#just get those words out onto paper or the computer wherever you write and fix it later

[eureka-its-zico]

is it normal to feel insecure about ur own writing when u read others works esp the way they are able to portray the same character you are writing about but like in a much better way :(( I was motivated to write but I'm stuck in this weird crisis :(

Osiyo, Nonnie,

First and foremost, before I write anything else, I just want to remind you writing should be fun. If you are having a good time writing or working on something, a character, or anything that you absolutely love please don’t let negativity from yourself or others ever make you feel any kind of way.

I know it’s easier said then done. We can be the harshest critics to ourselves. I know I am constantly thinking my writing is trash, and yes, I’ve read fics written by other creators that instantly just completely made me feel inferior and wonder, “why even bother posting when a story like that is out there?”

Let me tell you: your story, whatever it maybe, deserves to be read. Your hard work will be appreciated by myself or others able to recognize the courage it takes to even be willing to share your idea, let alone a story you created. Just because we may feel like what we’ve written is inferior to someone else, or not the same quality, does not make it true. People will read it and enjoy it and I for one would love to see what you’ve written.

Writing is hard, especially when writing established characters, but it should never stop being fun.

I’m not sure if that helped at all but I sincerely hope it helped just a little. Please, keep being motivated and I’m always here to do what I can. Much love 🖤

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Just Ask

Prompts: Hey… So, I was wondering if you could write a fic where one of the sides are dyslexic? Since that usually just ends as "Oh, I can't read, oh no!" and not like the actual neurodiversity it is. Yes, I admit, I want to relate to one too, but… Well. It'd be awesome if you would, but if that's too tall an order or too specific that's fine too. If you do, though, maybe college AU with roceit? -anon

Hi you're amazing! I love your writing and brand of writing and just I've read a lot of your stories and I love them all kskejejwuwugfhsv-

I was wondering, if you take requests, that maybe you could write a human AU with fake dating Roceit? With confident fat Janus because we need that! Or not, that's your choice!

(I sound like some snob asking for a highly specific coffee shi-) - anon

oh babe y'all wanted to be FED huh

Read on Ao3

Warnings: slight ableist/fatphobic language

Pairings: roceit

Word Count: 2487

Sometimes, you can get all of your work done in the library. Sometimes, people are ableists.

And sometimes there's something wonderful in finding out there's someone there for you as well.

Roman scrubs his hands over his face and sighs. Between waiting ages at the printer or absolutely destroying his retinas by staring at a screen for hours on end, he isn’t unhappy with making the choice to save the environment by using less paper but god.

“At least this pdf was convertible,” he mutters, scrolling down to see how many pages he has left. The last four weren’t and reading without the right font is a fucking pain in the ass.

Seven pages left. Great.

Roman focuses on the screen and starts to mutter under his breath again. Focus on the word, figure it out, make the sentence, move on. Pause to take notes, make sure it’s legible to read later, and repeat.

A computer and heavy bag thuds onto the table next to him and he jumps, almost knocking his coffee over. He looks up, glaring at the person who stares down their nose at him like he’s some sort of stain. Rude.

“You’ve been here for like, three hours, dude,” they say, like that’s supposed to justify their behavior, “move. I need this spot.”

Roman looks around. There’s like, four more tables open. “Can’t you just go sit somewhere else?”

“No! This is my spot! You can go sit somewhere else.”

“Well,” Roman mutters, glaring at his screen again, “I was here first. So you can either wait until I’m done or sit down.”

“Dude, I swear—“

“Excuse me,” comes a smooth voice that has no business being this polished in the fucking library, “is this person bothering you, sweetie?”

Roman turns around and his mouth drops open.

“J-Janus?”

Janus raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms and glaring at the dick with the heavy bag. Who, as a matter of fact, seems to be muttering and stuffing shit back into said bag.

“Sorry I’m late,” Janus drawls, still sounding way too confident and way too much like he knows what’s going on, “got held up after class.”

“Uh, no problem,” he mumbles, glancing over his shoulder to see the asshole is still standing there, “just, um…working.”

“Ah, well then, you won’t mind if I join you.” And with that, Janus sits down with a flourish, propping his chin up on his hand and fixing the asshole with an impressive look of disgust. “And you…you can leave.”

“Look, buddy—“

“My partner and I have work to do,” Janus says, swiftly cutting them off and making sure Roman has no idea what’s going on, “now leave.”

Roman’s really glad there was no ambiguity that Janus could’ve been talking to him, because he’s about ready to bolt. Only when the asshole has retreated does Janus turn his gaze to him.

“Sorry about that,” he says, flicking a speck of imaginary lint from his gloves, “he seemed like he was bothering you. Thanks for playing along.”

“Oh, uh, no, I’m, uh—“ Janus raises an eyebrow as Roman stumbles over his words— “sorry. Uh, thanks?”

Janus chuckles. “Oh, no worries, sweetie. I was happy to do it. Although…”

Janus squints at him and Roman fights the urge to squirm under that gaze.

“You’re in my seminar class, aren’t you?” Roman nods. “The one that let out three hours ago?”

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

“Have you…been here since then?”

Roman nods, trying to get back to work and, you know, maybe get out of here, only for Janus to reach across the table and still his hands as he goes to pick up the pen again.

“Have you eaten?”

“What?”

“Eaten,” Janus says slowly, mouth stretching into a smile, “lunch, sweetie.”

“Uh—“ no, is the correct answer— “I was going to?”

Janus just gives him a look.

“…no.”

“Mm.” Janus glances at his computer and notebook. “You’re not by any chance attempting to read all of the assignments in one go, are you?”

Roman’s guilty flush seems to answer that question for him. Janus sighs and it’s such an odd mixture of disappointment and fondness Roman hasn’t earned that his brain spits out the only question he actually wants an answer to.

“Why are you here?”

Janus chuckles. “In the library, at this school, or are we already to the point of questioning the very nature of existence?”

Roman just blinks at him.

“Oh, relax, sweetie, I’m teasing.” Janus glances off in the vague direction the asshole wandered off to. He leans a little closer. “I know how…difficult it can be to try and do work when they bother you.”

Roman’s cheeks flush. “Oh, uh…thanks, then.”

Janus waves a hand. “It’s none of their business why you’re doing so much work at once. Even if it does make you skip lunch,” he adds with such a pointed look that Roman can’t help splutter.

“I was going to! And you’re not my mother!”

“No,” Janus purrs, “but like any good partner, I like to make sure my sweetie takes care of themselves.”

Roman does not squeak, despite Janus’s chuckles, but he does start to fiddle with his pen. “I can’t…stop yet.”

“Why ever not?”

“Can you stop,” Roman blurts, scrubbing his hands over his blushing face, “please? For like, two seconds?”

“Sorry, you’re just adorable.”

“Stop, dude, seriously, if you want an actual answer to the question?”

“I’m done,” Janus chuckles, “I’m done, sorry.”

Roman takes a deep breath. He fiddles with the pen. “It’s just—with my dyslexia, it takes a while to…find the, um…”

“Zone?”

“…sure.”

Janus hums in understanding. Then he reaches into his own bag and pulls out a book of his own. “Then we may as well work together until you’re finished.”

Roman blinks. Hi, hello, brain is confused, what just happened in the last five minutes?

Janus waves a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Sweetie? You okay?”

“Sorry, I’m just—trying to process what happened.” Roman blinks again. “Because it seems like some asshole tried to take my seat, you came up and pretended to be my partner to scare them away, proceeded to badger me about taking care of myself, and now you’re…still here?”

Janus nods. “That’s how I experienced it too, that’s correct.”

“…so now what’re we doing?”

“Well, I’m also going to try and get some work done, you’re going to finish your work, and then we’re going to get lunch.”

“And what about the dude that now thinks we’re partners?”

Janus looks at him and shrugs. “I’m game if you are.”

Roman blinks again. Is…Janus suggesting they fake being in a relationship to, what, defend Roman’s right to sit wherever the fuck he wants for however long in a library?

“What’s in it for you?”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Roman says, “what’s in it for you?”

Janus’s fingers still on the book he’s pulled out. He sighs and looks up at Roman.

“How long have you known about your dyslexia?”

Jumping around a bit here, aren’t we? “About six years, why?”

“And you know how to manage it? For you?”

“Uh, yeah, why?”

“That doesn’t mean it goes away,” Janus says softly, “it’s still work, you just…know how to do it now.”

“Yeah, it still takes me time to do things, why—“ Roman’s eyes widen— “oh. Oh, wait, you mean—wait, what do they have against you?”

Janus’s mouth tugs up into a smirk. “How sweet.”

“Shut up,” Roman mumbles, “you know what I mean.”

Janus just winks at him before sobering. “Well,” he says wryly, gesturing at himself, “surely you can understand that…not everyone treats you very well when you aren’t the circumference of a toothpick.”

Oh. They’re those kind of assholes. Something Janus chuckles about when that thought gets out before Roman can stop them.

“Quite. I can manage them, but it’s still work.” He looks at Roman. “Maybe we can split the load?”

“I’m down with that.”

“Wonderful. Now,” Janus says, mock sternly, “get back to work. We have lunch to get.”

Roman chuckles. “Sure, sure, don’t ask to borrow my notes.”

“I would never, I just forget things like a cool person and make things up that the professor likes to hear.”

Yeah, this is gonna go just fine.

As it turns out, it does. Roman won’t lie, he was…skeptical about the viability of this plan of theirs. He’s read the stories. He knows how this works. He knows about the misunderstandings and whether it’s a bet or a dare, something goes wrong.

But…nothing does.

Watching Janus tear anyone to shreds is entertaining enough in class, where Roman gives up on taking debate notes and just watches because goddamn, but when he gets to stand there and just glare at some ableist while Janus verbally decimates them? Poetic cinema. He debates sneaking some popcorn into his jacket pocket but that would take away from the power of his glare.

And it is nice to have someone else do the work of glaring assholes away from his table when he’s working on reading. He would be lying if he said that actually having someone else to talk to isn’t part of it. It’s so much easier to keep track of where he’s messing up so he can focus on it during his exercises later.

“You know,” Janus remarks as they leave the library one day, “you can ask the professors for editable pdfs.”

“Huh?”

“For your font stuff.” Janus nods toward his backpack. “I know you like to change the font so you can read it better, most of them have editable copies of the materials.”

“Not for the eBooks and scans and stuff.”

Janus huffs, waving his hand. “How do you think they get the audio transcripts for the recorded versions? They have to transcribe it anyway, just ask for those.”

Roman stops. “How…how do you know those exist?”

Janus just taps the side of his nose and winks.

“Can…can you do that?”

“Of course.” Janus links his arm through Roman’s. “Anything for you.”

That shouldn’t do what it does to Roman’s chest.

Because yeah, okay, maybe Janus is…really cute.

Like, unfairly cute.

No one should be able to rock that hat all the time. And the gloves. And the pocket watch. And the curly hair. And the attitude. And the impressive vocabulary. And the razor-sharp wit. And he actually knows how to flirt! What is flirting? All Roman knows is Gay Panic™ and Suffering™. What is this? Why is it allowed?

And why, oh why, did Janus have to be the one that started the fake-dating idea?

Because here’s the thing. It would be so easy to just be friends with Janus. It would! They’re already friends now, fake-dating kind of does that to you. And Janus, despite what he wants everyone else to believe, is a fucking dork. His actual laugh is squeaky and bubbly and ugh, Roman could drown in it. And he’s really kind. It’s not the same breed of kind that Roman’s used to, but goddamn, Janus is so sweet when he lets himself be. And it’s been so long since Roman had like, an actual friend…

But it would also be so easy to be more than friends with Janus. To actually be able to take him out for dates and not just lunch at their janky cafeteria. To be able to spend time together that isn’t just for show, or platonic, or just hanging out ranting about stupid dead supposed-to-be-smart people.

Again, Roman’s read the stories. He knows how this is supposed to go.

So when he takes a little longer to pack up one day, enough that Janus notices and eases himself back down into his seat with a soft, real, ‘what’s wrong, sweetie, let me help,’ Roman prepares the bittersweet ‘nothing, I’m fine,’ and to swallow down everything real.

But instead…

“Can we, um, actually date?”

Janus blinks. “Come again, sweetie?”

Roman fiddles with the buckle on his bag. “I, um, I really appreciate what we’ve been doing, and I, um, I’m super happy being your friend…”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“…but I, um—“ god, why are words so hard?— “I think I would actually like to try…dating you. For real.”

He peeks up nervously at Janus.

“Is…is that okay?”

Janus sits there, silent. He blinks a few times. Then a slow, real smile spreads across his face.

“Roman,” he says softly, almost too quiet, even in the hush of the library, “why do you think I proposed this idea in the first place?”

Oh.

Oh.

Roman blinks. “Wait, you—you?”

A pretty flush covers Janus’s face. “Well, I…was planning to ask you normally, but then I saw you being absolutely tormented and…panicked.”

“You panicked?”

He throws his hands up. “Well, what was I supposed to do? The most gorgeous person in my seminar was being bullied and I was supposed to just let it happen?”

Wait. Back up. Roman is what?

“And yes, maybe I...wanted an excuse to be your friend first, but as I said, I panicked and so—“

“You—wait, you think I’m pretty?”

Janus stops, mouth open, before he’s scoffing. “Roman, have you seen yourself?”

“Uh—“

“At least you’re pretty,” Janus mutters under his breath, “pretty and dumb, but pretty.”

“Hey!”

“You can be big of brain and dumb of ass at the same time, sweetie.”

“Oh, says the man whose idea was to fake-date me because you wanted to actually ask me out!”

“I will not be lectured on dramatics from a theater kid.”

“That’s ex-theater kid to you.”

“Oh, you know once you go, you never come back.”

Roman giggles. Then he’s laughing. Janus joins in and oh, this is much better than shoving feelings down and pretending they don’t exist.

“You’re such a fucking dork.”

“No,” Janus purrs, reaching over to boop the end of Roman’s nose, “I’m your fucking dork.”

Oh. Oh, that sounds…really good. Roman’s chest is really warm now, when did that happen? Janus smiles too.

“So…dinner?”

“You’re paying.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

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[ernmark]

God bless you and this amnesia au 🙌🙌🙌🙌 May I ask to see what happens next?

I keep writing this and somehow my outline keeps getting longer.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

As a thief, Peter’s familiar with the transformations of day and night. He’s been in this office after hours, when its drawers were cavernous and the filing cabinet along the wall was never-ending. Now that the lights are on, the room feels cramped, crowded by three bodies that feel far too many: his own in this chair, Juno on the other side of the desk, and Juno’s secretary on the other side of that door. Juno, too, seems transformed– in the night he was vulnerable and needy, his body soft and pliant under Peter’s touch; now he’s closed off, all sharp corners and hard edges, leaning on the desk like he’s bracing up a barricade. 

Peter has seen these changes a thousand times in a thousand places. They’ve never made him feel remorse before. But this isn’t the time to dwell on those feelings.

“You said you’ve done some digging on your own,” Juno says, curt and businesslike. 

“I’ve searched for all of my aliases, and I’ve come up empty.”

“Isn’t that the point? Being hard to track down is kind of your thing.” 

“Juno–”

He cuts Peter off before he can finish the thought. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

And so Peter walks him through it. First backwards– first boarding the spaceship, then arriving at the spaceport, then fencing the golden record, and then the heist in exacting detail– and then he has him go over the whole ordeal in the proper order. Juno writes down every detail, every name, every place, every object of note.

Theories are starting to accumulate on the far side of the notebook.

Security guards?

Mutagenic dust on the record?

Pissed off insurance agents?

But there’s one note his pen keeps coming back to: Ancient Martian tech?

Extinct aliens seems rather far-fetched, doesn’t it? 

“Maybe it happened more recently?” Peter suggests. “As far as I know, you’re the last person who saw me. Was I with anyone when I left you?”

Juno doesn’t look at him. “You’re not the one who left.” Before Peter can ask, he changes the subject. “I’ve got what I need. You go back to… wherever the hell you’re staying, and I’ll let you know what I find.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stay.”

“It’s not.” Juno’s eyes are as hard as his surname. “Which part of ‘get out of my life’ is so hard to understand?”

Peter only wishes he knew. “Perhaps there’ll be something to jog some memories?”

Juno tries to stare him down, but he can’t hold Peter’s gaze for long. “Fine. Whatever. Stay here if you want, just keep your mouth shut.”

Really, for all the drama and aesthetic, a surprising amount of detective work is incredibly boring. Juno spends most of the day on his comms, calling one name and then the next, while his secretary provides him with numbers and background details that might be useful. So much of it is drudgery that Peter genuinely doesn’t know whether Juno is ignoring him, or whether he’s just hurrying from one call to the next because there are so many of them to make.

Peter watches him intently, listening for any detail that might spark a memory, but nothing comes. His mind keeps going back to what Juno said earlier– you’re not the one who left.

A week ago, Peter would have called the notion absurd– he’s the one who does the leaving, after all– but it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched when he looks at Juno Steel.

He envisions something not too far removed from what he experienced so recently: a tender night followed by a lonely morning. Perhaps not entirely like the one he recalls– what he imagines is devoid of accusations and shouting and bitter, painful laughter. In his mind it’s a quiet disappointment, waking up to a broken promise and an empty bed.

He doesn’t need to guess why that thought hurts so much, not when he’s woken up with Juno beside him.

Finally Juno hangs up.

“Any luck?” Peter asks, but Juno is too busy writing something on a fresh sheet of paper to reply, and then he holsters his blaster.

“Rita, I want you to put a call into Julian. There’s lab work I need done and it has to do with their copyrights. If he gives you trouble, let him know that this might save him from a few potential lawsuits down the line from unhappy customers.” He grabs his coat and hat off the hook by the door and dons them with a flourish. He’s showing off– he must be. He must realize that he cuts a fine figure in that coat. And so it’s understandable that Peter takes it as an invitation. 

But Juno simply stares at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With you, of course,” Peter says. 

“No, you’re not.”

“But detective--”

“You can go back to your hotel or wherever the hell it is you’re staying, or you can stay here and help Rita look up some more of your aliases.” He smacks down the sheet of instructions on Rita’s desk for emphasis. “But you’re not coming.” 

That isn’t going to work. Peter’s already done what searching he can on the computer; if he’s going to find answers, they’ll be in places that he can’t reach through a screen.

“I’m sure I could be of assistance,” he suggests. 

“Where I’m going, I won’t need it.” 

He tries again. “Perhaps it’ll stir up a few memories.” 

Juno’s already on his way out the door. “These are memories you don’t want back.”

Peter straightens out of his languid curves, rising to his full height, sharp and rigid in a way he rarely needs to be. When he speaks, every word carries an edge. “That isn’t your choice to make.” 

Juno sighs. “I don’t have time for this. Fine. Come along if it’s that important to you.” 

Maybe Peter imagines the note of apology in his tone. 

“Last chance to change your mind,” Juno mutters, turning off the freeway and onto the ragged, pot-holed streets. 

“I’m sure I can handle it.”

Of course, Peter’s anticipating mobsters and conspiracies-- the sort of seedy underworld that Hyperion City is known for. He’s slightly less prepared for Juno to drive through the edge of the dome that protects the city. The difference is stunning; one moment a hundred tenements and apartment building are stacked on top of each other in a rickety attempt to make use of their limited space, and the next there’s nothing but empty desert stretching out before them. A low desert wind whistles across the landscape, eerily quiet after the bustle of the city.

Juno’s also quiet, his eyes fixed intently on the dunes, his knuckles pale around the steering wheel. The drive is long, with nothing by sand and dust to break up the monotony or dispel the mounting tension. Hours pass, and Peter can feel his nerves on edge, taut as piano wire under his skin. It’s a dangerous attitude to take into a bad situation-- there’s no telling when one of them is going to snap. And so he does what perhaps he should have done far earlier.

“Juno, I want you to know,” he says carefully. “I am sorry for misleading you before.”

Juno’s eyes flick to him for half a moment, then return to the dunes. “Don’t worry about it.” It isn’t acceptance, but dismissal.

“I realize that the way I went about it was tactless...”

“I get it,” Juno says, sharper. “I know what your anonymity means to you. You did what you had to do to protect that. I shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

The barb stings, but it’s a shallow wound; Juno’s deflecting him from the real issue. So Peter fields a guess. “You thought you would be special to me.”

Juno’s grip tightens. He couldn’t have given a clearer signal if he wrote it in neon.

Peter leans in. “For what it’s worth, detective, it took losing a whole year for me to forget you.”

“I don’t blame you, okay?” Juno’s voice rises, punctuated by the creak of faux leather under his hands. 

“Juno--”

“Don’t.” His voice shakes. “Just... don’t. I can’t deal with this right now.” 

“Alright.” Obediently, Peter leans back in his seat, putting more distance between the two of them. He keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon, pretending not to notice when Juno’s hand scrubs over his face. Peter’s still looking out that window when the horizon shifts. 

It’s a building, hewn from the ravine and eroded by wind and sand until it could almost be mistaken for a natural formation in the stone, if not for the unnatural symmetry of its spires or the stalactites that descend like teeth in a gaping maw. “Well. That’s exciting.” 

“That’s one word for it.” 

Juno turns the car and drives inside, parking in what could only be some sort of loading bay. Theirs isn’t the only vehicle here-- there are several trucks and vans beside their own, though the accumulation of sand around their tires suggests that they haven’t moved in quite some time. 

The color has completely drained from Juno’s face by the time they come to a halt. It takes him a moment of sheer willpower to dislodge his hands from the steering wheel long enough to put it into park, but the moment he commits to the action, he rushes through it, as though caught in a freefall. 

“Stay in the car.”  

Peter follows him out anyway, shutting the door with perhaps more force than necessary. He expects a fight, but none comes. Juno doesn’t argue against him. He simply starts walking down a steep corridor deeper into the structure.

The corridor turns abruptly, and then again snaking ever lower until the red sunlight and the Martian wind are far behind them. It should be pitch dark this far below ground, but the corridor is illuminated on both sides by hieroglyphs of some sort, glowing so bright that his eyes sting when he looks directly at them. Fascination is tainted by a feeling of unease as his gaze lingers over the symbols.

“Why are we here, Juno?” His voice echoes oddly off the glowing walls.

For a few moments he can only hear their footsteps on the weathered stone, and he assumes this is just another question that’s going to be ignored.

And then Juno answers.

“The Ancient Martians invented some kind of drug that let them read each other’s thoughts. Didn’t just work for them, either-- it’s just as effective on humans. I figure they might have made something else that messes with people’s heads. Maybe some kind of Ancient Martian virus, or something in this dust, or some of the radiation in those symbols on the walls. We were down here long enough. Maybe something got to you.”

Peter didn’t miss the plural in that sentence. “Both of us? Then why weren’t you affected?”

“I… had more noticeable symptoms.” Juno looks uncomfortable. “Besides, I was in the same room as the bomb when it went off, and that burned anything Martian out of me.” 

"I see.” Peter tries to stay clinical as he integrates those details but he feels ill. Why was Juno in a room with a bomb? Where was Peter during all of this? “Did I…?”

“If you can’t handle it, then go wait in the car. I’m not coming back here again.” 

The thought of being alone in these tunnels leaves a pit in Peter’s stomach. “No, I think I’ll stay here.”

“Then hold this.” Juno hands him a large plastic bag and stoops down, scraping a sample of dust and stone off the floor and putting it inside a sample bag. He takes another sample from the wall, and another from the clearly human-made ventilation system hanging down from the ceiling. As soon as the samples are collected, he tosses them into the bag in Peter’s hands. 

“I take it these are for Saffron Labs,” Peter muses.

“They did some research on Martian medicine. If anyone’s qualified to see if this stuff is affecting you, it’s them.” 

They come across another room, filled with boxes and equipment. On the floor close to the door lies a polymer face mask, covered in fine Martian dust. The sight of its cold, empty eyes makes the hairs on the back of Peter’s head stand on end, but Juno picks it up and puts it in another evidence bag, and then they continue going. He moves hesitantly, peering at each of the turns and corridors as if he’s reading the messages written on the walls, as if he’s seeing something that isn’t there.

There’s something wrong with the way he steps into the next room. He’s too unsteady, swaying like a sleepwalker as he strides past a pair of bed rolls and a cheap chemical toilet. 

A chill crawls down Peter’s spine as he watches Juno kneel between two splashes of dried blood.

“Juno?” His voice is too high. “Juno, what happened here.”

“What do you think?” Juno asks. “This is where she kept us.”

Peter looks closer. There are other blood splatters-- smaller and more scattered, focused primarily around one of the bed rolls. Near the door there are scuff marks where someone’s been bodily dragged. 

Whose blood was that? Whose body? 

What happened here?

“Goddammit,” Juno mutters, and Peter turns back. Juno’s still on his knees, trying to take samples of the rust-colored bloodstains on the floor, but his hands are shaking. 

Peter sinks down beside him, laying his hands on Juno’s. “Juno--”

Juno pulls away like he’s been burned, but not before Peter can feel the racing of his pulse. “It just takes some getting used to, okay? Last time I was here, I couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.” He backs further away, avoiding Peter’s eyes. “It’s fine. I’m over it.”

No, he isn’t, but Peter doesn’t say so. All he can do is pretend not to notice how many times Juno has to try to scrape the blood off the stone floor.

“I’ve got all the samples I need. Let’s just get out of here.”

[dear-mrs-otome]

Foxhole - SLBP (Mitsunari)

Because I’ve been looking for a reason to start writing for this fandom, and @yoolee gave me one. Thank you! Go easy on me everyone, it’s been awhile. (Also wtf is 2nd person and consistent tense *flails*)

From her prompt post: AU -  Reincarnation – they meet again in the modern world (Mitsunari x MC, ~3k words)

“An old book, eh?”

The day you’d mentioned your fruitless quest to find a vintage cookbook to one of the regulars at your cafe, he had nestled his chin on his hand, lips pursed thoughtfully as his fingers drummed your worn formica counter. “A friend of mine owns a bookstore, if you can believe those still exist today. And he loves collecting vintage and rare stuff like that. Maybe he could help you out.”

Mischief sashayed through his eyes, and that should have tipped you off right then and there. Would have, if you hadn’t been eagerly scrambling for a piece of scrap paper to write down the address Hideyoshi gave you. Instead, the moment passed as he shoveled the rest of his breakfast down the hatch in an impressive gulp and gave you a cheerful thumbs up, standing and tossing a handful of bills down to settle his check. “You’ll have to let me know how it goes,” he said as he tucked his wallet away, gracing you with one last cheeky wink and a broad grin as he left. “Good luck!”

Little did you know how much you’d need it.

Ancient bamboo chimes clacked as you opened the door to the little shop that very evening, tucked away on a side street just off the busy thoroughfare. Squat, brick, and entirely uninspiring from the outside, with nothing but a simple sign proclaiming it to be ‘Sakichi Books’. But inside…

Your hand was still on the doorknob as it shut behind you, and you were grateful for that small support as an odd sort of dizzy spell washed over you. The dry richness of old paper and leather bindings tickled your nose, curled through the slight breeze of your entrance to wrap around you in a strangely comforting manner, like the embrace of a long absent friend. Books covered every conceivable inch of space, crowded in neat rows on the shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. The unlucky ones that didn’t fit were stacked in careful towers wherever there was a nook or cranny, and you spared a moment of sympathy for the ulcer the fire chief probably suffered from after every inspection.

Other than a couple of comfortably battered armchairs tucked in the corners, the only other thing besides an endless expanse of print was the abandoned counter nestled near the door. The wooden top of it, much like the endless shelves that lined the walls, had that burnished soft patina that only came with age and reverence, and its old-fashioned styling only made the sleek laptop perched atop it look all that much more jarringly out of place.

That, and the impressive speaker arrangement beside it that was blasting some sort of ferocious piano concerto at a volume difficult to even think past.

You had yet to see any sign of another person. Not even an employee, though it was little wonder they weren’t aware of your arrival, given how the staccato chords and angry horns would have rendered the door chime pointless.

“Hello?” you ventured, loud enough to be heard over the crescendo as you peered between the stacks, finally stirring feet that had seemed glued to the threshold for reasons you couldn’t quite name.

A muffled, sour voice drifted up from somewhere down beneath the counter. “We’re not open.”

Frowning back at the door devoid of any sort of hours or sign, you drift further into the store. Ordinarily you wouldn’t have protested, if it hadn’t taken you three train transfers just to get here, but simply turning around and leaving felt…tragic, somehow. “But the door was unlocked, and your website said you were open until eight. I won’t be long, I promise.”

“Is it the ‘we’re, the ‘not’, or the ‘open’? Maybe the contraction, or the words with more than one syllable. Which part is too difficult for a dunderhead ninny like you to get? We’re closed.” Acid ate holes through the retort, sending you retreating a half-step, before indignation stiffened your spine and you gained back the ground you’d lost and then some with a few long strides.

“Are you always this charming? No wonder the online reviews for this place are so…special.” You leaned over, trying to catch a glimpse behind the tall counter of whomever had woken up on the wrong side of the year. “Hideyoshi can take his recommendation and shove it.”

There was a sudden bang followed by a smothered curse, as if someone had shot up and smacked their head beneath the counter. “Hideyoshi sent you?” A man unfolded himself to stand, arms crossed tightly and one brow raised, fixing you with a hard glare. “Why didn’t you say so?”

You returned his glare with one of your own, unsettled by how familiar he looked even though you would have sworn that you’d never seen him before in your life. It would have been impossible to forget the striking combination of his coloring - mountain-lake eyes half hidden beneath tousled hair the sort of glossy blue hue you only saw on crow wings.  “I just did, didn’t I?” you shot back to cover the unnerving wave of déjà vu that washed over you.

And déjà vu it must have been, for he didn’t even seem to blink twice in your direction. Besides the irritated quirk of his brow, he seemed positively glacial. As cool and unaffected as centuries-old ice. You didn’t even realize how long you’d been peering at him, searching for some sign of mutual recognition, until he’d let out a soft humph of sound. “Well? What do you need? I haven’t got all night, so let’s get this over with.”

Whatever Hideyoshi was to him, it meant enough for him to at least hear you out, it seemed. Tamping down the urge to snap back at his irritable tone, you dug out the small slip of paper you’d tucked into your purse. “I’m looking for this book,” you said, passing the note across the counter and into his waiting hand. “Hideyoshi said that this store might have it.”

He spared the title scribbled on it only a cursory glance before shaking his head and thrusting it back at you. “Sorry. We don’t.”

Had he even looked at it? Irritation skittered down your back, and you narrowed your eyes at him. “Just like that? You don’t have to look it up or anything?” you ask, waving a hand at the computer before you. How badly did he want to get rid of you? The amount of effort he’d put forth was downright insulting, and while you knew pushing back on this wasn’t going to make him magically become more cordial, or make the book suddenly appear, you couldn’t help voicing your frustration. “Does your boss know you’re this rude to customers?”

A shark’s smile spread on his lips, and he placed both hands on the counter top to lean closer, frigid eyes locked onto yours with a sort of unholy glee. “Lady, I am the boss.” He spread his fingers to gesture at the space around him. “This is my store. And I don’t need to ‘look it up or anything’ because I know every book in here.” One long finger tapped at his temple before falling to point accusingly at the note abandoned on the counter between them. “I’d never waste the shelf space on something as derivative as this…thing…you’re looking for, anyways.”

That was it. He could look down his nose at you all he wanted, but to insult the book you’d been looking for this long…you opened your mouth to let him have it, but he barreled on before you had a chance to even get the first righteous squeak out.

“Cooking the Japanese Way, circa 1963?” He scoffed, and suddenly was in motion, circling the counter to brush past you as he stalked towards the back of the store. “That’s not even authentic. The author was American!” There was genuine affront in his voice, as if the very idea offended him, and he paused to glare over his shoulder at you as he stopped just shy of disappearing in the labyrinth of shelves. “Why are you still standing there like a dunce? Come on.”

Surprise stole the rest of your anger, and almost against your will you found yourself trailing after him as he led you to a section of yellowing books nearest the far wall.

“Here.”

A book was shoved unceremoniously into your hands, the corners of it curling ever so slightly with age, its cover blank but you could tell from the title page that it was a mid-century collection of Japanese recipes. “Where did you…?”

Your amazement was cut off as he jabbed his finger at a few more spines lined up on the shelf. “Try this one, or this maybe. Here’s one just about soup dishes, and another specializing in southern cuisine.”

More books were piled in your arms, the musky smell of old paper and ink rising even stronger as you clutched them tighter. Turning, you ran your eyes over the myriad titles on the shelves before you, noticing that they all had something to do with food or cooking, and you juggled the armload you carried to stretch towards a tempting volume on traditional desserts on the top shelf.

An exasperated sigh escaped him as you bounced impotently on your toes, and a shadow fell over you. “Let me. No doubt you’re clumsy enough to end up knocking the whole thing over.” His hand braced on the riser beside you, the other reaching over your head to snag the book in question.

At least, that had seemed the plan. But as the moment stretched, suddenly thick and laden, you noticed his reach never made more than halfway.

His breath cut in and out of the space between you, falling on the nape of your neck, harsh at first before settling into a rhythm as intimate and soft as a caress. Time seemed to hang somehow, the both of you frozen there as goosebumps lifted on your flesh and a strange, unnamed feeling stirred beneath your skin. It was so far beyond appropriate - his body bowed above yours, so close you could almost swear you felt his warmth against your back, humming with a sort of tension that had his knuckles blanching against the rich wood.

Oddly though, you didn’t mind. Not in the slightest. Which was strange, right? You should mind a strange man crowding you like this…right?

“Forgive me. It’s just - you smell like manju.” A beat, and then came his hoarse puzzled addition. “Why?”

A skein of emotions tangled throughout the words, far too complex for such a simple observation. Far too loaded for such a simple question.

Bewilderment and surprise. Curiosity.

Longing.

Turning in the loose bracket of his arms to face him, your gaze flew to his to his, searching it for some sign that you hadn’t imagined the connotations you’d heard. Trying to find a reason for the way his question had lanced through you. His face was close, closer than you’d realized, and far prettier than any man’s had a right to be, all elegant features and thick, dark lashes that softened the hard eyes that dropped again and again to your mouth.

“I own a restaurant. Kitsune Cafe. Monday’s special dessert is manju,” you explain in a sort of daze, your voice barely more than a whisper, distracted by the sweep of his lips no more than a slight lean away. “I spent all morning making it.”

You heard him swallow thickly before shoving himself away, the book the both of you had been reaching for forgotten entirely. Before you’d thought it through your hand lifted towards him - to push him further away? To draw him closer? You weren’t even sure yourself. There was a lost, haunted look in his eyes that wrenched at something deep within you, and what it pulled up was -

“Mitsunari?”

He shrank further back as if the name burned him, his stare gone white and wide and wild, like that of a spooked horse. “How did you…?” His strangled voice trailed off, and he dragged a hand that shook ever so faintly through his hair and then down his face, and in its wake his expression was shuttered tightly. A boarded up house, impossible to breach. “I think you should go.” A hand between your shoulder blades urged you towards the entrance suddenly. Almost violently.

Where had you dredged that name up from? Had Hideyoshi mentioned it? Your head felt strangely fuzzy.

“B-but the books!” you stammered, and held up the armload, inexplicably desperate to buy a few more moments in his presence.

“Keep them. No charge,” he snarled roughly, his long legs eating up the distance towards the door before he yanked on it and held it open expectantly. “I’ll consider it a favor to Hideyoshi.” Every last line of his body was stiff and unforgiving, as if he’d become a pillar of ice, but as you drew closer you saw it was a brittle, false sort of strength. The brazen deceit of a cornice, waiting for the smallest nudge to crumble into an avalanche.

The whole situation was beyond surreal, and in a sort of daze you let yourself be ushered out the door, feeling the rush of wind as it slammed shut on your heels the moment you’d scarcely cleared the lintel. Leaving you stunned, standing on the darkened street in a pool of lamplight, choking on the still-thick scent of old books.

There was no logical explanation for the tears that pressed hot behind your eyes. No way to rationalize how you’d plucked a stranger’s name from thin air. No reason that made a bit of sense for your reluctance to step outside that glowing circle on the ground, as if moving would mean conceding something priceless forever.

Behind you the strains of Tchaikovsky picked up again, even louder than before, rattling the glass panes of the storefront with its fury like the growl of a guard dog warning you away.

How long you stood there and listened, it was hard to say. Moments? Minutes? Eventually though, you took a reluctant step. And then another. Moving slowly, weighed down by the books in your grasp that had seemingly turned to lead. But before you landed a third the music cut to deafening silence, punctuated by a dull series of thuds that grew louder as the door to the store crashed open.

“Wait!” 

Mitsunari tumbled out into the night, stacks of books still sliding into disorder in his wake. He nearly sped past you, wheeling about when he realized you were still standing just a scant distance from the stoop, breathless in a way that his short sprint didn’t deserve. A ruddy flush rode high on his cheeks, and in the vee of his crisply buttoned shirt you could see the roiling of his pulse, the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He closed his eyes briefly, drew a deep breath that seemed to smooth out the furrow of his brow, and when he opened them again he could almost pass as composed. “You’re…still here.”

You couldn’t stifle the beginnings of a smile that crept onto your face. “Yeah. Still here.”

“I…” His gaze darted about as he drew himself up, landing on anything and everything but you, his back rigid and uncomfortable once more. You waited, patiently, knowing somehow that whatever he had to say was going to have to be at his own pace. Eventually he fumbled a pen and card out of his breast pocket, hastily scrawling something on the back of it before shoving it in your direction. “I have to go teach night class at the community college shortly. But…I host a book club. You…should come.”

Your fingers curled around the stiff card-stock, the edges of it slotting perfectly into the lines of your palm. “A book club,” you repeated, taken aback, surprised at how bitterly disappointed you were to see that he’d written just a date and time and not his phone number. “What do you read?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Blinking at the strange admission, you plowed ahead inanely. “Then…how many people come?”

“Just one. I think.” Mitsunari cleared his throat, and though his expression never faltered from the cool disdain that seemed to be his default, red began to stain his cheeks as he shifted his gaze to meet yours deliberately. “I…hope.”

Oh.

Oh.

A giddy smile tugged at your lips, and something bright and effervescent fizzed through your veins. You rearranged the books in your arms enough to rummage through your purse and pull out one of the colorful cards emblazoned with your cafe logo on it, offering it to him in exchange. “In that case…I have a lot of manju leftover today, but they won’t last until tomorrow. It’d be a shame for them to go to waste.”

“Maybe it would be. Although if you were looking for a copy of Cooking the Japanese Way, your dessert skills are probably highly suspect.” He smirked, but took the card regardless, his expression softening strangely around the edges as he glanced down at it. “A fox. Of course.”

“What do you mean, of course?” you asked, bristling slightly.

“Nothing.” Mitsunari shook his head as if to clear it and lifted his eyes to meet yours, still half-smiling. “I’ll be there by ten.”

“All right. I’ll wait for you.” Your words seemed to echo strangely in your own ears, as if they were bouncing back to you from down a long and narrow corridor, folded over themselves again and again.

He nodded and turned to head back inside.

“Mitsunari,” you called out. “It is Mitsunari, isn’t it.” A statement, not a question. Peering back over his shoulder, he nodded. “You’re not going to ask me my name?”

He hesitated, hand on the doorknob, his brow furrowed in bemusement. “I think…I already know it.” That arrogant smirk made another sly appearance, but the way it brightened the blue of his eyes made you willing to forgive it almost anything.  “It’s Insufferable Dullard, right?”

Your squawk of indignation chased him back into the store, and although it was surely only your imagination, the faint sound of his laughter seemed to run counterpoint to the bright clack of bamboo chimes as the door closed behind him.

[wanderer706]

Behind the Screens Ch 1- Library

(Cam. Airl- Written Draft 2)

“Excuse me.” Michela said trying to get the attention of the man behind the counter. He turned and acknowledged that he had seen her, but he went right back to tinkering with the machine.

“Shouldn’t be too much longer.” He said to her. “This damn piece of garbage is always breaking down on me.” He then muttered something to himself about how it would be much easier if he scanned the books himself, but no this machine was designed to do it. To top it off the scanner was secured inside the machine so he couldn’t get it out even if he wanted to.

Michela had grown used to this sight. It seemed like every other week she came into the university library and saw the head librarian tinkering away with that damn machine. He had called the tech department so many times that it was almost turning into a bad comedy routine with no punch line. He would call the tech people, they would come, and say it was a minor problem that was easily fixed. Other times he would tinker with it himself. If he complained that the device needed to be replaced then they always gave the same excuse that there wasn’t enough money in the budget.

There was a sudden whir that filled quickly died out. The machine was working again. The librarian let out a sigh of relief and turned to see what Michela wanted.

“I would like to check out these.” She said handing over a large stack of books about classical history. She was studying a classics degree and needed the books to write a lengthy essay that was due one week before the final exams started. Her selection was a wide range of notes from professional institutions as well as books compiling the words of ancient historians, and a very thick book detailing an entire era of history, even though she was only interested in a small part of that book.

The head librarian, his name tag said Gerald, took the books off of her hands and set the machine to issue. Thankfully it was able to scan all of the books she needed without incident. When Gerald handed the books back to her, he made a comment about how the finals were coming up and how she must be excited. Michela jokingly told him he was dreaming and needed to get with the times. Students were not always thrilled about final exams, and some were more interested in getting plastered at “parties”.

She grabbed her stack of books and started to head for the door. As soon as she turned around one of the shelf trolleys was returning and she almost walked into it. The bot didn’t seem to acknowledge her, even when it drove over her foot and grabbed some more books that needed to be shelfed.

Michela was easily able to shrug off the foot run over, the bot hadn’t been full of books, and headed for the door. From here she could see that the wind was starting to pick up which was unusual for this time of the year. Michela though wasn’t used to the cold. She wasn’t born in this country and had sent her entire childhood growing up in a small town in a country with a much warmer climate. However, when she was fifteen her father received a job opportunity in this city, and with that the whole family left that warm country and headed for a new horizon as he put it to her.

Once she was a school she learnt that it wasn’t easy being a foreign student in a new country. Those first six months she had been dedicated to trying her hardest to learn the new language and even now she occasionally had trouble with the language. This was because her accent was extremely thick, even to this day. Some people mocked but some of the boys claimed it was sexy. Now her she was at University studying to be a teacher of classical history and she still had to around her accent. Except now the taunt she heard behind her back was how she took the subject because she was homesick. That maybe true, but they didn’t have to rub it in and say she should go back to where she belonged.

She was about to exit the building when Clark and a group of his friends came in at the same time.

“Michela. What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I… was… just leaving. Got some studying to do.” She said.

“It’s cold out. Stay here. I was about to do some study myself.” He said with that irresistible smile on his face.

“You were?” she said, trying to match his smile.

“Yes. You can stay if you want. We don’t mind. Do we?” He said to his friends who all murmured in agreement. Michela heart jumped when he said that.

Clark was a lean black guy who Michela meet a few months into her university degree. He had the body of idol that caused all of the girls on campus to swoon for him wherever he went. He also had the most irresistible smile that made even the strictest of teachers loosen up. Michela also fell into that boat of being in love him and she could tell he knew that. When he started seeing her more often she felt like she was in heaven and when he started telling people she was his girlfriend she had resist the urge to scream with joy.

They all walked into the library and quickly found an empty table for all of them to sit at. They then laid out their books and began to take notes or write out whatever their lecturers had demanded from them. Michela began taking notes from the books she had collected, but couldn’t stop taking her eyes off Clark. He was studying law and was three years into his degree. His three friends he had with him were alright but they weren’t Clark. She kept forgetting their names and ended up remembering them only by the courses they sat. Two of them were studying psychology whilst the other friend was studying philosophy.

They studied in brief silence for a while until Clark broke the silence with his dreamy voice.

“So, Michela how are things in your world?” He said to her.

“Fine.” She said. “I’m passing all of my papers if that if that is what you’re asking. Also trying to keep on the good side of the teachers. Although there are some in the class who are starting to try my patience.”

“Don’t all classes have people like that.” He said in a tone that suggested he wanted a response. His friends once again agreed with what had been said.

“I have someone in one of my classes who keeps drawing dicks on small notes and leaves them on people’s desks when they’re not looking. He then watches their reactions and thinks it’s funny.” One of Clarks friend said.

“Joke’s on him then as it makes him it makes him look an idiot as opposed to the cool kid he wants to be.” Clark said

They all laughed. It was always funny to laugh at twats who they believed deserved nothing, but a swift smack on the head.

“You know it’s rude to wear a hat in the library.” One of Clark’s friends suddenly said to Michela. The friend was referring to Michela’s lucky cap.

“It’s my lucky cap I rarely take it off.” Michela said in response. The cap had been brought by her grandfather back when he was still alive. She had always treasured it the moment he gave it to her after one of the many global excursions he went on. She was twelve when he gave it to her, and it then became something she treasured even more when he died. She was fourteen at funeral and made sure to bring it with her when she moved away. It was dark blue, though it was slightly faded now. In the picture area of the cap it had the outline of shield with the silhouette of a roaring bear in the middle all in red.

“Whatcha got there?” Clark suddenly asked. They all turned their heads and saw that the friend sitting next to Michela wasn’t focusing on studying. He was instead looking intently at something on his phone.

“Nothing.” He said quickly looking up.

“You’re not telling the world where you are?” Clark said.

“No of course not.” The friend said.

“Then show us what you’re looking at.” Another one of Clark’s friends said and with that they tried to grab the phone. The nervous friend quickly moved the phone away, but the hand continued to try and grab it. As they did their little dance they weren’t looking at who the phone was now in front of.

“Yoink.” Michela said snatching the phone away. It was still open on the interesting page in question.

“Ghost Drive E. Fact or Fiction?” Michela read the title aloud.

“‘Fact or Fiction?’ isn’t that the name of a blog.” Clark asked. The friend turned bright red.

“Yes, and I like to read it.” He said.

“You know the writer of that is gullible and paranoid.” Clark said.

“I know that. So, what?”

“What does it say?” Clark asked.

Michela began to read, skipping over several bits “Ghost Drive E. We’ve all heard the stories… It is a phantom program that will appear on your computer drive at random without your consent. If you dare to open it you will then release upon your local network, horrors that you cannot imagine that will result in death of you and everyone close to you. It is recommended you do not open this. The rest of this is just the writer’s wild ramblings.”

Michela then placed the phone onto the table where the friend eagerly snatched it back.

“Sorry about that.” Michela said.

“That’s all right.” The friend said. “Now can we please just get back to study?” he asked.

They then all returned their head to the notes they were studying.

Michela tried her hardest to get back to her notes but her mind couldn’t focus. She couldn’t help but think about the Ghost Drive and everything that that the blog said, but then her mind shifted to the killings.

The city was on edge at the moment. There was a serial killer on the loose whose work was something to behold in how they were able to pull it off. They targeted entire apartment complexes. One night it would go silent and then the next morning everyone who lived there was found dead. The press dubbed them “The Apartment Killer.” Police were still investigating but weren’t saying anything outside of how many were confirmed dead each time. Thus far the killer had hit five buildings and the city was wondering which would be struck next.

[academiablogs]

Of Introverted and Extroverted Writing - Joint Blog

Isolation as Inspiration

by Dr. Joshua Grasso

For me, writing is a solitary activity. It’s not a performance like acting, or teaching, or flirting; it requires no audience and might even suffer with the addition of other people. This is because the ideal state of writing is not to be writing at all. Granted, this state is rarely achieved, perhaps only for a few minutes, even an hour in any given writing session. At some point, however, you enter into the utterly un-self-conscious state of ‘flow’ where there is no typing, no keyboard, no computer, no pen, no paper, and no you. You simply become the story and the words are direct expressions of your thoughts and ideas. We also call this moment ‘inspiration,’ and it’s not something you can snap your fingers and tumble into. It has to be coaxed, sought, lucked into. The more you look at yourself—or see others watching you as you do it—the more obstacles you place in front of yourself and the process.

As a teacher, I have to think first and foremost of my students: “Will they have understood the day’s reading? What passages will prove the most challenging? What cultural or historical context do I need to bring to the table? What didn’t I understand at their age—and what do I have trouble with now?” My class becomes a dialogue between the text and my students, though their voice remains the controlling factor, and I try to mediate between the words and their ideas. To do this, I have to constantly perform and be seen: I make gestures, I write on the board, I act things out, I flip through Powerpoint slides. To do this in private would be absurd unless it was preliminary to the actual performance. However, if I’m not watched in the end, there’s nothing to communicate, nothing to teach—and thus no vital spark of inspiration.

Writing, though often informed from teaching (or being taught) is exactly the opposite. If you write with an audience in mind you’ll constantly check yourself the moment you take flight. At its core, writing has to be a dialogue between you and the material—and nothing else. You have to let the story and the characters speak for themselves, and have the courage to follow it wherever it takes you, regardless of the audiences’ biases and confusions. Later, perhaps, you can address these concerns, but at the moment of writing and inspiration, you have to be utterly alone. Just you and the words. The more people you invite to the table, the more you hear their words and ideas—and can only dimly perceive your own. And the worst thing you can do as a writer is merely transcribe the words of others.

There are many stages of writing, and later stages can be more public and more collaborative. But in the beginning, it’s a chess match between you and the ideas. And ideas are a canny opponent. They will resist your every move, throwing up barriers and defenses that you never imagined in your lofty daydreams of writing success. To defeat them, you must be in a state beyond self and persona: you have to surrender yourself to being a vessel for the story rather than the shape of it. Rudyard Kipling once likened writers to telegraph wires, almost passive receivers of a message from somewhere deep beyond. In this analogy, a writer cannot question whether the message is worth receiving, or what others will think of it; they simply have to find the best possible reception for the message to record is as clearly as possible (though admittedly, our equipment is faulty). This way, the transcription emerges with our own idiosyncrasies and embellishments thrown in—which is the essence of being an author.

To write, you must listen to the world; but to be a writer, you must listen to yourself. After all, anyone can write, but few have the fortitude to endure the endless months of solitary confinement necessary to write a novel. For in the end, no one can help you and only you can put the words on paper (or on the screen). Your only allies are time, solitude, and patience...all of them in short supply in the 21st century!

Writing with An Open Door

by Caitlin E. Jones

As I type, I currently working from the comfort of my favorite Starbucks, watching the crowds shuffle in and out with orders and armfuls of homework. I love writing at cafes, where the lights are dim, and noise rustles under my music, and I can leave with the smell of coffee on my clothes. Where I can stop and chat with the baristas between difficult spots in scenes. I really adore when I can pick up bits of the world while I write.

In truth, I don’t consider myself a writer; I’m a storyteller. Deep inside, I suspect I am more wanderlust-driven vagabond than high-minded college student (or like to think that anyway). I have as many words to say as I do to write- and then some. I was a child that talked a mile a minute; I’m the adult that never lost that skill. I taught myself to write, but I was made for old-school “sit ‘round the fire with music under the cover of darkness” storytelling. This is my merit and voice, my best way of sharing with the world honestly and without fear.

Nowadays, drafting process is essentially private, but I try to leave doors open while I write, and especially while I’m revising. I enjoy sharing word count markers and writing woes through my far-reaching branches of social media. I bring my process in a bag, unpacking it anywhere, forming habits and creating space in the middle of crowds. I am alone, but not truly. I have the power to create space and use all this energy. So, I can write pretty much anywhere it strikes my fancy, from the comfort of my sofa to a bumpy bus ride through European mountains. There are drawbacks to this, because people will often recognize you while out, or men will try flirting when you sit alone. I often tout headphones and tune out people while I work in public, but I still people-watch between scenes, waiting for expressions, movements, and quirks that catch my eye. Being extroverted means functioning like a solar panel; the more outside energy I can gather, the more power I have when I decide to keep to myself. Revisions are taxing and too quiet, and heaven forbid my beta-readers vanish from contact. The drawback of being a solar panel is that you always need something to take in; you eventually need a mirror from which you can read your work. My ideas, stories, and thoughts are my own, but I am one person in a sea of so many ideas. I love all those ideas so much- too much actually. Without outside contact and feedback, I often become stuck in a loop of everything that is or isn’t working with the book, and thus, fix nothing at all. My unfinished projects are a testament to this.

While I may struggle with ending projects alone, marketing and sharing do come naturally- and no, you probably can’t escape that marketing angle as an author, no matter how you publish. One beneficial thing about writing in public is you’ve already done some of the networking, since most people will eventually ask why you are sitting at their coffee shop for 6 hours at a stretch. The more I talked, the better I got at my pitch. It gets easier every time I do it, and I find early fans/readers along the way.

And my early readers can sit me down and remind me that books are not Neapolitan ice cream. One flavor, or one idea, is enough. They can point me to ideas that don’t work and lead me onto plot bunnies I may have missed. I am the DM, but players can cut new paths for exploration. Accepting them can prove tough at times, and discernment has been the key lesson here. 

Because writing for me isn’t about never letting people in, it’s about letting the right people in. It’s not taking other people’s ideas, but finding new ideas that best match the tone and color of the story. It’s knowing yourself, as a person and a storyteller, in the midst of others, and that need doesn’t go away once the writing is finished. 

[ledblog582]

Word For Mac 2010

Adding and Resizing Images in Word 2008 for Mac. How to Create Word Templates on Your Mac. How to Change Your Font in Word 2008 for Mac. How to Lay Out a Word Document on the iPad. How to Make a Macro in Word 2010. A macro is a teensy program you can write in Word 2010 that automates things, such as repetitive keystrokes. For a roundup of other options, check out our Best Mac word processor roundup. Remember that the iPad version of Microsoft Word is free It's worth considering that you can get MS Word for free on.

Key Features

Latest Version: 16.31

Licence: Free

Rated 4/5 By 9,893 People

What does Microsoft Word do? A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The trusted Word app lets you create, edit, view, and share your files with others quickly and easily. It also lets you view and edit Office docs attached to emails. With Word, your Office moves with you. Whether you are a blogger, writer, journalist, columnist, student, or a project manager working on documentation, it’s as handy as you want it to be. Unmistakably Office, designed for Mac MacBook Pro Touch Bar is fully supported by Microsoft Word. Get the most relevant Word features right at your fingertips. Need to focus on your writing and help eliminate distractions? Microsoft Word also supports macOS Mojave Dark Mode. Create with confidence Jump-start your project, assignments, letter, blog, script, notes, write-ups, or resume with beautifully designed modern templates. Use rich formatting and layout options to note down your ideas and express them in writing. Document format and layout stays pristine and looks great — no matter what device you use. Put your best words forward Write with confidence, knowing intelligent technology can help with spelling, grammar and even stylistic writing suggestions. With tools at your fingertips, easily go from pen and paper to digital inking and edit intuitively. Stay in the flow Get all the information you need as you write without leaving Word, whether it’s cited research or information from LinkedIn to help you craft a compelling resume. Work better together Wherever you are, collaborate in real time. Share your documents with the click of a button to invite others to edit in real-time or add comments. Plus, no matter your preferred full language or accessibility options, everyone can work together to do more. Sharing is simplified Share your files with a few taps to quickly invite others to edit or view your documents. Easily manage permissions and see who’s working in a document. Copy the content of your Word files directly into the body of an email message with its format intact or attach your docs to an email and make sharing easier. Learn more about Office 365 Office 365 is a cloud-based subscription service that brings together premium versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneDrive, with the best tools for the way people work today. Please visit: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2015120 for information on Licensing Terms. Unlock the full Microsoft Office experience with a qualifying Office 365 subscription for your phone, tablet, PC, and Mac. Office 365 annual subscriptions purchased from the app will be charged to your App Store account and will automatically renew within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period unless auto-renewal is disabled beforehand. You can manage your subscriptions in your App Store account settings. This app is provided by either Microsoft or a third-party app publisher and is subject to a separate privacy statement and terms and conditions. Data provided through the use of this store and this app may be accessible to Microsoft or the third-party app publisher, as applicable, and transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States or any other country where Microsoft or the app publisher and their affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. Please refer to the Microsoft Software License Terms for Microsoft Office. See “License Agreement” link under Information. By installing the app, you agree to these terms and conditions.

Download for MacOS - server 1 --> Free

Word on the Macintosh is basically Word for Windows re-compiled to run on the Mac. It's not just 'compatible'. It's not just 'like' Word for the PC. It is Microsoft Word, the same one Microsoft makes for every platform. However:

Not all of the modules of Word on the PC are included in Word for the Mac.

Word for the iPhone and Word for the iPad are quite different.

Word for the web browser (Office 365) is completely different: a very lite version.

The cost and number of person-hours spent developing Word is mind-boggling. It's well over a billion dollars, and there are well over ten thousand person-years of effort in it. Making a new one just for the Mac would have been so expensive that a copy of Word would cost several thousand dollars. You might buy two at that price, but the rest of us couldn't afford it!

Because it is the same software, and Microsoft has a policy of bringing the two versions closer together, the differences will become less over time. Essentially, each version on the PC is matched a year later by a version on the Mac (Microsoft is trying to reduce that gap, recently the Mac Business Unit became part of the main Office Business Unit that makes Office for every platform).

Macintosh

Equivalent PC Version

Word 2013

Word 2010

Word 2007

Word 2011

Word 2003

Word 2008

Word 2002

Word 2004

Word 2000

Word v.X

Word 2000

Word 2001

Word 2000

Word 98

Word 97

Word 6

Word 95

Word 5

Word 6

Same File Formats Used in Mac and PC

Mac Office MVP Jim Gordon writes: 'The Microsoft Office file format Open XML (OOXML) is for Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and used on both the Mac and the PC. The file format was accepted by an international standards body. Office 2010 for Windows with service pack 2 or later and Office 2011 for Mac comply strictly with the standard. Office 2008 for Mac and 2007 and 2010 for Windows prior to service pack 2 comply about 98% of the way to the standard (there's a very minor exception in Excel).

'Microsoft also ships a set of fonts with the same names on both Microsoft Office for Mac and PC. The fonts distributed with Mac Office have been very carefully adjusted ('hinted') so documents on the Mac will look and orint the same way as documents using the PC versions of those fonts on the PC. The differences are tiny, but they account for the differences in the way the Mac places pixels on the screen.

'As for having documents be identical when moving from one computer to another there are factors you must consider. This is true PC to PC, PC to Mac, Mac to Mac, and Mac to PC. Microsoft Word is a word processor that has text that flows, unlike a PDF or page layout program. Any difference in font or printer driver from one machine to another has the potential to affect spacing, breaks, window & orphans, paragraphs, etc. To repeat - these changes have nothing to do with Mac to PC, rather they are caused by computer to computer differences.

'Your documents should look the same on the Mac as long as ALL of these conditions are met:

The documents on the PC originated in Microsoft Word 2010 with service pack 2

The documents were saved in a current OOXML file format in Word 2010

The documents used only fonts supplied with Microsoft Office 2010

Old versions of the same fonts are not installed or active on either the Mac or the PC

The documents are opened on the Mac in Microsoft Word 2011

The current versions of the Microsoft Office fonts are active on the Mac

The printer driver on the Mac behaves identically to the printer driver that was being used on the PC where the documents were saved.

The behavior of Word is identical on the two platforms, provided the above conditions are met, if you want your documents to look alike when moving from one computer to another - regardless of platform. It's the fonts, file formats and printer drivers that are the sticky points when moving a document from one computer to another regardless of platform.'

Rules of Thumb

Having said all this:

It’s a totally moving target. Every patch Tuesday, something changes.

Network Templates 'Don’t' work in Mac Word. Due to multiple bugs in the file path resolving and handling mechanism, templates in network directories should not be shared between PC Word and Mac Word. For a long and happy life, copy the templates locally to the user's My Templates folder on the Mac.

Ribbon Customizations are not available in Mac Word. They will be silently ignored, unless done in code, where they will blow up.

Mac Word can use ONLY TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts with TrueType outlines. Other fonts will not appear/work or occasionally, crash.

The color table is markedly different between Mac and PC (and even between PowerPoint and Word/Excel on the Mac). Generally Mac Office has a wider gamut, but Mac monitors have a very different gamma. Unless you are prepared to create color profiles and carefully color-match every device in the chain on both the PC and the Mac, just accept that colors are going to look quite different. It is expensive and time-consuming to fix this, and you will never get it perfect.

Various commands in Mac Word exist only in the menu bar, which Mac Word still has, or on the toolbars that Mac Word still has. Toolbars remain customizable in Mac Word.

The same physical printer will often produce different results from the same document depending on whether the printer driver is on a Mac or a PC. If the printer driver is running on a Print Server, results will be closer (but remember: the fonts are different!).

Design for the Difference, Design for Re-Flow. Do not use hard page breaks anywhere. Minimize section breaks. Use paragraph properties to manage pagination. Assume your user is going to throw an A4 document onto a US Letter paperstock, or vice versa. Assume that a Mac will reflow text by about half a per cent. The people who have real trouble are the ones that have used floating text boxes and spaces to try to line things up: that will produce word-salad. Tossed word-salad…

Jim says 'The text-flow problem is the same as you will find moving from one PC to another where font versions and default printer driver are different. The fonts provided by Microsoft should provide smooth cross-platform sailing provided the same version of each is the active version on all machines involved.'

Differences in Appearance

On each platform, Word adopts the default appearance of the Operating System. There is almost nothing that you see on the screen that is drawn by Word: on the Mac, the display is created by Mac OS; on the PC, by Windows. It saves money and it saves vast amounts of disk space and processor power.

The only difference you are likely to notice is that if you are in OS X, the window controls are on the opposite side to Windows.

Different Keystrokes

Free vpn for mac betternet chrome. On the Mac the Command (Apple) key is the Control Key in Windows, whereas the Control Key from the Mac is the Right-Click in Windows.

On a Windows keyboard, the Control key is always labeled Ctrl. On a Mac keyboard, expect to find the ⌘ or ? symbol on the Command key. (These characters will not display on the PC; they should look like this:.) This paragraph is a classic example of the cross-platform font difficulties you will experience. There is no default font common to the PC and the Mac that contains both of those characters (in case you are interested, that's 'Lucida Grande', the most wide-ranging of the Mac OS X Unicode fonts). Loops for mac.

Word is very right-click-centric. If you do not have a two-button mouse, you will find it is a very worthwhile investment if you are going to spend much time in Word.

Windows

Macintosh

Control KeyCommand (Apple) Key Right-Click Control-Clickctrl+c Command+cctrl+v Command+vctrl+s Command+s File>Close Command+wctrl keyOption Keyctrl+q Command+Option+q ctrl+space Ctrl+space Tools>Options Word>Preferences File>New Task PaneProject GalleryMail Merge Task PaneData Merge Palette

The Control-Click (or Right-Click) brings up the 'context menu' wherever you happen to be. In Word almost everything you want to do, or everything you want to know, will appear on the right-click. The menus that appear vary dramatically depending on where your mouse-pointer is.

Word also responds to the scroll-wheel if you have one. (Not all windows; for example preferences and options dialogs do not..). Mouse scroll wheel support in Word pre-X depends totally on the mouse drivers. Microsoft drivers for the Microsoft Mouse generally work (and will often drive other companies' mice!).

In Windows, the keyboard shortcuts are listed in the Help, in a topic surprisingly enough called 'keyword shortcuts'. On the Mac, only some of the keystrokes are listed, in various topics such as 'About using shortcut keys' and 'Select text and graphics'. To find the list on either platform, use Search from the Microsoft Office Help to look for the word 'keyboard'.

You can look at the Key Assignments by using Tools>Customize>Keyboard on either platform. If you select a command, and it has a key assignment, the Customize dialog will tell you what it is. This is a better place to look than the Help, because users can (and should) change their keystrokes to suit themselves on either platform. The Customize dialog also includes a handy Reset button if you decide you do not like the keystrokes you inherited from the previous user on that computer.

Finally, each version of Word enables you to print a list of the currently-assigned keystrokes so you can stick them on the wall. To print them on the Mac:

Go to Tools>Macro>Macros

In the Macros In pop-up menu, click Word Commands

In the Macro name box click ListCommands

Click Run

In the List Commands dialog, click Current Menu and Keyboard settings and OK

On the File menu, click Print.

You do it exactly the same way in Windows, or see here for a more extensive pre-built list.

One keystroke that will catch you out a few times is Command + h. Ctrl + h in Windows is the shortcut for the Replace dialog. On Mac OS X, Command + h hides the application! Use Command + Shift + H for the Replace dialog on OS X.

With OS X, Apple changed some of the keystrokes reserved for the operating system and added some new ones. On each version of Mac OS, Word follows system convention.

Hack for cs go mac. RE: WallHack CS:GO MAC, 03:46 PM #10 So this is an undetected cheat as of right now, and it's not a paste of an existing cheat or just an existing public cheat for that matter? This site the last place I though I'd ever see CS:GO cheats pop up on, haha.

Some Mac keyboards do not have a Forward Delete key. Word needs one: there is a difference in Word between Forward Delete and Back Delete. You will strike it most often in tables: in a Table, Delete becomes 'Clear' which removes the cell contents without removing the cells. Use Cut to delete the cells themselves. Back Delete will remove text within a cell but has no effect if more than one cell is selected. If you are on a Mac laptop, the Forward Delete key is probably Function + Delete.

The Mac has an Option Key, Windows does not have an equivalent. Generally what you expect from the Option key will be on the Control Key in Windows.

Three very commonly-used shortcuts are Command + c (Copy), Command + v (Paste), and Command + s (Save). On Windows these are Ctrl + v, Ctrl + c, and Ctrl + s.

A keystroke that may catch you out a few times is Clear Formatting: on the PC it's Ctrl + q to restore paragraph formatting to that of the underlying style, and Ctrl + Space Bar to restore character (font) formatting. On Mac OS 9, they are the same. On Mac OS X, these are Command + Option + q and Ctrl + Space Bar.

Later versions of Word have an Edit>Clear>Formats command on the Menu bar, which will save you trying to remember the other two. However, note that Clear>Formats resets the formatting back to the formatting of Normal Style (it applies Normal Style) whereas the individual commands simply reset a paragraph to the formatting of the current style.

Different Menus

One thing that will catch you out all the time is that on the Mac, Word adopts the Mac convention of having a Preferences command. In OS X it's on the Application (Word) menu, in OS 9 it's on the Edit menu, again, following the OS convention. On the PC, this is Tools>Options on the Tools menu. It's the same thing, the tabs are exactly the same inside.

Word on the Mac still has a Work menu you can put on your menu bar; this has been replaced by the Task Pane (which is nowhere near as convenient) in later versions of PC Word.

Mac Word also has a Font menu which the PC lacks.

Different Print Mechanism

In order to display a document in WYSIWYG mode, Word needs to know a lot about the capabilities of the printer the document will eventually be sent to.

In Windows this is very simple: Word reads all the information it needs from the printer driver for the printer set as the Windows default. On the Mac, it attempts to do the same thing, but the mechanism is vastly more complex. Look here for more detail.

Some Features Didn't Make it

Making software is a depressingly manual activity. Every line of code has to be planned, typed, and checked. There are more than 30 million of them in Microsoft Office. There simply was not enough time and money to bring all the features of PC Word across to the Mac. And some of them we wouldn't want, anyway! Most of the omissions are of interest only to solution developers:

Font embedding is not supported on the Mac.

Customized toolbar buttons are supported on the Mac, but the Icon Editor is missing.

Speech recognition is not available.

HTML support in Word for the Mac is not at the same level as it is in Word on the PC: many web pages load as a shattered mess. The code stripping utility HTMLFilter2 available for the PC is not available for the Mac.

Word on the PC has a menu item enabling you to Export to Compact HTML. On the Mac, this is an option on the File>Save As Web Page menu option named Save only display information into HTML. The other option, Save entire file into HTML is the equivalent of the Word PC's Save As Web Page; it saves a Word document expressed in XML. Note: if you 'Save only display information', the file looks the same, but the structural information and content that enable Word to reconstruct a Word document from the XML file has been removed.

Fonts Can be a Problem

On the PC, you can use characters with impunity: if the PC does not have the font, it will find the closest font that contains the character. On the Mac, in Word 2004 and above, you can use the exact same range of characters because Word 2004 is running in Unicode; however, because you cannot embed the font in the document, you need to make sure that each character that you use exists in one or more of the Unicode fonts your recipient has. If in doubt, for PC compatibility, use only the fonts that Microsoft supplies.

Microsoft includes a pack of fonts with Mac Office that have been very carefully hinted to display and print the same on the Mac as the same-named fonts do on the PC. Although the Mac can happily use PC fonts, the rendering of those may be subtly different, particularly on the high-res Mac displays.

Jim Gordon reports that he has no problems at all with the following list of fonts:

Arial

Calibri

New Microsoft Word 2010

Cambria

Candara

Consolas

Constantia

Word For Mac 2010

Corbel

Times New Roman

Verdana

Meiryo

Jim says 'Office for Mac has a very nice feature to make font compatibility a cinch. When you choose a font using the Home tab of the Ribbon, the first item in the list is Font Collections. The easy way to ensure compatibility is to choose fonts from the Windows Office Compatible font collection submenu.

'If you have company specific fonts they must be installed onto each Mac in order for Mac Word to use them. There is no work-around to the restrictions John mentioned. Fonts embedded by Windows Word are ignored.

'I haven't had problems with cross-platform differences with our HP, Epson, and Lanier printer drivers, but we do test for differences before purchasing so that we don't run into such problems.

While there's no interface on Mac Word to make Font Themes and Color Themes (you can do it in PowerPoint, or with VBA), Themes made on PCs will work on a Mac.

Word 2010 Microsoft

The Advanced Typography settings you can apply in Mac Word will display in Windows Word, but there's no Advanced Typography interface in Word for Windows, so you have to use Mac Word for this feature.

VBA a Level Behind

The VBA level in Mac Word is markedly less capable than in PC Word: around the level of Word 2003 but with missing bits.

Visual Basic for Applications on the Mac is at version 6 (on the PC, this is Word 2000 level of VBA); Word 2013 on the PC is at version 7. Code you write on the Mac will run on the PC if you are careful. Expect code you write on the PC in Word 2000 or above to generate compile- or run-time errors on the Mac.

Active-X controls will not work on Macs. 'Legacy' controls will work. Some of the latest controls from 2103 won't work on a Mac.

Developers should read George Clark's article for more detail.

ActiveX is not supported on the Mac at all. If you create userforms, use only the controls provided in the Forms Toolbar on the Mac, anything else you bring from the PC will generate an error when the user opens the document.

Digital Signatures are not supported on the Mac, and neither is code signing. You will not be able to open a signed project in Mac Word. If the signature prevents you from changing a macro, the code will be execute-only on the Mac.

Free Office 2010 For Mac

AppleScript is not available on the PC. VBA is very powerful: investigate scripting your application from AppleScript with VBA, using the 'Do Visual Basic' command.

Word For Mac 2010

The VBA Integrated Development Environment is severely cut back on the Mac. If you plan to develop much VBA, invest in a copy of Virtual PC: the productivity you gain is enormous. Hint: Use Windows 7 and NTFS disk format.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO DETECT BIAS

The obvious solution is to have the junior people do the work for him. But the best thing of all is when people call what you're doing inappropriate. Which is not to be in this phase now.1 You need to know basis can attest, dividing information up into little cells is terribly inefficient. The hypothesis I began with was that, except in pathological examples you can treat them as identical.2 That's why I write them.3 Recursion means repetition in subelements, like the classic Lisps of the 1970s. In fact, of all the different types of people. Hygienic macros embody the opposite principle. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness.

He followed that advice. I think future programming languages will have libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. Well, it was a big surprise to me and seemed to have huge implications. As long as that idea is still floating around, I think, is to divide projects into sharply defined modules, each with a definite owner, and with interfaces between them that are as carefully designed and, if possible, as articulated as programming languages. The easiest program to change is one that's very short. I ran out of ideas. Larry and Sergey, for example.4 One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if there were some excessively compact way to phrase something, there would probably also be a longer way. But it is not all the sort of things we now patent as software, but individual hackers won't, and it's hard to imagine a world in which Windows is irrelevant.5

In this particular case there is a great artist.6 Pointing out that someone is unqualified is as desperate as resorting to racial slurs. A novice imitates without knowing it; next he tries consciously to be original; finally, he decides it's more important to be right, even though it feels wrong.7 Merchants bid a percentage of sales for traffic, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network. So I'm going to try to recast one's work as a single thesis. In architecture and design, you probably need to be able to write a serious program using only the built-in Common Lisp operators are comically long. If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a project forward the same way that mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything extraneous.8 Is it worth trying to define a good programming language is, they'll say something like Oh, a high-level abstraction, for example, they're often reluctant to redo parts that aren't right; they feel they've been lucky to get that far, and if you love to hack you'll inevitably be working on projects of your own.

But times have changed. In the first phase of the two-cycle innovation engine, you work furiously on some problem because of patent trolls.9 At the very least I must have explained something badly.10 And expect to encounter ferocious opposition if you do it consciously you'll do it even better.11 The Google guys were lucky because they knew someone who knew Bechtolsheim. If anyone at Yahoo considered the idea that we ought to be writing research papers.12 But what a difference it makes to be able to see things from the user's point of view. Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence.13 Frankly, it surprises me how small a role in software?

It's hard for such people to design great libraries. If most of your ideas aren't stupid, you're probably imitating an imitator. In startups, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto—which means you accumulate knowledge at what's colloquially called an exponential rate. You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing. For me, interesting means surprise.14 That might be a good thing.15 As you move earlier in the venture funding process, the ratio of help to money increases, because earlier stage companies have different needs. It's the concluding remarks to the jury. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be more readable than a line of Basic is likely to be the way most big programs were developed. The worst consequence of trying to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as you must not use the word algorithm in the title of a book. You might as well flip a coin.16

If all you want to design a popular language needs is time.17 And so they're the most valuable features.18 That means the wind of procrastination will be in your favor: instead of avoiding this work, this will be what you do. I pointed out that because you can only judge computer programmers by working with them, no one will pay for software, but there will be other new types of inventions they understand even less. But I think there's more going on than this.19 Few will even notice. We didn't draw any conclusions. And the reason it's inaccurate is that, if something is fun, it isn't work. And one of the first things they discovered was what we call the classics. The texts that filtered into Europe were all corrupted to some degree by the errors of translators and copyists.

It's that the detour the language makes you take is longer. In 1995 it was hard to take search seriously. You can't make a mouse by scaling down an elephant. It was perfectly reasonable to be afraid of them.20 The eminent, on the other side. If you don't know who needs to be a genius who will need to do things their own way, he is unlikely to head straight for the conclusion that a great artist. Yahoo discovered, the area covered by this rule is bigger than most people realize. Essays should aim for maximum surprise.

They produce something, are convinced it's great, and never improve it.21 It has sometimes been said that Lisp should use first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in theory, merely explaining yourself to someone else.22 They launch it with no indication of whether you're succeeding.23 So did Apple. Plus you're moving money, so you're going to have more syntax in the future. Only a small percentage of hackers can actually design software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects or paint for painters. Fortunately, this sort of essay, you can ask it in real time. Now, thanks to the Internet, they can start to study good design in detail. Early YC was a family, and Jessica was its mom.

Notes

The problem is not always intellectual dishonesty that makes you much more attractive to investors, is this someone you want to turn down some good ideas buried in Bubble thinking.

If anyone remembers such an idea where there is some kind of people who are good presenters, but the route to that mystery is that most three letter words are bad.

That's not a commodity or article of commerce. As Paul Buchheit points out that it's doubly important for societies to be evidence of a severe-looking man with a sufficiently identifiable style, you could try telling him it's XML. It is a function of their core values is Don't be evil. At the time it takes more than whatever collection of qualities helps people make the kind that prevents you from starving.

On their job listing page, they still probably won't invest. Put rice in rice cooker and forget about it.

Enterprise software.

The VCs recapitalize the company, you might be enough to supply the activation energy required.

The reason you don't see them, not economic inequality, and try another approach.

In 1800 an empty room, you create wealth in a non-programmers grasped that in 1995, when in fact they were more the type who would never even think of it. Some blue counties are false positives caused by filters will be the next investor.

The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, many of the acquisition into what it means a big effect on social ones.

If I were doing Viaweb again, that alone could in principle is that promising ideas are not all, the thing to be important ones. How many times larger than the set of canonical implementations of the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life.

But that turned out to be important ones. And bad outcomes have origins in their IPO filing. A supports, say, real income ignores much of the former, because a there was when we started Viaweb, and how good you can base brand on anything with a face-saving compromise. There were a property of the breach with Rome, where x includes math, law, writing and visual design.

For these companies when you use the phrase the city, they could just expand into casinos than software, because the illiquidity of progress puts them at the valuation turns out only to the Pall Mall Gazette. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads.

Though they were, like angel investors. Brand-name VCs wouldn't recapitalize a company just to load a problem if you'll never need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers. Family, school, because even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much better to read is not pagerank commercialized.

It's suspiciously neat, but something feminists need to fix once it's big, plus they are not written by the fact that, founders will do that. Ideas are one of the other hand, launching something small and then stopped believing, so they made, but there are those that will sign up quickest and those that will seem more interesting than later ones, it often means the startup eventually becomes.

The problem in high school writing this, but I took so long.

It turns out it is very long: it might make them less vulnerable to legal attack. 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard they work. I don't like content is the most demanding but also like an in-house VC fund they outsource most of the 20th century was also the main reason kids lie to them. It was only because he writes about controversial things.

Most of the per capita income. In high school junior. I find myself asking founders Would you use this technique, you'll have to sweat any one outcome.

But the change is a bridgehead. His theory was that the word has shifted. So instead of being absorbed by the customs of the anti-dilution protections.

I assume we still do things that don't include the cases where you read them as promising to invest at a 3 year old son, you'll be well on your product, and yet give away free subscriptions with such tricks initially.

But which of them consistently make money, and are paid a flat rate regardless of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, they compete on price, and one or two, and only one. But that's not likely to be very hard to game the system, written in C, the whole. According to a can of soup. So far, I advised avoiding Javascript.

However, it seems. Fifty years ago, the technology business.

But we invest in syndicates. He had equity. The markets seem to have the same thing 2300 years later. Instead of bubbling up from the DMV.

In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other people.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Stephen Wolfram, Trevor Blackwell, Aaron Swartz, Geoff Ralston, Bill Birch, Fred Wilson, Jeff Clavier, and Jessica Livingston for inviting me to speak.

[richardlowejr]

10 Reasons to Become a Freelance Writer

Have you ever thought about becoming a freelance writer?

There are tremendous benefits to a freelance writing career including being your own boss, setting your own schedule, and working from home. It can also be quite scary, especially if that becomes you’re only income, because then you’re fully responsible for making your own money.

Here are 10 reasons that you should consider when you’re thinking about becoming a freelance writer.

You are independent – The coolest thing about being a freelance writer is you don’t have a boss to answer to every day. Sure, you do have customers, and they have to be satisfied with your work, but it’s very different than having a boss. Clients aren’t staring over your shoulder, give you yearly reviews, and finding excuses not to give you raises.

You don’t have an HR department to answer to, and you don’t have to worry about what the managers think. In a way, your customers are your managers, but they are at a distance, especially if you work remotely.

Useless meetings become a thing of the past, because when you are a freelance writer, you charge for meetings (except for the occasional free consultation needed for presales). Because of that, clients tend to be fully in agreement to meetings that are short and to-the-point.

As a freelancer, you can say goodbye to micromanagement. In fact, if you’re the kind of person who needs constant supervision in order to get things done, then you’d be best advised not to become a freelancer.One of the reasons why freelancers get hired is they get assignments and are expected to complete them quickly without lots of supervision. Your job is to make your clients life easier, not more difficult.

Of course, being independent comes with a few risks. When you work for company as an employee, you bring home a consistent paycheck. On the other hand, when you’re independent, you create your own paychecks by engaging with potential clients to get them to pay for your services. It can be stressful, but it’s a far different kinds of stress than that typically put on your shoulders by a boss. That’s because you’re in control. If you fail to get business, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough or do the right things to get the customers to sign up for your services. In that case, your job is to change direction, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and get those customers to pay on the bottom line.

And let me tell you, it’s a great feeling when that first large payment from a clients land in your bank account. Knowing that that money is something that you created with your own efforts, following your own rules, and delivering a service or product that you created is a wonderful feeling. It’s much more fulfilling than just having a paycheck direct deposited into your bank account regularly.

You work from home or wherever you want – As a freelance writer, you usually work from home or from a place of your own choosing. That’s not totally true, because sometimes clients prefer that you work on site, but I found these to be very rare. That’s because one of the main reasons why freelance writers (and other types of freelancers) are hired is because they work off-site.

Working from home is a completely different experience than working from an office. There are many distractions that can get in the way of getting work done, and those have to be managed. The temptations of having the family close by, the wife and the kids in the next room, can be overwhelming.

If you’re going to be a freelancer working from home, you absolutely must quickly learn to keep those distractions under control. If you don’t, you will lose a good portion of your productivity each day. Lost productivity means less income for you.

You get to determine what to write – When you work for a company, your boss usually decides what you’re going to do, either by setting goals, or, in some cases, by micromanaging you.

When you are an independent freelancer, you get to decide what kind of writing you do, and what you write. Your decision could be as simple as, “whatever the customer pays for” or more restricting, such as “computer security”. You decide what kind of writing you’re going to pursue and what markets you want to access, and that gives you control over your destiny.

You get to pick your clients – When you first start out as a freelance writer, generally you take whatever client you can get. That’s because you need the money, and you’re not experienced enough to have learned how to demand higher rates of pay.

As you gain more experience at dealing with clients, your reputation grows, and your confidence gets higher, you’ll find that you can charge higher rates and be more selective about which customers you choose. That’s different than when you work for a company, where your customers are often chosen for you.

The first time you make the decision to turn down a client is incredibly empowering. It can be scary, because you might need the money, but there is nothing like the feeling of having a choice about who to work for.

I recently was approached by a potential client who wanted me to ghostwrite him a book for him. This was going to be a very high-paying project, but I had to turn them down. It was obvious during the first meeting that he would be very difficult to work with, and the project would be very upsetting. Like I said, he was offering a lot of money, but in my mind there really was no choice. I knew that working for him would be frustrating and very stressful.

You get to decide where to publish your work – Many freelance writers accept jobs from clients. Jobs such as blogging, ghostwriting, and social media writing typically are client based. But it’s also common for freelance writers to write articles and stories which they self-publish, traditionally publish, or sell to magazines and other markets. In these cases, the freelance writer decides where they will be submitting their work for publication, or, in the case of self-publishing, they’ll just do it themselves.

If I want to publish a science fiction story,  the choice of where to submit my work is mine. If there are certain magazines or websites that I prefer to avoid, then I can avoid them. I also have the choice of targeting those that are more in line with my own integrity and beliefs.

You can make a good income – I know from experience that when you’re first starting out as a freelance writer it can seem like that there are no good paying jobs and that money is hard to come by.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The number of clients that need good writing is beyond imagination. Finding those who will pay top dollar instead of chump change is just a matter of filtering the kind of clients that you accept.

The secret to finding and engaging with top paying clients is:

Being thoroughly confident in your abilities.

Understanding that you’re worth the rate that you want to charge.

Being willing to walk out on a project if the customer won’t pay your rate.

Being able to negotiate.

Gaining the experience and the credibility.

Learning to talk and communicate your confidence, skills and experience in a way that impinges upon potential clients.

For example, if you aren’t willing to turn down projects where the client won’t pay your rates, then you’ll consistently accept low-paying projects.

If you don’t have the confidence to ask for higher rates, then you’ll be stuck with low-paying projects.

You see how this works? In addition to the experience and skills, it’s just as important to be confident in your abilities, and to be able to communicate clearly and precisely to sell yourself to your clients.

Freelancing can be a second career – To become a freelancer you don’t necessarily have to quit your full-time job. You can take on freelancing jobs on the weekends, evenings and even at lunch if you want. This is a great way to earn some extra money, and perhaps even start a second career. As you gain confidence, reputation, and experience you can make the decision as to whether you want to pursue freelancing as a full-time career.

You don’t need any special training – Assuming you know how to write, you don’t need to have any other training to be a freelance writer. The important things are that you know how to manage time, how to estimate projects, how to write extremely quickly, and how to communicate to clients. That’s not to say that specific, targeted training won’t be helpful – but it’s not absolutely necessary to your success.

In other words, don’t let the lack of education or training stop you from trying to be a freelance writer. The important thing to do to be a writer is to write. The second most important thing you need to do is write quickly with high quality. To make a living as a freelance writer you must be able to write fast enough and good enough to sell enough of your writing to bring in the money that you need.

In other words, speed plus quality equals income. On top of that, you have to be willing to get out there into the world and communicate with strangers that you’ve never met.

You can set your own schedule – Another great thing about being a freelance writer is that you set your own schedule. You decide when is the best time for you let those creative juices flow and get those words out from your mind and onto paper or into your computer. If you are a morning person, then you can set your writing times to be in the morning. Conversely, if you’re more creative in the evenings, then you can schedule your time to write after lunch or even after dinner.

Of course, the demands of customers may require you to make some minor modifications on your schedule. You’re still in control because you get to choose your clients and work with them about when and where to work.

There are many opportunities – There are opportunities to write all around you. Everything from your local newspaper to multibillion-dollar, multinational companies need writers. Virtually all of these will hire writers on a freelance basis because it’s far more cost-effective for them than trying to find and retain in-house employees to do the writing.

All you need to do is define your market and your audience, figure out what kind of writing you want to do, and get out there to find it.

You have the options of self-publishing books that you write, selling social media posting to companies all over the local area, writing articles and stories and selling them to magazines, and even selling the words to songs, scripts for movies, and sayings for greeting cards.

  So what you waiting for? Isn’t it time to get started, and create yourself a career as a freelance writer. Isn’t it time to get the freedom that you want?Wouldn’t you like to be your own boss?

The time to get started is now.

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