#and publish those

[strangebiology]

Success is Dependent on Secret Information

A lot of career success depends on you and the work you put into it, as well as luck beyond your control, but sadly, it also depends on secret information, magic words, and stupid little tricks.

That's not fair. I don't like it, but we can help by sharing that secret information--which is the antidote to gate-keeping. That's why I recently wrote this in my Authors of Nonfiction Books in Progress substack:

It can be really disheartening to realize that, when you thought you failed at something because you didn't do well enough, other people had the magic words. For instance, some injustices I've witnessed (that may or may not always be the case, or maybe not anymore!) include:

A good athletic score doesn't get you into a college sport--having a coach or parent talk to the college coach is mandatory

Many school-sponsored scholarships are often not tightly linked to grades, test scores, or financial need, but whether the student said the right words ("I can't afford that") to the right person (presumably some financial office person.)

Apparently, some aspects of some degrees are cheated on by most students (if that's the case, we should tell all students that it's ok to cheat on that so they don't waste their time on something that apparently wasn't important anyway, or worse, fail out just for being ethical.)

Especially related to books: Few people will mention that you can get grants! Not my agent, not my publisher, not the 1 zillion "pros and cons of trad publishing" articles out there mentioned grants (Grant eligibility is a HUGE benefit of trad publishing.) I got more money from grants than my entire book advance!

Let me know what magic words/secret knowledge you've learned, that you wish you knew sooner. Or: the widespread understanding of what information would make a field more fair?

And please share ANBIP with anyone writing, publishing, or seriously about to start writing, a nonfiction non-memoir book, especially if they're interested in the more practical side (I share more about resources and strategy than craft.)

[jonnywaistcoat]

hello! i’ve been recently scrolling the internet and have recently found a concept that you might find interesting. i’m not sure if you already know, but here in the US we don’t allow for there to be any officially lost submarines on record. this means any submarine in our military history that hasn’t returned is not considered missing but still on their mission.

these submarines are called “still on patrol” submarines and there’s about 52 of them ww2. this concept made me think of you because of how easily it can be taken in a more spooky sense.

but a very sweet tradition we also have is that a military radio operator will send out a message to these submarines every year to wish them and merry christmas and let them know that we remember them.

anyways, i just thought this was a lovely concept that might interest you! have a lovely day 💜

What a fantastic and resonant piece of information - go write a story about it!

[pallastronomy]

looking for a new piece of xenofiction

ask the creator if their xenofiction is Watership Down or Warrior Cats

they don’t understand

pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is Watership Down and what is Warrior Cats

they laugh and say ‘It’s good xenofiction sir’

look inside

it’s Warrior Cats

[keferon]

What so far have been your fav mecha fics? I was looking at the tag and there are like.. 80 something of them now on Ao3 alone.

Honestly I can’t choose. I see those fics as different parts of the same one story:D Kind of like one looooong fic separated into 80 episodes.

[pirateprincessjess]

I’m not gonna respond to anymore asks about that anon who mixed up Necrophilia and Narcolepsy.

I appreciate y’all’s support, but I simply do not have the energy to respond to everyone who has something to say about that anon. That post is growing way faster than I was prepared for.

Feel free to ask me about my experience with narcolepsy, or anything else really.

[mearchy]

I really love Jaster Mereel, the most “fine then I’ll do it myself” guy of all time. Like, after he killed his corrupt superior UHC style and got exiled for it he could’ve been on that vigilante shit. And he did come back ready for a fight- but not with a battalion, or another assassination. With a fucking entire new system of living and governing contained in a codex he wrote himself, based on ancient laws he wanted to resurrect. By all accounts he wasn’t even in academia or government before that moment, he was a cop. And the best part is he fucking managed to create a majorly consequential schism in Mandalorian society purely on the strength of having actually really good ideas in that big-ass academic magnum opus he spite-wrote. That’s some Protestant reformation shit!!!! I wonder if someone said to him during his sentencing like “you can’t just make up your own laws because you disagree with the ones we have” and he said oh word?? Insane, I love him.

[her-soliloquies]

I'm half convinced that if Vi and Cait hadn't actually kissed and slept together, there would be some people showing up out of nowhere to say that their relationship is supposed to be platonic and seeing it as romantic is harmful to the concept of simple friendship and that two people can be close without it being romantic etc etc (which they are saying about jayvik and silco/vander)

Now since explaining a thousand times that people can have different opinions and they should learn to respect them instead of correcting them as if there is only one true answer does not seem to work, here's an idea: just block those ship tags and let us all have peace in this fandom.

Thank you.

[maiamars]

that scene where fitz wakes up to the fool watching him sleep bc he doesnt know how to help him bc its not the right time, its never right time until someone else does it so you just hold on to that bouquet of flowers

[world-of-wales]

The Duke of Cornwall stopped by for a drinks at the Prince of Wales Pub in Yelverton (Photo Courtesy- The Prince of Wales hotel via Facebook) | 12 JUNE 2025

[turbo-tsundere]

Chibi Gonta for the soul <3

[clonerightsagenda]

I've started noticing content warnings start popping up more frequently in the front of published books, and I'm curious as to people's thoughts on that. So, poll time!

[thenecropolix]

I don't know who to send this ask so I'm gonna leave it out here for the public because it just came to me out of the blue: locomotive literature

And I don't mean literature about locomotives, but rather literature written by locomotives

Train biographies detailing their lives on the railway and documenting how things have changed since they were first built

Ghost writers publishing literary works written by trains

Trains with human editors sitting on their buffers as they write down what their engines say and making adjustments for those especially picky or who's words cannot be transcribed because they will be banned otherwise (looking at you Duncan)

Just

Train authors you guys

[snipdoodle]

Aaaaaah I love drawing my fursona!!! I love them!!! She's like me!!! But not really but in spirit I suppose!! I wish I was a vaguely feminine but overall ambiguously gendered feline creature!!!

[kurolini909]

Do you ever wonder...

How dark a shadow must you cast?

[fudgelling-away]

When you try to give people what they want and write [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and some [REDACTED], but the baby girl keeps taking your notes and pens away...