Tidying The Desktop* And Ran Across This Just Sitting There. Might As Well Post It.

“Use your gifts and your talents to greatest possible effect while you can. Spread joy wherever possible. Laugh at jokes. Tell jokes. Make puns and bugger the embuggerances. Read books. Read my books. You might like them. You might find something else you like even more than them. Look for these things in life.

Question authority. Champion good causes. Speak out against injustice. Do not tolerate bullies or bigots or racists or anti-intellectuals or the narrow-minded. Use your education to challenge them. Broaden their perspectives. Make the world you interface with a happier place.

These are your choices. Choices you have been fortunate to have been given, so don’t waste them while you have them. Don’t look back in years to come and wish you had grasped a fleeting opportunity. Grasp it now with both hands, Live. Strive. Love.”

from A Little Advice for Life taken from ‘Terry Pratchett: from birth to death, a writer.’

—Sir Terry Pratchett; April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015

One of the greatest compliments I've ever received is that I resemble Sam Vimes.

Mind how you go.

I used to hate it when people said the trick was to just do it until ‘do it scared’ started going around, because that’s truly it. Life didn’t start changing until I applied for jobs with one hand in front of my eyes and a trembling hand navigating my computer mouse. Or until I said everything on my mind (in moderation) with my fists clenched and my legs weak. Or until I refused to accept that I’d ‘just’ be shy forever while also kind of being nauseous at the idea of trying to be the opposite. Two things can coexist and that’s exactly the point of believing that you can do anything.

One of the things that’s really struck me while rereading the Lord of the Rings–knowing much more about Tolkien than I did the last time I read it–is how individual a story it is.

We tend to think of it as a genre story now, I think–because it’s so good, and so unprecedented, that Tolkien accidentally inspired a whole new fantasy culture, which is kind of hilarious. Wanting to “write like Tolkien,” I think, is generally seen as “writing an Epic Fantasy Universe with invented races and geography and history and languages, world-saving quests and dragons and kings.” But… But…

Here’s the thing. I don’t think those elements are at all what make The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so good. Because I’m realizing, as I did not realize when I was a kid, that Tolkien didn’t use those elements because they’re somehow inherently better than other things. He used them purely because they were what he liked and what he knew.

The Shire exists because he was an Englishman who partially grew up in, and loved, the British countryside, and Hobbits are born out of his very English, very traditionalist values. Tom Bombadil was one of his kids’ toys that he had already invented stories about and then incorporated into Middle-Earth. He wrote about elves and dwarves because he knew elves and dwarves from the old literature/mythology that he’d made his career. The Rohirrim are an expression of the ancient cultures he studied. There are a half-dozen invented languages in Middle-Earth because he was a linguist. The themes of war and loss and corruption were important to him, and were things he knew intimately, because of the point in history during which he lived; and all the morality of the stories, the grace and humility and hope-in-despair, was an expression of his Catholic faith. 

J. R. R. Tolkien created an incredible, beautiful, unparalleled world not specifically by writing about elves and dwarves and linguistics, but by embracing all of his strengths and loves and all the things he best understood, and writing about them with all of his skill and talent. The fact that those things happened to be elves and dwarves and linguistics is what makes Middle-Earth Middle-Earth; but it is not what makes Middle-Earth good.

What makes it good is that every element that went into it was an element J. R. R. Tolkien knew and loved and understood. He brought it out of his scholarship and hobbies and life experience and ideals, and he wrote the story no one else could have written… And did it so well that other people have been trying to write it ever since.

So… I think, if we really want to write like Tolkien (as I do), we shouldn’t specifically be trying to write like linguists, or historical experts, or veterans, or or or… We should try to write like people who’ve gathered all their favorite and most important things together, and are playing with the stuff those things are made of just for the joy of it. We need to write like ourselves.

This week on: Do I Want to Be Diane Duane or Read Every Word She's Ever Written

Diane Duane really is the where's waldo of authors. Like oh, I just finished, Star Trek (TOS), those Star Trek books look pretty cool. Huh that cover with Spock on it looks neat. Proceed to read one of my favorite novels in the entire world. Ok ok it's by Diane Duane. Gotta remember that. Starting TNG like yo it's Diane Duane again! She wrote this episode :). Oh well, I guess no more Diane Duane Star Trek as I have found all of them for my collection. Damn, well my friend really likes Spiderman/Venom. Her birthday's soon. Guess I should get her comic books? And with steel chair it's Diane Duane again! And oh wait, what other comics did she write? She wrote a comic book for Star Trek! Better read that! An X-men novel!! Hmmm, y'know I've been reading a lot of sci fi and comic books recently. I would really like to get back to my roots and read some fantasy, preferably with some wizards. Diane Duane once again snipes me from the google recommend books page. Doing some research on Barbie to get ready for the Barbie Movie. Barbie: FairyTopia is cowritten by Diane Duane and Elise Allen. A bomb is dropped on my house. Watching a video essay on Batman because it's 2AM and youtube thinks I might like that. I've never watched Batman the animated series, but I guess I'll give it a try. Diane Duane strikes once again. Talking with my friends about their favorite authors and where they live during a vacation in Ireland. Huh I actually don't know where Diane Duane lives. Look it up and get punched into next week. Get tumblr. Ha that was a funny! Waldo once again has been sighted.

TL;DR: Diane Duane has got range and I haven't looked up all the things she's done and keep getting pleasantly surprised.

Can't believe Diane Duane invented the nerd we all want to be

Can't believe Diane Duane invented love with this passage that's so crazy

Astronaut tweets

Writing?

Hello!! I started writing again recently, I've been learning some things about how stories go together!! WORDS ARE APPEARING ON THE PAGE and it is like magic. I am in a great mood! I hope you are all having a lovely day out there! Writers, the words haven't abandoned you forever!!

If anyone out there is writing, and wants to put our heads together to giggle about starting to write, reach out and say hi!!

I like writing a lot…..

But when does it stop being soul sucking????

How can both be true??

(sigh) Easily. All the arts are full of apparent contradictions like this.

Re: writing, specifically: This work is a very particular kind of magic. And like all real magics, the use of it inevitably has a price.

"Soul-sucking" strikes me as a slightly harsh idiom for the payment of the Writing Price. But that's okay, because the idiom itself points at the remedy. And it's really simple! Just this:

Every time you sit down to write, you have to consciously work to do it well enough so that you grow some more soul.

(I mean, you don't think that souls run out when you use them, surely? Or can't regenerate over time? They can be surprisingly resilient... assuming you don't buy into the idea that they're limited to what you feel like you started out with, or what you've got at the moment.)

Repeatedly pouring your soul into your work is very much like bodybuilding. At first it hurts like hell. Then the body starts to adjust to the increased demands you're putting on it. After a while you look back and find you've blown way past the boundaries that you earlier thought were impassible.

When you start getting that soul-sucked feeling, it's just a sign that the workouts are having an effect. It's the equivalent of the lactic-acid ache after a session at the gym. But you still need to keep working at it to improve your results. If you find you need to take more rest time between writing bouts to replenish your reserves, fine: work out what your best refractory period seems to be, and adjust your workload to suit that as best you can. But at all costs, keep writing, at whatever interval works best. Over time, it does get easier.

Does it ever stop "sucking" / demanding that price?

Nope. Sorry! But you can learn over time to grow into those inevitable demands on your time, energy and commitment. Just keep reminding yourself: Nothing truly worth doing ever comes without a price tag. And the more you work at your craft, over time, the bigger the price tags you'll find you can afford without flinching.

...So get back in the gym. (And I hope this helps!)

what kills me is

she was correct that this is a TOTALLY BRILLIANT and APPROPRIATE basis for a children's book, and

I would say I want to know what higher plane her mind is in, except, well, dare I say

...I'd need the theoretical physics for that

...reread, anyone?

absolutely no one:

Madeline L’Engle, writing a wrinkle in time at some point in the early 1960s: what are kids into these days? comparative religious studies and theoretical physics, right? Yeah?

We actually have an epilogue to a 55-year-old love story that has consumed literal generations (no pun intended) of people. We have that epilogue NOW in 2024 when the world feels like nothing will be okay again, suddenly THIS. The fulfillment of hope. Expressed through two of the most beloved characters in history. And maybe things will be okay again, even if it's 30 years later. A lifetime. If Jim and Spock can find each other again, anything is possible.

Luck. Miracles. You know how it goes. They make me believe in both.