authorjen

[authorjen]

i always want to write about love. when i hold my friend's hand while we cross the street, just like my mom used to do, it feels like a poem. when i walk on my sister's back to help soothe the ache, i can feel the words coming together. when i tell my mom i'm proud of her. i think she could use the reminder. when i bring an extra orange for my friend. they're his favorite. when i write a poem about how my dad's love has kept me alive, i know it is the only thing worth writing about. that these thousands of tiny kindnesses are all that matters. i always want to write about love, because i need everyone to know that it matters. and that every time you have ever loved, you mattered. you mattered.

when i say love is in the air we breathe - parrish h.

[authorjen]

Don’t ever give up on love because one ass hole ruined it for you. Sis, that wasn’t love. That was a toxic person who had unresolved traumas from childhood and adulthood experiences. Love is kind, love is happy, love is compassionate, love is respect, love feels good. Choose love everytime and you will find someone who is going to love you in return.

[authorjen]

I saw a post the other day where OP was like “why don’t girls ever get their periods in fiction” and someone had replied to it “well, no one farts or goes to the bathroom or whatever in fiction either, we just don’t bring those things up unless they’re what the story is about”

And while I totally get what they were trying to say (obviously we can assume a character goes to the bathroom without having to be told), I also think the attitude of “those things shouldn’t exist in fiction unless it’s a Big Deal” is something that should be challenged

People go to the bathroom. People fart. People have periods. Those things affect their lives in all sorts of ways every day—why should they not also affect fictional characters? It’s not hard to find ways to weave those things into the plot without doing anything other than making your characters feel more grounded and relatable and human.

You’re writing a story about a girl whose the object of some vampire’s affection/bloodlust?How does the fact that she starts bleeding once a month affect their relationship? Your character is taking his boyfriend out for ice cream? Have him remind them to take their lactaid pills. Need some characters to have a conversation without a person who’s staying with them? Have that person go to the bathroom

It can be really helpful to the flow of your story to remember that your characters need to eat and drink and pee at regular intervals. Characters on a long drive have to stop on occasion: have those stops be fun!!! Let them move the story forward!!!!!

And remember that people are gross and awkward sometimes. Let them burp in the middle of what would have been a romantic moment! Making these things taboo in fiction only increases people’s discomfort and shame about their own bodily functions

[authorjen]

A love like this ❤

The Addams Family (1991)

[authorjen]

I feel like the fact that the first-ever open heart surgery was performed by a Black doctor named Daniel Hale Williams in 1893 isn't talked about enough. He was an absolute wizard. The operation was performed on a Black victim of stabbing named James Cornish with no access to X-Rays or modern surgical tools, and Cornish recovered in less than two months with no infection. Later, he went on to establish medical organizations that protected Black communities. Dr. Williams should absolutely be included in our history books.

[authorjen]

Please visit your local library, folks. They are truly wonderful places.

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

#libraries #PLEASE KEEP YOUR LIBRARY OPEN #library love

[authorjen]

Ok, I've seen this sentiment before, but the amount of Kindle Unlimited ads I've been seeing is forcing me to repeat it-

Kindle Unlimited is offering two free months of unlimited ebooks. As a trial. Which will then become a paid subscription.

Your local library is offering unlimited ebooks all the time. Forever. No contracts, no predatory practices, no tracking of how long you spend on each particular page in the hopes that information about your habits can be sold for a profit.

Use your library. They want so badly to give you all of the things for free.

[authorjen]

I’m home for the weekend to help my folks with some maintenance, do some meal cooking and keep them company, but in the evenings mostly what we do is watch TV that I’m not super interested in. Notable mentions include the new Walker reboot, old episodes of Graham Norton, and one of the Late Night Jimmys, who I can’t tell apart and loathe equally. Though I think fandom is sleeping hard on the 2018 Vanity Fair miniseries. 

Anyway, I’ve been bringing my laptop into the living room and writing, because I can’t read while there’s spoken-word noise but for some reason I can write. I used to write at work sometimes, and on Sundays there’s a restaurant I’d go to and write, but of course I haven’t really written in public in two years at this point. And I’ve realized that I’ve begun doing what I can only think of as “interactive writing”: I’ve started making the hand gestures and facial expressions that I’m describing. 

So far my family hasn’t caught me at it but it’s only a matter of time before I write “He raised his eyebrows, a question on his face” and my mother asks me “What’s so shocking? You look confused by your computer.” 

Gonna have to relearn a poker face before my eyebrows ultimately betray me. 

[authorjen]

I am tired of grand things, world shaking things, and transcendent things. 

I do not want to hear about things that change the course of the world. 

I want tiny, tender, raw moments that change the course of peoples lives. 

Larger than life fiction is inherently non-empathetic because it preaches about the meaning of life without recognizing the pile of corpses its characters are preaching from.

[authorjen]

😂

Writing is just creating a little guy and then saying "I'm going to ruin his life."

[authorjen]

i learned of “Box beds” – cabinets with beds in them and, sometimes, lockable doors – were used for privacy and safety in parts of rural medieval Europe before individual bedrooms were common. They became fashionable even in homes with bedrooms and remained in use in Scotland into the 1900s (x)

[authorjen]

I rather like this advice.

Superior writing advice:

Make your characters FREAKS. Make them DERANGED. Make people think ‘surely this one guy towards the back is normal’ only to reveal FUCK NO. The guy in the back exclusively collects clown paintings (paintings done by professional clowns) and has an irrational hatred of second floors.

[authorjen]

Beautiful 😍

Shazea Quraishi, Centres of Cataclysm: Celebrating Fifty Years of Modern Poetry in Translation; ‘Carandasi’

[authorjen]

I hope authors know that readers will always be there. That it doesn’t matter if you take a break or two or five, that someone will always be there to read it when you come back.

There’s this fic that I’m spiritually attached to. It was started 8 years ago and the author updates a few times a year. I reread it every so often and fall in love with it all over again. I will wait years more for this story and it doesn’t matter how long they take, or how few they update. I’ll be here

[authorjen]

Good morning texts say "I think of you when I wake."

Good morning kisses seem to say, "I loved you through the night and I'll love you today."

#writing #romance #kissing #good morning texts #love

[authorjen]

😍

He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer's- she forgot her name and the words for fruit and food, she forgot her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son's name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity. She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn't know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is- she loved him before she remembered him.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

[authorjen]

Oh dear 🤦

What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?

A cat has claws at the end of paws and a comma is a pause at the end of a clause.