15 May 2012
Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck
- Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
- Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
- Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
- If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
- Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
- If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
(via sarahstocracy)
15 May 2012
A Study in Pink » The Reichenbach Fall
I can’t believe I waited so long to watch these
(via ginagoul)
11 May 2012
Internets Star of the Day: YouTube rapper Kitty Pryde has ridden the Tumblr wave to become the week’s biggest music meme after her latest Internets-inspired track, “Okay Cupid,” garnered positive reviews from Vice,The Fader, and even the New York Times.
Like what if MC Paul Barman were a super self-aware female teenager? This is amazing.
(Source: thedailywhat)
11 May 2012
MSNBC host Tamron Hall drops the mic on a conservative journalist for refusing to answer her questions.
The ThinkProgress team actually paused what we were doing to watch this throwdown (quite rare).
(via brooklynmutt)
9 May 2012
You might be polite about hiding the pain of it but I won’t, I can’t. I’m tired, I’m lost, I call out to Allah in this global isolation. Being a Muslim in a post 9/11 era has killed me on the inside, Mehreen. I have found myself apologizing again and again for things I would never do, for things my religion has never taught me. I have literally waited for people to call me a terrorist while I walk down the pavement in crowds. Your father has been questioned. I have been questioned. We’re scrutinized. We’re spied on whether we’re in USA or out of the country. It doesn’t matter if you’re Arab or if you’re Asian or if you’re African or if you’re European. You’re just a “Mozlem.” And “Mozlems” are bad. I don’t watch TV anymore. I don’t read the newspaper anymore. It’s either us getting killed for being “suspects” or us retaliating and then everyone starts calling us cavemen, barbaric savages. You know how it feels but you hide it. You’re polite about it. You’ve cried about it. Your father has. Your mother has. How does it feel to be subjected to constant paranoia, distrust, hate, xenophobia? Where do I go? Back home? The home that America wants to engage in war with? Do I stay in America? The place where my identity is no more than that of a “bearded terrorist”? Where do I go? Home is where the heart, right? My heart is crushed, Mehreen. There is no home. There is no peace. I call out to Allah after every prayer and weep in sajda. I ask him, Ya Rab, why us? Why? How long do we suffer? When will these people understand that it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s not him, it’s not her, it’s not Islam, it’s just a few bad people. I see our Muslim youth grow old before time with worry, with hurt, with this alienation. When will it stop.
—
My friend just emailed me. My heart has broken into a thousand pieces. Every single word of this hits so, so hard in the core.
(via mehreenkasana)
Thanks for all the support, everyone.
(via mehreenkasana)
(via sarahstocracy)
3 May 2012
Major plot points:
- First experience with drugs and/or alcohol
- Discovering a band that becomes meaningful. Probably The Smiths.
- The girl falling in love with a jerk and not our protagonist.
- ~Deep realizations in the last paragraph~
Ah, modern teen literature.
OH MY GOD NO THESE BOOKS MAKE ME WANT TO VOMIT
(Source: cheappoet, via brigittetotoro)
3 May 2012
Bar bathroom?
3 May 2012
It happens when a father realizes he doesn’t just love his daughter, but also her wife. It happens when a soldier tells his unit that he’s gay, and they tell him they knew it all along and they didn’t care, because he was the toughest guy in the unit. It happens when a video sparks a movement to let every single young person know they’re not alone, and things will get better.
It happens when people look past their ultimately minor differences to see themselves in the hopes and struggles of their fellow human beings. That’s where change is happening.
And that’s not just the story of the gay rights movement. That’s the story of America—the slow, inexorable march towards a more perfect union.
— President Obama (via barackobama)
(via justmargaret)
21 Apr 2012
“What do you think an artist cares about? Does he think all day about fine wines and black tie affairs and what he’s gonna say at the next after-dinner speech? No, he lives only for that narcotic moment of creative bliss.”
