’s only 100 words a day, it’s better than nothing. If it worked for Terry Pratchett and me, than it can work for you too!

[muffinlance]

My own tags because I am particularly proud of them:

#l also endorse this method #The important thing is to get your butt in the chair and make a habit of that #The writing follows like a stray cat: you need to sit long enough to lure it into your lap #At which point you’re stuck there until the writing leaves (you finish) or you need to go to the bathroom badly enough to disturb it

[wininoid]

Oh the horror

I posted about the weird trend of my short stories to be horror/suspense rather than my usual funny fantasy/sci fi. https://www.ingnomevation.com/oh-the-horror/

[wininoid]

[abandonedography]

A Decaying Car

[kqedscience]

Here’s a chicken wearing a prosthetic tail to walk like a dinosaur

“You already know about the evolutionary areas of overlap between dinosaurs and modern-day birds. Now one group of researchers is using those similarities for science, by attaching a prosthetic tail to a chicken to study how dinosaurs might have walked.”

Learn more at io9: http://goo.gl/gTOBmQ

[abandonedography]

This US M4 Sherman Tank was stranded on the reef during the invasion of the island of Saipan during WWII. Its turret is still frozen in time, taking aim at a Japanese gun emplacement on the beach.

[wininoid]

Awesome picture.

[wininoid]

Just had lunch here. Now I know what Clock did on his year long walkabout. :)

[omgwtfmig]

Age of Wushu sometimes takes the whole “Chinese” thing too far.

[wininoid]

Another first draft from the third Nerni book. I really need a name for it. (take two)

[wininoid]

Sunlight + crystal = science for the kids.

[wininoid]

After some slacking, I'm back to work at the next Nerni book. Here's the pic I did this morning. Enjoy!

[wininoid]

I drew a comic about what it's like to do science.

[wininoid]

One of my fans suggested I have a unicorn in my next Nerni book. So she drew me a sketch to help me out. :)

[wininoid]

My books spotted in the wild. :)

[wininoid]

I made a silly science comic for http://stemcomics.com If you have any science questions, hit me up and maybe I'll do a comic.

[wininoid]

The lines-for-limbs look didn't look quite right, so I tweaked some more and came up with this one. Realistic enough for the look I'm going for, but cartoony enough so she won't suffer from my lack of talent at drawing people.