#i'm also just very picky about the fiction i read. with nonfiction i will read almost any subject though

[uncanny-tranny]

I read your entire faq thing and even looked at the website for ae/aer pronouns. I’m a huge fan of neos, a lot of the ones I see are really clear with what the user of them associates with (like bun/bunself for someone who is a bunny) Maybe it’s my lack of understanding about neos but does ae/aer have a correlation with something? Nonetheless I do like the sound of it

Ae/aer neopronouns were introduced from the 1920s Sci-fi novel A Voyage to Arcturus (David Lindsay)!

I have a copy of the book myself, and I so far have really enjoyed it, though I'm only a few pages in. I don't see these pronouns as part of my gender or expression, however, I see them as an outlet for my self-perception as almost being alien. I liked, especially, how this set was made for an "alien" people - I think more Sci-fi should explore that because it makes more sense than to pretend like human understanding of one's place is universal, plus, it's just more fun and interesting.

[incognitajones]

Reading meme 📚

What’s up readers?! How about a little show and tell? Answer these 13 questions, tag 13 lucky readers and if you’re feeling extra bookish add a shelfie! Let’s Go!

Thanks for the tag, @lucymonster, this was a lot of fun!

1) The Last book I read: The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, finally, which has been on my radar since I saw her speak in 2022. /o\ I loved the narrator's voice & it lived up to the hype, though I might have some nitpicks about the ending.

2) A book I recommend: Like lucymonster, I have to ask "For who?" and "What are they looking for?" You can't make me suggest something completely at random!

That said, when this was my job, my go-to rec for anyone who enjoyed mysteries and/or thrillers was Tana French; for science fiction/action readers, Martha Wells' Murderbot series; and Kelly Link or Mariana Enríquez for litfic & fantasy folks. 

3) A book that I couldn’t put down: Hild (and its sequel Menewood)

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more): The last thing I re-read was The Worm Ouroboros. It's a strange book and almost indescribable; very much of its time but also written in deliberately, completely antique prose, sort of as if Tolkien had been inspired by Orlando Furioso.

5) A book on my TBR: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

6) A book I’ve put down: These days I put down more fantasy novels and contemporary romances than I finish; I'm picky about prose and characterization and a lot of them are too bland.

7) A book on my wish list: The Mask of Fear. I'm not a fan of most SW tie-in novels, but Alexander Freed is one of my exceptions, plus I always want more Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma!

8) A favorite book from childhood: Continuing on the theme of pony books from lucy - I read hundreds of them, but my all-time favourite was Fly-by-Night.

9) A book you would give to a friend: The last book I gave as a gift (to someone who's a massive local politics/municipal government wonk) was How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World.

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own: Sadly, I don't actually own it anymore as over the past few years, I've drastically downsized my physical library. But before that, I held on to this edition of Akhmatova's selected poems in translation for decades. 

11) A nonfiction book you own: One book that made the downsizing cut and stayed on my shelf is LeGuin's The Wave in the Mind. Her essays were just as foundational for me as her fiction.  

12) What are you currently reading: Just started The Blighted Stars - Megan O'Keefe is one of the few romance writers whose work I consistently enjoy so I have high hopes for her SF.

13) What are you planning on reading next? One of two books that I have to read soon or return to the library: either the light contemporary romcom (Under Your Spell) or the thick history book (Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century) depending on my mood this weekend.

Tagging my reading peeps @englishable @mosylu @glorious-spoon @anghraine @rain-sleet-snow @intellectualcarrot plus anyone who wants to!

[qqueenofhades]

hiii ❣ it's a bit random but do you have any advice for a beginner writer?

i want to write web series and while i'm going to write for my pleasure, i still would love my work to be good enough to have readers.

but while i read stuff and write fics, i don't think it's enough to help me write an original several episode work. + i want to write in english but i'm not a native english speaker.

do you have a textbook or any resource in mind that you'd reccomend to a beginner writer?

Unfortunately, I don't have one single one-size-fits-all resource or silver-bullet magical writing improvement tool that I can recommend, as everyone learns/practices in different ways and some people swear by things that don't work for other people. I can't speak to the value of Grammarly or any other online tool that promises to make you a better writer, as they can often be used to feed your work into AI, make bizarre and/or flatly incorrect suggestions, or otherwise be confusing and unhelpful for a newbie writer, especially someone whose first language isn't English. If you work better within an interactive framework or just want to see if it does seem useful, then by all means do check it out, but don't feel like you HAVE to use it (or anything else) if it doesn't offer much to your process.

As ever, and unhelpfully, my advice for becoming a better writer is to write a lot and read a lot, in all kinds of genres. There's really no get-good-at-writing-quick hack to suddenly get you where you want to be overnight, but you CAN get there by dint of steady and sustained progress. You say that you already read things and write fics -- which is great! You clearly already have some practice with the overall concept, and you are not starting from total scratch. While a lot of writers have a goal of something they really want to do (i.e. in your case, write a web series) and feel like the first one they write has to be The Real and Good One that they only launch into after appropriate years of practice, that's not the case. You can start writing the series now, if you want to. You'll have to also share it with people who you trust to give you helpful and honest feedback (the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc) while also respecting the skill level that you're currently at and not tearing it down for being up to professional standards or something else that doesn't accurately reflect where you are and what you need feedback on. But yes, you will have to write steadily, share your writing with others, and challenge yourself to read and write in different kinds of texts -- i.e. not just fic or amateur fan content, but literature, nonfiction, genre fiction, academia, special interest subjects, and so forth. Writing by professionally published authors is not necessarily always better, but it does give you a sense as to what is deemed marketable, what the general skill level and standard is, and what you might like to emulate or try to do with your own projects.

Also, as a side note, I think that plenty of amateur or fan-written content on the internet is not necessarily outstandingly good, technically speaking. This doesn't mean it's bad -- plenty of people read and enjoy it anyway, and aren't coming in expecting it to be an award-winning piece of fine literature. Standards for what is good, enjoyable, or well-written vary dramatically by genre, medium, what your audience is expecting and/or paying for, and so forth. Some people also have high and/or picky standards for what they will read or what they find enjoyable to read, while others will just go along with the story and don't care as much about the format or technical prowess or so forth. So it is very much a subjective measurement, and if you get to a place where you enjoy reading your own stuff and find it engaging -- regardless of what arbitrary skill level you feel yourself to be on -- chances are that other people will too.

[scattered-winter]

BOOK ASKS!!!! 1, 4, 7, 11, 17, 20 <3333

book you’ve reread the most times?

ooh...probably either the six of crows duology by leigh bardugo (I have the whole thing practically memorized at this point...) or pjo/hoo.....theyre sooo <33

4. what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

YA, usually, just because that's generally where the authors I like are, but I'm SUPER picky about which YA books I actually read because well. *gestures at most of them*

7. is there a series/book that got you into reading?

I've been an eager reader for LITERALLY as long as I can remember (the way my mom tells it, I literally taught myself to read which tbh I don't remember enough to dispute that fact and it makes me sound cool so I'll take it) HOWEVER as a kid I was a huge fan of the magic treehouse and bailey school kids series. idk if they were the first ones I ever read tho

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

oooh ok ok so when I was a kid my parents had a whole STACK of these nonfiction books for kids called "I wonder why" and each one had like. a different theme. my favorite one was "I wonder why triceratops had horns (and other questions about dinosaurs)" and the whole book was about dinosaurs and answering different "questions" that kids might ask about them. and bro I ate that shit UP. I think my family had about 15 to 20 of these books, in a range of topics from extinct animals to ancient egypt to reptiles to plants, and I used to stack them all in a big pile on my bedroom floor and just read each one, cover to cover, one by one. I must've read those books at LEAST 7 times each, and I loved them soooo much. a lot of the topics are STILL interesting to me (like dinosaurs and extinct animals and ecosystems) and it was so funny because the other day my mom was talking about all the old books the family used to have and she offhandedly mentioned those ones and said something like "yeah none of the kids liked them so they just sat on the shelf :(" and I had to tell her that I actually had them mostly memorized at one point lmao

the series had a revamp pretty recently so most of the search results are the new covers but here's one of the old ones that I used to have :]

17. top 5 children’s books?

the "I wonder why" series (as seen above, because autistic kids deserve a fun little treat :]), magic treehouse (fun historic adventures !!! ALSO a fun lil autistic treat :]), the bailey school kids (THEE OG DETECTIVE GANG), animorphs (war crimes <3), and warriors (more war crimes <3)

20. what are things you look for in a book?

mostly I just look for a good time !!! I loooove complicated/fascinating worldbuilding, like with six of crows, and I also want to be reading about characters who I like/connect with !! if the book is romance-centric I'm less inclined to want to read it UNLESS it's very well written (six of crows is largely about romance but they're all sooooo well crafted that I just ??? love them all ???? and it's also balanced out by the platonic dynamics and overall worldbuilding and plot so they're very enjoyable to me even though the romance plays a big part in it) BUT OVERALL I just wanna have a good time yknow

book asks!!

[deciduousprincess]

11 and 19 for book asks?

11. What nonfiction do you like if any

I didn't used to like nonfiction but now I actually read more nf than fiction?? I really go for alternative approaches to history or deep dives into something specific I know nothing about. The Dawn of Everything was a really good alternative anthropology/exploration of why we have the anthropological myths about early humans that we have been repeating since the 17th century with no evidence. and right now I'm listening to Jesus and John Wayne.

19. What popular books do you dislike

I'm very prejudiced against most books.... By the average I may actually hate books. i believe James Patterson and Danielle Steel have a moral and ecological imperative to stop writing. /J if we are talking "fair assessments of books Ive actually read" I was disappointed by one last stop and iron widow. Neither were bad Im just picky and the emotional beats of the romance fell flat to me in both. I often join the hype train on debuts only to come away with the thought that I'll appreciate the authors (good!) ideas more a few books later when they have more command of their craft. I'm also consistently annoyed by queer historical romance but I can't get into all that

[swiftzeldas]

1,5, 15, 18, 20!

book you’ve reread the most times?

tough to answer bc i used to reread things OVER AND OVER when i was really little, so the truest answer is probably one of the HP books, but in the interest of not just saying HP lol, i think it is probably inkheart or the fellowship of the ring!

5. where do you buy books?

lately i don't often buy unless it's something i'm sure i'll like, or if i've already read it and know i love it enough to read it again! (i made the mistake of buying a book without knowing for sure i'd like it recently and now i'm in the middle of reading it and i don't like it lol) but that said when i do buy books it's usually from one of the two local indie bookstores i frequent around here! i do sometimes go to barnes & noble too esp if i'm buying a book as a gift. i also like online stores like bookoutlet! usually lately if i want to read something i get it from the library

15. recommend and review a book.

i mean, i'm sure everybody has heard me talk about The Hunger by Alma Katsu by now but literally i beg everyone to read The Hunger ESPECIALLY PPL WHO JUST STARTED FOLLOWING ME LATELY WHEN I STARTED POSTING THE TERROR and then come talk to me about the hunger miniseries that lives in my head rent free that i so badly want put to screen. ummmm. anyway. another book i recommend highly is station eleven. i know THAT just became a miniseries too but i wasn't all that into what i saw of it, i just want people to read the book because it was beautiful and wonderful and i loved it so much

18. do you like historical books? which time period?

i do!!!! especially speculative historical fiction, whether it's history with fantastical elements or history with horror elements or just any sort of "retelling" of historical events. lately i'm very into 1800s american historical fiction but it's hard to find books that deal with that in ways i find interesting. i also do tend to like books set in WWII which i know is basic but hello!!!! CODE NAME VERITY!!! THE BOOK THIEF!!!! and of course alma katsu's latest THE FERVOR!!!!!!

i just realized maybe this question meant nonfiction? in which case the answer is still yes but i haven't read as much as i'd like to! i'm not picky about the time period for nonfiction really

20. what are things you look for in a book?

hmm. i don't know, it's hard to say! i think i tend to look for books with interesting female characters. i think only one of the books i've read this year (which isn't a ton, but still) has had a male protagonist. i just want to read about interesting, diverse, complicated women!!! also on a more surface level i love horror and i am always looking for interesting horror

[ellen-ball-blog]

Everything You Never Wanted To Know

So, first of all, can we just acknowledge that we actually have made it to blog number ten? That is ten weeks' worth of blogs. It may not sound like a long time, but I honestly thought it would last a week before I couldn't think of anything to write. I am very proud of the fact that I have held this commitment (but I'm surprised anyone is still actually reading them!) “Uh, Ellen, it's ten weeks - that's not even three months”, I hear you say, but I'm still proud. It's been a positive experience writing these, and I hope it has been for you reading them as well.

But I am weary of the fact that you still may not know that much about me. Yes, last week I spoke of some of my insecurities, but you may still finding yourself wondering "who is this crazy rambling person on the internet?" So I thought I would give you a few facts about myself. You didn’t ask for it, but you’re getting it anyway.

I am a pescatarian (meaning I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish). I've been one for about a year and a half now, and while I love being a pescatarian, I will never be someone who forces their preferences on other people. I don't care if you eat meat. Hey, I even cook the turkey when I host friendmas every year.

I love lists - weird, I know. My phone has three organisational apps, my favourite of which is wanderlust. It keeps all my lists in one place, and since I've been using it (for about a year now) I remember so much more than I used to. (Disclaimer this is not an add for any apps, you probably guessed that as no one is reading this blog so who would pay me to advertise anything but I still thought it needed to be said)

I can speak danish and have a Danish passport.

I want an Australian sheepdog so freakin' much!, I spend my spare time looking at pictures of them on the internet. Sad, I know, but while I’m still renting I don't see myself getting one anytime soon.

I'm fairly certain I have an addiction to candles. I go through about 20 tea lights a night, and then have about 5 bigger ones around my flat. 

I have a an irrational fear of Cephalopods (Squids and Octupuses) Hear me out: they are really intelligent, and have you ever see the colossal squid? That is TERRIFYING. Google it. Google it right now and tell me you're okay with that. Now that fear isn't the irrational part; I actually think its very rational to be scared of these monsters. The irrational part is that I feel that if I eat them, such as having calamari, they will know when I swim in the sea and will kill me. Yes, I know. I did say it was irrational. Moving swiftly on.

I read a lot. If I'm not super busy I will read about a book a week. I'm super picky with what I read, but I enjoy both fiction and nonfiction. I actually just bought a book on stoicism that I'm excited to read. I’m not trying to sound smart or anything, my book choices definitely haven't all been winners (cough Fifty Shades of Grey cough).

I can lick my elbow. It's pretty cool. 

I was created by IVF, making me a ‘test tube baby’. I've always found it pretty cool that my parents wanted me so badly, also I enjoy telling people a team of scientists made me. Kinda like I'm a superhero with no discernible powers, except licking my elbow. There is that. 

So, that's everything about me that I can really think of! Well, everything that I want to share with potential strangers on the internet. Thank you for reading blog number ten, and here's to another ten (hopefully)!