#DWJ Reading Project

[loquaciousquark]

So, I've been absolutely blown away by your fanfiction skills lately. How on earth do you manage to churn out so many amazing stories? And they're not just quick scribbles, they're true works of art! I've been dabbling myself and it is a *struggle* to stay focused and see a story through to the end. How do you keep that laser focus going? Any tips for maintaining a consistent writing style start to finish? Your latest story has McKinley vibes. :) Your talent is truly awe-inspiring, thanks!

Ahh, thank you so much! I'm sorry, I'm not sure how I missed this message until now!

The long version is here, just answered this morning. The short version is that finishing fics is something that drives a lot of satisfaction and joy for me--it's as much a part of the process as sitting down to write in the first place--so it's something I've made a personal priority when I write. Outside of two shorter pieces, I have clearly known the ending of every story I've written before it was started, and I take a lot of setup time with my extensive outlines before I ever begin to make sure that ending is achievable, internally consistent, and a logical conclusion for the characters. It's just something that matters a lot to me, so it's something I take a lot of time working towards!

The more practical answer is that I deliberately set aside time for projects and hobbies, whether that's writing, streaming, playing video games, whatever, and I have a lifestyle that lets me do these things relatively uninterrupted. It's been harder and harder to carve out this time as I've gotten older and more established in my career; and in some ways it's gotten simpler, too, mostly because I'm now just willing to say "no, I'm staying home that day" without guilt.

As far as style, I can't speak much to that except to say that if I have one, it's made of the things I love. Patricia McKillip was a formative influence, as were Megan Whalen Turner and Patricia Wrede and honestly Brian Jacques, and as I read their books I found things they did that resonated with me, whether that was plot structure, characterization, the way they structured dialogue, their language styles and word rhythms--even down to where they put line breaks in paragraphs. Heck, I have an incredibly vivid memory of reading Matthias striking the snake in Redwall for the first time in my elementary school library and getting chills, and looking back at the paragraph over and over trying to figure out what, mechanically, he'd done there to give me such an emotional reaction.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that the more you read and love, the more you'll find things you want to emulate and make your own. My parents read LOTR to me as a bedtime story for years, and I can trace back my deep love of elevated language and high fantasy and kings and princes right to there, and to McKillip and Turner and a little DWJ and yes, even some McKinley.

Style isn't something you create. If anything it's a mirror, showing the reflection of what you love. If you've ever loved any part of beautiful writing, whether that's JRRT or fanfiction, it can't help but come out in what you make. :)

#quark replies #writing: other #anonymous

[no-where-new-hero]

Fire and Hemlock Readalong: Day 9 (Part 2, Ch. 3)

...in which a quartet is formed.

@ksfoxwald has already written eloquently on how DWJ continues to weave Polly's nascent understanding of sexuality into the plot, so I won't go too deeply into this aspect, even though it's very evident in the increasing prominence of David Bragge. One thing I do think is interesting is how, even though Polly doesn't really understand what's going on between David and the lady, she thinks the lady is Mary Fields. There's this connection (whether intended only by DWJ for understanding readers to cathc onto or unconsciously in Polly's mind) of Mary Fields with being "the other woman."

This chapter is the first time we really see Tom understanding his own heroic powers of invention and using them to his benefit: he forms his quartet based on the heroes that he and Polly have created, using his gift given by Laurel to extricate himself from his curse. It's a way in which we can see Polly not saving him directly, but helping him save himself.

At the very end of the chapter, Polly reads "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," which is a fairy tale based on the myth of Cupid and Psyche rather similar to "Beauty and the Beast" and of course Tam Lin, though with an extra edge. In "Beauty and the Beast," Beauty is always decidedly good. Even Janet, though disobeying the warning at the start of the poem, exerts certain kinds of power over Tam Lin that don't rebound unfairly either onto her or Tam. In "East of the Sun," though, the heroine expressly disobeys the rules of fairyland. Polly despises this heroine for it, even though not two pages ago, Polly was acknowledging that "she had broken the rules by seeing Mr Lynn, which was what allowed Mr Leroy his revenge.” And this meme becomes relevant again.

My own personal anecdote to do with this is that I absolutely understand Polly's reaction. Sometimes, it's the thing closest to you that you hate the most. I actually disliked Fire and Hemlock for years because Polly's desire to have a friendship with Tom--which is seen by both people within and outside the novel as creepy, inappropriate, and dangerous--was something I yearned for a LOT as a kid and then grew to hate myself for. I projected myself onto Polly so hard, and then I finished the book and despised it. Internalized shame, obviously.

Polly's strong antipathy does play in a bit to her low-level misogyny, even though she's learning that women can be heroes too, after recognizing Tan Audel. But she's still got a ways to go.

#fh readalong #fire and hemlock #diana wynne jones #dwj

[polyhexian]

Nate, my boy, since you know everything and what you don't you make up, do you have any info on Warren Johnson as a writer?

Well he's got a short list of projects but they're definitely nothing to shake a stick at. Wonder Woman is a huge net score. Beta ray bill is too. Working with both marvel and DC is solid credentials.

Dead earth seems to have notably good reviews, which i remembered from extremely fleeting familiarity. I've heard the name before positively.

I found this review particularly noteworthy:

However Chad isn't the only one concerned about it being in character

One of the main complaints people seem to have is that DWJ had a story he wanted to tell and he pushed the characters he was given into the molds to tell it.

Also very highly rated.

Chad didn't like this one, but apparently the characterization issues were absent this time. Scrolling through other reviews, I didn't see any other complaints about characterizations-- I saw lots of comments about how great the characterization is, actually. Perhaps that is because beta ray bill has a lot less history than wonder woman and perhaps people are more open to seeing more diversity and exploration of who this character is. If you don't go here, beta ray bill is not a HUGE character, but he's been around since the early 80s and has plenty of media to draw from. He has plenty of ardent fans, so plenty of people who already have an idea of who this character is when they went into this story.

All of his work has reviewed really well, nothing dips below a 4 on Goodreads.

Reading reviews and summaries of each book, it seems like DWJ really likes action, blood, hyperviolence, and, specifically, mad max. I see people being up mad max in so many reviews I can't not mention it. he does a lot of stories with fighting, with big action setpieces, wrestling, heavy metal, grit and gore. Pretty much all his stories are gritty.

I strongly suspect he is going to write a very "gritty war story" version of transformers, which is... Something we have seen before. It may not be bad, but idw definitely already did that. So did wfc siege. Grimdark kind of hyperviolence and war and action is pretty par for the course with tf. I don't see a lot of people talking about his stories being particularly deep or emotionally engrossing. I see people say some are very FUN or very engaging or even that they have interesting commentary. But... Mm.

Having not read his stuff and only having just studied these reviews, I'm expecting some really pretty war violence. Seeing as he's clearly not as familiar with the property as your average tf fan, he's still a little shaky on his tf stylization, I'm predicting he's going to focus on a lot of mainline G1 characters, the pop boys people recognize. Megatron, Optimus, soundwave, prowl, Jetfire, starcscream, the seekers probably, ultra Magnus, grimlock, hot rod maybe, arcee definitely. I think it's a lot less likely we will see more obscure characters like we did with idw2.

Tho if I had to drop money I would bet windblade is there. Hasbro has been pushing her hard. I really suspect they will have asked him specifically to make sure she's there.

[eloquentgifs]

DWJ Reading Project. Part III

As I said here, my 2021 2023 resolution is gonna be READING EVERY DIANA WYNNE JONES BOOK I CAN FIND, and due to my love of making lists and taking notes, I’ve decided keeping track of this reading project here in this post, which I’ll keep updated as I make progress. It’s mostly for my own pleasure, but maybe it helps someone who wants to give it a try to this amazing writer and doesn’t know where to start.

Part I (1970 - 1976 & The Dalemark Quartet)

Part II (1977 - 1981 & The Chrestomanci Series )

- Archer’s Goon (1984): At this point it’s just ridiculous how these books keep being surprising and leaving me all wtf (in a good sense). This one is, again, about a family with very realistic dynamics who have to deal with some surreal fuckery. In this case, they live in a town ruled from the shadows by seven brothers and sisters, each of one farming a different aspect of the town (energy, police, crime, education, sewage... etc). I couldn’t explain the plot if my life depended on it, but I enjoyed every single page. ALSO, there’s a TV adaptation, althought it doesn’t seem very faithful***

***Edit: I’ve watched the whole thing now and I stand corrected: It’s actually quite faithful. Some characters are not how I imagined them, but they did mostly a good job, and I’m obsessed with Dillian’s dress

- Fire and Hemlock (1985): Well, I finished it yesterday and I’m still processing it. What a ride. I felt I missed a lot of subtext by not knowing the stories it’s inspired by, so I’m totally re-reading it in the future, after I’ve checked those up. About the parts I did get, it’s just WOW. Polly in all her complexity is just amazing. I love that the premise seems to be a feminist revision of a tale of clingy love, and I love how all along the book you can see different examples of shitty stuff women have to put up with (grown ups sexualizing underage girls, boys mansplaining shit and being a pain in the ass until the girl they’re after gets so tired she gives up, slut shaming between girls, whatever is going on with Ivy’s mental health, THE FUCKING GROOMING –really, this made me so unconfortable from the very beginning). Of course I don’t think this is the main theme of the book, but I do believe DWJ wasn’t random about anything. There’s so much going on in my mind I don’t really know what else to say.

- Land of Ingary Series: · Howl’s Moving Castle (1986): This is 8th time I read this book (the 4th in English. It was actually my first book in English). It's my favourite book in the world and I could write a whole essay about how much I love it and how good it is for my mental and emotional balance, so I’ll just mention a few thoughts to keep this short: 1) I relate to Howl much more than I’d like to admit. 2) Sophie taught me to use aggresive cleaning to cope with anxiety. 3) Also, I would kill for powers like hers. 4) I actually relate to all of them, bunch of human messes. Diana predicted the millennials. 5) I can’t believe it took me this long to really understand [Calcifer spoilery stuff]. 6) Now that I’m more familiar with DJW usual tone and themes, I have to asume she wrote this lighthearted (pun intended) and fun story to relax a little bit after the previous 3-4 books, and that makes me love it even more. 7) I should read Stardust.

· Castle in the Air (1990): I’ve also read this one several times, and there’s a lot to love in it. Most of the new characters are amazing and the plot is quite a ride (and if you’re into The Arabian Nights, you’ll probably love this). I even stole some traits from Abdullah for one of my OC. But I must admit it didn’t age well, or at least there are some aspects I like less every time I read it, mostly regarding the female characters and what is said about their looks and beauty. I also felt Sophie was a little bit out of character, but obviously she’s going through STUFF so I’d rather not to judge. In any case, it’s a nice story and it’s not its fault not being as perfect as the absolute masterpiece that was HMC

· House of Many Ways (2008): The first time I read this one it was months before DWJ died, and since I hadn’t like that much and it made me really sad to know it would be the last book of this series, I used to feel a weird resentment against it all these years. This new re-read helped me to reconcile with it and actually enjoy it a lot. Maybe back then I was too similar to Charmain and I felt attacked or something, idk, but I’ve definitely learnt to love useless idiots who have no clue about anything going on in their lifes and it’s almost a miracle they’re still alive. And the fact that a huge % of the book it’s just her and Peter doing house chores? Hilarious. Also, I have the impression that DWJ was so tired of people fancying Howl that this time she did her best to show us how fucking annoying he can be.

- A Tale of Time City (1987): This was the first DWJ book I read after a long hiatus and I must confess it took me several months to finish it, which was surprising because I had missed Diana a lot and time travel is one of my favourite things in literature. Maybe the hype was too high, but it just didn’t hook me at first. It gets better once the worldbuilding is settled and the plot can fly free, and I did enjoy a lot of silly scenes that only provide vibe, like the main character laughing her ass off during the chaotic morning routine in the house. I also appreciate the racial diversity, and the comeback of the Surprise Evil Uncle (tm), a DWJ classic. And I do want one of those butter-pies now. - Wild Robert (1989): Heather is a girl who lives in a castle-museum because her parents are the curators there. She hates tourists so I could relate to her from the very beginning. She hates them so much she accidentally wakes up a 350 yo wizard from his grave so he gets rid of them. The story is so short that it almost feels as pilot for a show, like, you want to keep seeing Heather and Robert getting into trouble and stuff.  It would have made a nice series of children’s books.

- Black Maria (also known as Aunt Maria, 1991): The timing for this one was weirdly good because: a) I had to move in with my old aunt for a few days to help her while she recovers after a surgery (which is basically the starting point for Mig, the mc of the story, and her family), b) the book has several mysteries, including a crime one (my aunt forced me to watch hours of police procedural shows), the town where Mig's aunt lives has a extreme matriarchal social structure, where women are on the top, and men are just Ken, and the main conflict surrounds this (I started reading the book around the time Barbie premiered). I don’t normally like the first-person narrative, but DWJ managed to do it, once again, in a rather clever way that fits the story quite right and made me like Mig a lot. Also, it was nice to see that the adult relative is actually helpful and good, instead of the classic neglectul piece of shit that she so often includes.

#Diana Wynne Jones #DWJ Reading Project #Archer's Goon #Fire and Hemlock #Howl's Moving Castle #Castle in the air #House of Many Ways #A tale of Time City #Wild Robert #Black Maria #DWJ #Reading EVERYTHING

[aeide-thea]

[some belated bookblogging from hiatus; cw for fatphobia]

among the things i did while not-here was continue my Great Diana Wynne Jones Reread, a project which has really been puncturing my comfortable sense of familiarity with her oeuvre as more and more titles turn out to be new to me, and not in fact rereads after all: one of these was power of three, written in 1976, which is sort of like... a fairytale bildungsroman* that’s also an allegory for international/race relations?? anyway, it’s a bit of a mess imo—does a lot more telling than showing, which i suppose is equally true of a lot of traditional fairy tales but which doesn’t quite work for me in a modern novel even (maybe especially) if it is YA—

but mostly what stood out to me, and what i wanted to note down somewhere i could refer to it, was the really pronounced fatshaming of the Fat Girl in it, of whom there isn’t much to be said except that she’s fat, and the narrative presents this fact as though a number of disdainful assumptions about her character should follow logically and justifiably from it, and her moment of transcendent heroism involves her literally skipping lunch in favor of physical effort; and at the end of the story she’s promised that she’ll grow out of her fatness and become thin, which i think we’re expected to see as a Fitting Reward, now that she’s demonstrated herself to be morally deserving...

anyway. i acknowledge that my revisitation of DWJ has so far been focused on Greatest Misses rather than Hits, and presumably when i make it back around to things like howl's moving castle &c i’ll have a better time of it; but i gotta say, thus far this particular reading marathon has been one of disappointment after disappointment!

#* i mean‚ strictly speaking there's more than one Youth getting gebildet which probably disqualifies it‚ but. that's the vibe. #diana wynne jones #power of three #bookblogging #fatphobia

[terriblelizbians]

just reread howls moving castle bc ive been feeling nostalgic for my good childhood fantasy but i do still have tma brainrot so im incapable of thinking about anything else ANYWAY it was definitely the dwj book jon read as a kid like i thought chrestomanci before but rereading hmc... [big dreamy sigh]

like i am so in love with the idea of baby jon fixating on these... secretly- or eventually- lovable asshole characters. and (part of) the reason he was Like That in s1 is because he kind of. based himself on them! learned from them! seeing himself as... annoying and kind of terrible, and dreaming and hoping for the kind of love and happy ending a character like that gets. like a darcy, or a howl!!! so much a howl!!! yes this is me projecting on this eventually-lovable asshole character my own tendency to project on eventually-lovable asshole characters.

also i don’t think jon is actually solely a howl. i think he and martin BOTH have aspects of both howl and sophie. but i think he would heavily project on howl, especially pre-canon

#tma #howls moving castle #jon kins howl prove me wrong #the magnus archives

[haich-slash-cee]

Okay, as I was thinking about your 50-year-history post, I remembered one of Edgar Allen Poe's more obscure stories, published in 1838. It was a satire called "How to Write a Blackwood Article", complaining about formulaic stories where people get themselves into some horrid predicament. It contains some memorable quotes such as, "Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations--they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet."

!!!! Amazing! 

(A link to an online version or a PDF of Poe’s satire story)

I kind of want to work that info into the beginning of the 50-yr history of h/c in fandom post I wrote. Or maybe that’s a separate project: “Analyzing a selection of classic Western Literature from a hurt/comfort and whump fandom culture perspective”.

This has such an overlap with those posts of fanfic writers who worry that they keep writing X scenario over and over with variations, with fanfic readers assuring them “No, we were looking for X scenario, we want to read it over and over.” Also an overlap with those “So if you get punched in face / injured in this manner / so on, this is what it feels like” tumblr posts. Edgar Allan Poe might have been satirizing all that, but still, 1838 and 2020 writer camaraderie.

Also, a moment of appreciation for Edgar Allen Poe being fed up and making fun of his own wheelhouse genre. (Although this article argues that Poe was actually writing many more goofy stories than serious stories…?) Either way, Poe writing “How to Write a Blackwood Article” still reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones, famous fantasy author, writing an entire book cataloguing high fantasy tropes (The Tough Guide to Fantasyland). But then she wrote some actual stories set in that universe (the Derkholm books) which are fun.

There’s also a story of DWJ when she was a judge for a famous book award. She had to read so many books, got sick of it, tried to be nice about it, but later she and her fellow writer judges met and mercilessly ripped apart the books they didn’t like. I can’t find the story online, but it’s in DWJ’s biography Reflections.

[fuckyeahjohnnychrist]

DwJ is now a weekly show!

A message from the man himself:

I am also excited to inform you that we will be bringing you new episodes of Drinks With Johnny each and every week!  

I am having so much fun doing the show; getting to know new people and what makes them tick as well as catching up with some old friends.  This project has been a blast and can't wait for you to see what we have in store for the coming weeks months and years.  

Keep up with us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and give us some feedback.  Love to read your comments.

...go find the Drinks with Johnny podcast and subscribe so it and future episodes upload straight to your library.  While you're at it leave me a review and if you're enjoying the show leave us a 5 star rating ;)Thank you all for your support of the show and be on the lookout for more news to come each week.

Till then stay thirsty my friends,

Cheers 🍻

Johnny Christ

https://drinkswithjohnny.com/

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t!

#johnny christ #drinks with johnny

[littledeadling]

Ok so this is absolutely not my official design but... I have a mission in life to draw every single one of Diana Wynne Jones’ characters from the Chrestomanci books (and from Howl’s Moving Castle, and maybe from Hexwood too, and ones I have yet to read because I’ve been saving them)-- and i mean EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER. I need to start on that!! So sort of towards that end, here’s a completely non-serious doodle of Marianne Pinhoe <3

#for the first time in my life since i first got the book i haven't read the pinhoe egg in probably........ a YEAR?? OR MORE?????????? #i hate university for that #i can''t even remember what she dresses like but its not this #I need a tag for this project #how about...... #DWJ Project #marianne pinhoe #chrestomanci #the pinhoe egg #diana wynne jones #dwj #witches #this is so personal but whatever i AM going to be drawing 8000000 pictures in this vein so might as well post em right

[outpastthemoat]

aunt maria.

I have been reading aunt maria.  I think it’s one of my favorites of diana wynne jones’s more middle-grade-focused novels.  I think it’s so good because it’s just so true to life?  I mean, I remember reading in her book about writing that dwj likened writing to just play - thought experiments.  that every pun or joke is an alternative universe.  

and everyone knows an old lady like aunt maria.  it’s torture to visit them.  they talk and talk and talk and say nothing but they keep saying, “and now listen to this!” and you HAVE TO, hours stretch into days when you’re at their house, they say polite things like “oh, don’t bother about the napkins,” when they really mean “I use napkins like a civilized person but I’m too polite to say so.”  they pinch your cheeks and act sad and horrified when you say something rude.  they forget your names.  everyone knows an old lady like this!! and you want to say rude things and act the opposite of how nice little boys and girls act - but you can’t.  it’s not polite.

and from there, diana just goes, well, what if this old lady that everyone hates to visit, who is so boring that she puts you to sleep, well, what if she was really evil?  and had magic to back up her demands and petty selfish wishes - and everyone goes along with it because they’re too polite not to! and the whole story unravels out of this one idea.  and it moves so fast and it is so good.  

this time, reading aunt maria, I really noticed antony green, who is buried alive in a mound.  he astonished me the first time around.  and now I really noticed how similar he is to mordion - buried alive and coming out as a skeletal man, half mad and scarecrowish, but also with some remnants of kingliness.  and aunt maria was written about three years before hexwood.  I wonder what put that image in dwj’s head?  men buried alive.  sometimes I wish there was a really detailed biography of dwj to reference.  I particularly like that antony’s ghost looks disjointed and with comical parroty features is because it’s a projection of what he thinks he looks like.  it’s interesting to see how others see themselves.  

anyway aunt maria is an excellent book, interesting magic and themes that make you think a lot about it after you’re done.  

#aunt maria #black maria #diana wynne jones #jenny reads books

[littlemissinkdrinker]

Reading Stack

My current reading stack holds:

1. Charmed Life by DWJ. My library has the entire Chrestomanci series on kindle, so I have decided to reread it! Enjoying it so much, I love DWJ. I’m hoping to finish this by Tuesday, if not sooner but I start attending house viewings tomorrow and that it going to eat into my reading time.

2. City of Bones by Cassandra Claire. I know CC is troublesome author so I am making a point of borrowing these from the library where she won’t get a dime from me reading it. I read the first two books back when they first came out but never read past that. So I’m trying again to see if I enjoy them or not.

3. Goddess of the Rose by P.C Cast. There was once I time that I was obsessed with P.C Cast. Going back, rereading, and first-time reading some of her books have shown me that although I enjoyed them back then, they aren’t to my taste now. And that is okay.

4. Tiān Guān Cì Fú / Heaven's Official Blessing - my best friend is currently in love with this series and asked me to read it. So it’s officially on the list to be read.

5. The Lives of Christopher Chant by DWJ. Book two of the Chrestomanci series! Already downloaded from the library.....

6. Witch Weekly by DWJ. And book number 3 of the Chrestomancy series. I might have thought I was going to finish reading Calvin & Hobbes and Charmed Life much faster than I actually did....oh well! They won’t stay around for long hopefully!

7. Mo Dao Zu Shi - another book my best friend is obsessed with and asked me to read. As he is providing the reading material for free and it’s BL, I couldn’t refuse!

8. The Girl in the Scarlet Chair by Janice Tremayne. I have no idea if I will like this series, but it was suggested that sense I had so much fantasy in my stack, I should break it up with some horror (one of my other favorite genres). So I chose this one at random and downloaded the series with KindleUnlimited.

And those are the projected books for January. I need to read 8.3 (or 9 as I prefer to round up) each month to reach my yearly goal, so I like lining them up at the beginning of the month so I know how much I need to read each day to stay on track.

#reading #reading stack #reading progress 2021 #books #currently reading #reading goal 2021

[etirabys]

writing/miscellaneous meme, tagged by @gurguliare

1. What are your current writing goals? None, I went from ‘failing at 40% of my reasonable writing projects’ to ‘failing at 95%’ sometime around 2012 and have been determinedly avoiding having goals for some years now. Also, I have nothing to say to the world through fiction: the philosophically desirable stance is silence.

...there is a harry/lupin/snape fic I wrote 15K of in the first week of January and having been superstitiously ignoring ever since

2. When did you first discover your love of writing? Age 12 or so, writing harry potter fanfic with unselfconscious joy and naivete. I miss it

3. What motivates you to keep writing? Not Applicable

...the last time I wrote something substantial, it was out of spite, and I desired the recipient to read it and regret that they had lost my friendship, since I was so good at catering to their particular kinks. I encoded a hidden barely-apology in the last chapter. So: spite, probably

4. How important is worldbuilding for your writing? Varies – I have some nascent sci-fi universes that are only worldbuilding, no plot or even characters yet, and I have others where... ‘when will I invent the right cultural/magical system for this noncon kink fic’

5. Pen on paper versus typing? typing. tbh by the time I’m halfway through writing out a sentence I’ve already forgotten the thought it’s supposed communicate.

6. Favorite Author? Tipsy and sentimental at time of writing, so: Diana Wynne Jones. She enchanted my childhood, and there’s something inimitable she infuses her fiction with. Some writers straightforwardly showed me that I could never do what they did (coming to mind atm: Dunnett, Nabokov); but DWJ seemed like a very nice stage magician who nonetheless refused to explain what she’d done. She filled young me with ambition rather than dismay.

7. Something you do to get the creative juices flowing to write? I read something that’s almost but quite not what I wanted

or I go through 20 pages of fic on AO3 and get madder and madder about having to wade through so much not-catering-to-me fic

8. Do you write better at night, or first thing in the morning? I don’t know if I’ve done a single worthwhile thing in the morning, in my entire life,

9. How do you take your coffee/tea? lots of milk but no sugar. but if a coffeeshop has a new fruity syrup I’ve never tried, that

10. If you could only live with one season for the rest of your life, what would it be? KOREAN MONSOON RAINS but at a Seattle-autumn 19C. Thanks.

tagging: huh, I’ve actually lost contact with most writer-type people I knew on tumblr in the past three years. Tagging @spikeface, @cptsdcarlosdevil, @nostalgebraist, but please do ignore if this isn’t your thing

#gurguliare #askmeme #infinite monkey

[freebooter4ever]

demonsandsuch replied to your post “Olga made a gulping sound. Two more tears chased down her cheeks. “I...”

um so I didn't know how much I needed this until I read it. (when your abuser is a family member... ://) but this, this is good and feels really true. thanks for sharing it. <3

I look so much like my mom sometimes it TERRIFIES me, so I feel you <3 (ps read the entire book you will love it and laugh your ass off and DWJ’s world in the Derkholm series feels like something Overwatch would be very at home in. Wizard Derk is this total nerd whose one passion is breeding animals (pigeons and flying pigs and flying horses and angry arrogant geese being his specialty) and half his children are griffins (one of whom is a computer science artist like me!), and year of the griffin is about Elda the baby of the family who goes to Wizard University, and the ENTIRE THING is just a crack on how much of a pretentious joke universities can be, like the only smart professor is obsessed with his research project and can’t be bothered with teaching, and the only professor who teaches is a illustrious jackass. And it’s just hilarious. And each of the characters in the found college family have some serious family issues that have to be resolved in order for them to use their magic and it’s just...I LOVE IT. Also there is a dragon who is very sarcastic.)

#demonsandsuch

[originalcandybouquetlove-blog]

Download and install Gamings No More! Flow Video games Quickly Along with GeForce NOW.

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Game Informer's Andrew Reiner, Jeff Marchiafava, Kyle Hilliard, as well as Suriel Vazquez look at the 3rd (as well as some would certainly say finest) activity in the Jak & Daxter trilogy. The visuals completely conjure those early handhelds, and also although the video game is actually quite simple-- move left and right, steer clear of dropping things, lots swiped money into a balloon-- receiving high-scores calls for significant focus and also thumb mastery. That said, it has Google Games cloud data backup to save progress, deals with Android TV, and is simply an all over enjoyable activity. Digital games that you own will automatically appear in the My Gamings & Apps Collection area if they are accessible to play on Xbox One.

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DWJ Reading Project. Part II

As I said here, my 2021 resolution is gonna be READING EVERY DIANA WYNNE JONES BOOK I CAN FIND, and due to my love of making lists and taking notes, I’ve decided keeping track of this reading project here in this post, which I’ll keep updated as I make progress. It’s mostly for my own pleasure, but maybe it helps someone who wants to give it a try to this amazing writer and doesn’t know where to start.

Part I (1970 - 1976 & The Dalemark Quartet)

Part III (1984 - 1992 & Land of Ingary Series)

- The Chrestomanci Series (DWJ’s suggested reading order): · Charmed Life (1977): I couldn’t fully enjoy it because the main premise of the story is the codependency Cat has with his AWFUL sister, and how her abuse shapes everything on his life. He has such a low self esteem and needs so much a hug, it just breaks my heart every page. In any case, the worldbuilding, the magic system and the general vibe are just amazing. If it keeps like this, I totally understand why so many people love this series

· The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988): Ok, this is the good shit. I don’t even know how to describe it in few words. Let’s say that there’s also a kid being abused by his relatives, and there were parts where I wanted to throw the book against the wall, but Christopher is such a fascinating character to read about that you just can’t stop. And this universe, OMFG. Also, is the Asheth thing some kind of homage to The Tombs of Atuan?

· Conrad’s Fate (2005): I’ve binge-watched Downton Abbey a few months ago, so finding out this book is basically DA with magic was just a delight. Christopher and his new BFF Conrad arrive to this big ass manor to work as lackeys, while both having secret agendas of their own. There’s everything one would expect and more: Rich Family Drama, Upstairs/Downstaris antics, crime solving, forbidden loves, scifi-ish reality bugs, and of course abusive relatives (at this point, if I were DWJ’s uncle I'd think she was trying to tell me something). I read it in a day and a half. The only negative thing I can say is that I missed Christopher POV of things. 

· Witch Week (1982): This is about a bunch of pupils and teachers in a deppresing boarding school. Everyone is a little bit of an asshole at some point, but it's understandable because this world must be the worst in Series 12. Not only they keep burning witches in modern times, but witches aren’t even a minority, so you can imagine the amount of hypocrisy. It’s interesting how the witch thing can be considered a metaphor for lgtb kids: everyone is scared of being called a witch because they’ll get bullied (and maybe arrested and burnt), but every time a character find out they’re in fact a witch, they just feel confident and happy because they’ve found themselves, so they can’t even hide it. Also, there are more secret witches around than they would expect.

· The Magicians of Caprona (1980): Two families of famous spell-makers keep hating each other through generations, to the point they put Caprona, the city-state where they live, in danger. Sometimes the Italian stereotypes were too much and took me out of the story, but not gonna lie, I really loved the opera spells, the large families living all together in a big house and being loving and supportive with each other, and BENVENUTO.

· The Pinhoe Egg (2006): This one is also about confronted families of magic users, but this time they’re in the villages near to Chrestomanci Castle, and no one really knows there’s a feud because their spells are based on herbs and plants, not in singing opera on the streets. Cat comes back and shares the spotlight with Marianne Pinhoe, and as always I would love more Christopher Chant, but I can´t really complain.

·  Mixed Magics (2000): Four short stories settled in the Chrestomanci Universe, more or less linked to the main characters. My favourite is the third one, Carol Oneir’s Hundredth Dream, mostly because the idea of a kid selling her dreams as stories is brilliant, but also because I loved that little moment where Christopher reviews Carol’s dreams and everything he says is the kind of critique that Diana always received on her books.

- The Homeward Bounders (1981): There are some misterious powerful people who seem to be addicted to Age of Empires, but they play it using actual worlds and actual people. When someone from these worlds find this out, they got exiled and doomed to jump from world to world, only able to stop when they manage to get back to their original world.  The first act remind me a little of those stories from Arabian Nights where the main character keeps arriving to weird islands and getting into the most bizarre troubles but always manages to survive. Due to life circunstances I couldn't focus 100% on the reading, but I did enjoy the characters, mostly Helen, and Jamie eventually grew on me too. I must confess I got kinda lost with the final explanation about the game and the nature of this multiverse and what it's Real and how Hope acts literally as an anchor that keeps the system going (although I find the notion really interesting as an allegory, and once again a really cool message for kids: hope can be your prison)

- The Time of the Ghost (1981): Ok, this one was a dark trip. I can’t really say that much because everything is a spoiler. Let’s say it’s about an amnesic ghost who’s drawn to their family, and there’s a lot of sadness, pagan blood rituals (one chapter in particular has A LOT OF BLOOD for my taste), abusive relationships, and a little bit of the theme in the previous book: the negative side of hope that makes us cling to things in an unhealthy way. Also, I’ve read this book is kinda autobiographical, and it explains so much about the way DWJ used to depict families in her books, it’s heartbreaking. It has its moments of fun and sweet melancholy tho. It’s never 100% depressing with Diana. I think that’s what make it feel so realistic.

#Diana Wynne Jones #Reading EVERYTHING #2021 Resolution #DWJ Reading Project #Chrestomanci #Charmed Life #The lives of Christopher Chant #Conrad's Fate #Witch Week #The Magicians of Caprona #The Pinhoe Egg #Mixed Magics #The Homeward Bounders #The time of the Ghost

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DWJ Reading Project. Part I

As I said here, my 2021 resolution is gonna be READING EVERY DIANA WYNNE JONES BOOK I CAN FIND, and due to my love of making lists and taking notes, I’ve decided keeping track of this reading project here in this post, which I’ll keep updated as I make progress. It’s mostly for my own pleasure, but maybe it helps someone who wants to give it a try to this amazing writer and doesn’t know where to start.

Part II (1977 – 1981 & The Chrestomanci Series)

Part III (1984 - 1992 & Land of Ingary Series)

- Changeover (1970) I couldn’t find it, which it’s a pity because not only it’s her first novel, but it’s one of the few she wrote for adult readers. For what I’ve seen, it’s a political comedy about colonialism in Africa.

- Witch’s Business (also called Wilkin’s Tooth, 1973) It tells the story of two siblings who start a revenge/dirty work business to make some cash and ended up caught in a crazy plot of debts, witchcraft, old grudges, painting modelling and treasure hunting. I love how even this early in her career you can already find some of her creative trademarks, altought it’s not as polished as her future novels. Still, the characters and the dynamics between them are pretty good, the way everything unfolds is flawless, and it is a fun read in general.

- The Ogre Downstairs (1974) Three kids are dealing with the fact that her mother married a guy who’s rather grumpy and terryfing (the titular ogre), and that now the household includes him and his two sons. The story begins with the Ogre buying a chemistry set to each group of siblings, and they turn out to be magical, so a lot of crazy shit happens and they start to get along with each other as they have to colaborate to clean a mess after another before the ogre finds out. I must confess I didn’t enjoy that much the first half because everyone was being an asshole, but it improves as the characters own their shit and decide to be better. Magic here it’s merely an excuse, Diana just wanted us to learn empathy and how to build a good coexistence.

- Eight Days of Luke (1975) David is depressed because he’ll have to stay with his abussive relatives during the summer, but then he mets this weird kid with powers called Luke and they become bff’s. Unfortunately, Luke is also in bad terms with his own relatives and David will have to help him to hide from them. I’d say you’ll enjoy more this book if you have some basic knowledge on Norse Mythology, but tbh I think reading it without any clue about the subject might be interesting in its own way, because you’ll discover the stuff as David does. Great read anyway.

- Dogsbody (1975) This one it’s like two different premises mixed up together. First, we have this society formed by sentient stars and planets, in which Sirius was a very important figure until he’s judged and punished for murder, and we follow him while he tries to get free (and maybe prove his innocence?). On the other hand, I think Diana just wanted to write a dog POV. In any case, both ideas where combined perfectly, and the result it’s crazy good. Some trigger warnings tho: there are several depictions of animal abuse, and once again tons of emotional cruelty towards chidren (the main human character is an Irish girl being harrased and bullied by her own family because of her nationality and for having a father on the IRA)

- The Dalemark Quartet: · Cart and Cwidder (1975) It kind of reminded me of the first half of The Name of the Wind, probably because the main character is also a red haired kid who travels with his family all around the world performing with his lute (I figured a cwidder is some kind of lute?), and there’s also tragedy, politics, old foreshadowing songs and legends... But mostly because I JUST COULDN’T STOP READING, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

· Drowned Ammet (1977) I thought the two previous books were rather darker than I’m used to see in Diana’s work, but this is a whole new level. It follows the evolution of Mitt from a sweet farm kid to a teen terrorist, so prepare for a main character full of hate, resentment and, eventually, self-loathing and a beginning of redemption. We also get to see his dynamic with two high born children, and it is super interesting how the prejudice and ignorance keep getting in their way so they can’t become 100% friends (as a contrast with those stories of rich and poor being bff’s without a single sign of how very different their POV of the world is, just by their different upbringings). I love friendships and found families as much as anyone else, but it is refreshing to see some realistic struggles and people caring for others even if they don’t get along perfectly

· The Spellcoats (1979) This one was very surprising, and I think it might require a re-read some time. The first odd thing about it is that it’s settled centuries before the previous books, in prehistoric Dalemark. Then the actual wtf comes from the structure itself: it’s a first person story, weaved into two wool coats (seriously, this concept is genius and so is the ending). The weaver is a girl who has to runaway from her village with his brothers and sister because they look like the people who’s invading their land, so their fellow villagers want them dead. There’s not a lot of action, but tons of little details and magic and family dynamics brilliantly written and I LOVE IT.

· The Crown of Dalemark (1993) This last book of the series brings back almost all of the characters of the previous ones, plus a time traveller from modern Dalemark, and concludes both the political/social aspect of the story and the more fantasy, mythical one. I love time travel stories so this really was my treat, because not only serves a plot purpose, it’s also used to let us know what happened with the characters of past Dalemark (although through the lense of historians, which is not as much as I would like to)

- Power of three (1976) At this point it’s clear Diana just loved to play with POVs and make us question every side of a story. I’d say this was the main theme of this book. It is present in the main character arch, who has to reconcile how he sees himself (as some average pointless dude) with how he’s perceived by others (everyone fucking loves him and consider him super wise and awesome). And it’s also the main conflict of the plot: the three races/species who live in The Moor HATE each other and constantly kill each other as animals but.... Well, it remind me to this episode of Star Trek. I love it when a story is used to show us how actually ridiculous some prejudices and bigotries are. I love it when they do it in ST, and certainly love it when Diana does it. Just let kids read and watch these things all of the time, please.

#Diana Wynne Jones #Reading EVERYTHING #2021 Resolution #DWJ Reading Project #THIS IS GONNA BE A REALLY LONG POST #Changeover #Witch's Business #Wilkin's Tooth #The Ogre Downstairs #Eight Days of Luke #Dogsbody #Dalemark #Cart and Cwidder #Drowned Ammet #The Spellcoats #The Crown of Dalemark #Power of three #CHRESTOMANCI IS NEXT