#kindle talk

[gucciwins]

I bought a kindle paper white in January and I love it so much. It’s really gotten me back into reading, and the books are cheaper if you buy them. Maybe 8-12 bucks for what would be 20+ dollars for a physical copy. And if you don’t want to buy the books, you can access them through Libby (from your library) on your kindle. If you have any 🏴‍☠️epub/pdf you can also upload those to your device. i’ve never tried but there are some reddit threads on how to do it.

i bought 16g but 8 is already enough to hold thousands of books. battery is great especially if you have a case that flaps like a book. once the flap is down, the kindle goes into sleep mode (the kindle itself does have a power button that will do this though). i charged my kindle fully, didn’t touch it for two weeks and it was still at 95% when i finally had time to read.

It literally never leaves my hand and it’s the easiest device to pull out on the train or wherever. Sun doesn’t bother my screen at all. I’m so happy I bought one this year. I don’t need any more features then what’s offered on it. You can highlight, type notes, and link your kindle to your goodreads account if you have to rate books and/or keep a log.

Sometimes I do wish it wasn’t just in black and white for when i’m highlighting, but overall i love ittttt. My coworker convinced to get one too!

Sorry for this long response. I get genuinely giddy when I talk about it. I’m up to book 9 in March, which is more than I read in all of 2023 combined!

What sorts of books do you like to read?

babes! this was so helpful. thank you so much 🤍 my coworker and I have talked about it, both big readers and we're just closer to saying yes because we want to decorate it. I love that it connects to

I am very much convinced now haha.

I love me a romance book. it just warms my heart recently trying to get into mystery, oh maybe a series but I'm always happy to hear suggestions 🫶

[cranberrysodaco]

"my kindle history is between me and god" by cranberry soda co.

[starmocha]

Midnight Whispers ▪︎ Snowfall Encounter

[cavillscurls]

the itch to write more alpha!joel is palpable

[shouyuus]

hi not a request but I want to know how you got to be such a good writer. Practice? Or maybe writing exercises? Did you fall inlove with writing? If so, when and how? Has it always been, i don’t know, a thing you like to do ever since you were a lil kid? Or were you inspired by other pieces and authors. (mind-boggling curiosity is driving me rn)

ASDLFKJSD thank you ?!?!?! so. this is a question that i sometimes got on my old blog as well, and i've always dithered on how to answer bc there's no like... magic potion, right. there's no secret sauce.

unfortunately (and super boringly), how you get "good" at writing is just... practice. just hours and hours and weeks and months and years of practice.

i've been writing almost every single day since i was about 10 years old. i'm 30 now so that's twenty years of practice -- neigh on SEVEN THOUSAND DAYS of practice. i also majored in comparative literature, so i paid like insane amounts of money to an higher education institution, for people who are objectively considered experts in this field, to teach me and help me and coach me. i can't discount at all how important that was in like getting my writing to the next level (i can name the specific professor and course in my freshman year that changed me as a writer like that's how deep of an impression it left on me)

that being said, you don't need to do all that to become a "good" writer. and i think that's the best thing about this craft is that anyone can decide to pick up a pen one day and #Nike Just Do It. (also, good is subjective and like blah blah blah all that stuff)

but if you want actual tangible things you can do to improve your writing, here's some things that have helped me:

read. read alot. read everything. think of your body like a car. you need to put oil in to run. you need energy in to put energy out. in the same way, you need to intake good writing to output good writing. ive always been a voracious reader, and for the longest time, even when i was actively writing fanfiction (both online and just for myself), i wouldn't read any other fanfics, i would only read published books, and published books either from authors that i know i like, OR published books that i've vetted (ie read the first few pages of and said okay, this is a style i like and a story that's interesting to me)

it's impossible not to be "inspired" when you take in a lot of good writing. so read. but don't limit yourself to just fiction or whatever. read narrative nonfiction -- some of the most moving stories and well-written things i've ever read are actually essays, or longform journalism stories -- try a bit of everything and see what you like, and make note of the things you like to read

then, dig a bit deeper. if there's a sentence you find particularly moving, take it apart, try to figure out why you like it. i rmbr in elementary school we did "sentence diagrams" and it seems strange but getting really technical with writing is a good thing! and i'm the kind of nerd that loves stuff like this so u__u. BUT BUT the point of this is -- once you figure out how a "good" sentence is structured, you can take that structure and plug your own words in! and voila! it's another good sentence!!!! kind of like a super nerdy advanced version of mad-libs LOL

i went thru a phase of my life where i thought it was super cool to memorize famous first sentences of novels LMFAO (yes. again. my parents should've KNOWN i had adhd as a child holy fuck) but i did that for a while and i think that also just... ingrained in me specific sentence structures and turns of phrase that have stuck with me to this day.

if you read a thing and you don't like it, try to pause and ask yourself why -- was it the pacing? the structure? the characterization? what about it was offputting? try to be a more active/critical reader.

COPYWRITING. okay OKAY so this is a thing that i discovered only.... a few years ago? i think? but its a writing exercise wherein writers will literally copy out word for word writing that they like from another author -- not to publish, mind you, but just for the FEEL of writing it themselves -- NOW. i know what ur thinking "what the fuck why" but think about it this way -- classical musicians spend their entire lives playing pieces written by other musicians. dancers learn dances from other choreographers -- even choreographers start by learning dances by other people right like. why should writing be any different?

this does a few things -- it makes you an "active" participant in the writing. don't knock it till you've tried it -- reading a sentence (even deeply) and having to write/type it out yourself are two totally and completely different things. the way you pay attention to pacing, cadence, punctuation, line breaks, shit that you don't even think about when you're reading, suddenly, you're paying attention to it bc you're the one typing each and every letter, every comma, every exclamation mark.

i have a whole separate folder in my notion just for copywork. for the days that i don't feel like actually writing anything, i'll pick one of my favorite books from my favorite authors, and pull it up on kindle, and just copy out a few paragraphs, sometimes an entire chapter. and you'd be surprised at how different you feel after!

read/listen to poetry. this is more of a personal thing for me but i love the cadence of poetry -- i love internal rhymes and spoken word, i love limerence and sibilance and alliteration. i love IAMBIC PENTAMETER GODDAMNIT. lmfao but like. alot of times, prose is more "forgiving" in a way -- you have more space, more words to do the thing. poetry is (i think) the essence -- especially metered poetry, or specific forms of poetry where you have to write within a super rigid set of rules -- and sometimes, i think that creativity flourishes the best under "stress" aka under a strict set of rules. the shit that people come up with in very strict poetry is INSANE and sometimes i copy those out too, over and over again, just to feel the words and the rhythm

read your favorites over and over again. i used to never re-read books, but as i got older and my tastes became pickier, i find myself going back to reread my favorite books over and over again -- and it's fascinating because every time i go back, i find something new to marvel at, a new aspect. and i think that's the lovely thing about media after it's been put out in the world -- you can consume it over and over and over again, and each time, because of the way your brain is wired, of your physical setting, your mindset, you'll notice sometime different.

if you want a list of my fav books/authors, i can def make one! or i'll just reblog the list i made on my prev blog but yeah! lemme know if that's of interest to you! and i think you'll find that if you read any of my fav authors, you'll see immediately how they've inspired me LOL

and FINALLY be kind to yourself! you do not have to be good at every hobby you choose. if writing is something that just gives you joy and you don't want to become 'better' at it??? then that's perfectly okay! also, there are TONS of different styles of writing -- and not all of them is for everyone! you might like super dialogue-heavy writing, some other ppl might prefer really rich prose! it varies by person, and you'll never please everyone. so the best you can do is just write the stuff that makes you happy and that makes you giggle (lord knows thats what i've been doing on this blog) and if you want to put it out into the world, then do! but if you wanna keep it just for yourself, then that's good too!

just because you don't put it out into the world, doesn't make you any less of a writer!

[cutekittenlady]

New KOBD adjacent idea that Ratchet was actually VERY fond of Wildbreak before Knockout was exiled. He was one of the first newborn Cybertronians Ratchet got to know and definitely the first kindled sparks he helped with post war. Which makes it really interesting if/when they reunite after knockouts exile and Wildbreak was left with Motormaster.

By the point they'd reunite Wildbreak has come to hate autobots because he perceives Knockouts exile as a huge betrayal. One that led to knockout leaving him with motormaster because of all the exiled former decepticons gunning for him and thus separating Wildbreak from his only parent. Beyond that hanging with Dragstrip and the other stunticons has also negatively influenced Wildbreaks overall views of autobots.

So yeah if he reunites with ratchet he's going to be upset with him to say the least.

[beebfreeb]

Gregory Horror Show headcanon: James is one of the few residents who are not actually dead, he comes and goes from the hotel because he learned how to reality shift from TikTok.

[f-athr]

guess who’s read some more books >:)

[hussyknee]

You only have a book buying problem if you have disposable income. If you're poor you have a book downloading problem. Book piracy is the great equaliser because even broke people get the chance to organize and re-organize a thousand books they'll never read.

[provincara]

guess who just started assassin’s apprentice 🤗

[redux-iterum]

out of curiosity, why get rid of Dappletail and Rosetail in Redux? since they were in Into the Wild

The simple answer is that neither of them did a god damn thing in the books for me to work with. I cannot remember Dappletail even really having any dialog in the first arc. Rosetail also didn't show up in the allegiances - she just got mentioned to have died and then they buried her. In the Redux, I waited to see if anyone would notice that Dappletail had been taken out of the cast, and guess what: no one did! That's how irrelevant and a non-character she was.

[horizon-penblade]

ok but the totem/cubey friend in monument valley 3 growing into a boat vs the one in monument valley 1 getting lost under the waves... ough

[anghraine]

this is entirely unprompted on your end, but i love your darcy and faramir takes and wanted to get your opinion on aragorn/faramir as a ship.

i'm salivating over it and nobody. cares. but i just love how it can show the possibilities of book faramir being a "threat" to aragorn's kingship in a way that nobody else is...how they can relate through their shared ancestry but the entirely different ways it impacted them in their respective lives - something about aragorn being the heir of isildur, growing up surrounded by elves, arnor. something about faramir being distinctly aware of the legacy of the stewards, his numenorean heritage and how it's fading away in the world of men, gondor (my fav world in lotr, you are so under-appreciated, gondor.) i personally adhere to the stewards-were-most-likely-also-royalty headcanon because of that extra juicy tension. throw in the i-knew-your-father-as-a-young-man aspect, the whole steward-quite-literally-serving-in-wait-of-the-true-king aspect? it's everything.

i dunno. the natural cause and effect of "return of the king" & "departure of the steward" is so interesting to play with in a romantic context, especially if it keeps both of them in the limelight when naturally, it should only be one of them? i think it's the aragorn ship that pushes his character and ambition the most, and in the same way, it can push faramir to show more machiavellian traits, more of him utilizing his political power and/or personal strengths. especially since his canonical fate is extremely satisfying but also...very conclusively an *ending* if that makes sense.

i might just want to see faramir clashing with aragorn wanting to wage more war. let him cook! let the man speak about "queen among other queens: not a mistress of many slaves"!!!!

also must admit that it's my contrarian ass wanting to rebel against the fanon "aragorn never ever wanted to be king" + "faramir is a pathetic meow meow" headcanons. the existing faramir x aragorn fics i've read all adhere to it which is frustrating.

anyways, any thoughts on this ship i randomly latched on to?

Anon, this is my #1 Tolkien ship and actually one of the only m/m ships I've ever been super into. I used to guiltily sneak-read Aragorn/Faramir as a teenager because I grew up in a conservative community and hadn't come to terms with my own queerness at the time, and was still figuring out how to get by in that community just as a Democrat, much less a lesbian.

Anyway, I got a huge kick out of your ask because it's basically point-for-point my own feelings about them. If you haven't seen it, I even wrote a ship manifesto for them over ten years ago.

And unfortunately I do also agree that the (very PJ film-inflected) fanons around both characters have made it very difficult to find fic for the ship that isn't deeply OOC for the original versions of the characters (tbh the last time I looked, it was hard enough to even find F/A fics where Faramir had black hair, much less his deeper canon characteristics). Add in the fanon depictions of Gondor and the Stewardship, and a lot of what appeals about the pairing is lost for me. I read some good ones a longggg time ago, but wouldn't begin to know where to find them now.

(I know I should be the change I want to see and write some myself, but apart from the AU f/f and m/f/f versions, I think the closest I ever came to it was this post about a mostly-the-same-as-LOTR AU only with Faramir/Aragorn and this feeling explosion about "Faramir actually does accepts the dream-visions obviously intending him to be the one going to Rivendell but also it's Faramir/Aragorn.")

And if you haven't found it yet, my ship tag is #otp: love was kindled.

I hope you enjoy <3

[akuma-ren]

rafayel's cards really are the best bc for no other boy do I see ppl making thousand+ word analysis posts about their cards.

[fictionadventurer]

NaPoWriMo #12

I glanced at a few how-to-write-poetry books and got a bit frustrated by their assumptions that poetry needs to be this deep and laborious artistic endeavor.

*

Song of an Amateur

I am a simple poetess I take my pen in hand While others long for lasting fame My dreams aren't near so grand

All I want's a little ink A peaceful touch of time To gather up my humble thoughts And scribble out a rhyme

While others labor to create Immortal artistry I play with words as children play With sand beside the sea

Delighting in their shapes and forms In meter’s playful joys I let the words fall to create New literary toys

Capturing a simple sight A pithy turn of phrase To give my friends a bit of joy To brighten up their days

It’s not for me to take a place ‘mong lit’rature’s elite I’d rather gaze up at their heights And play beside their feet

So tell me not to labor long O'er words meant to impress I’d rather live quite happy as A simple poetess

[tetedurfarm]

hee hee hoo hoo bomb cyclone this week so i will probably not have power for a day or two ✌ hope it doesn't stress the kits out too much, they are doing so good but also wimdy can freak the little guys out a lot