writingrailroad

[writingrailroad]

libby app guide

aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.

disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.

one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.

two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.

three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.

four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.

five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)

anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!

[writingrailroad]

who the FUCK was gonna tell me a new species of sloth dropped last year???????????????

#personal

[writingrailroad]

do you ever find yourself bedeviled by writing ideas that are the equivalent of finding a single carrot in your fridge. your brain goes "we should write a pirate story" or "we should write a parisian thief caper" and you ask, "all right, what do we cook with that, then?" and it says "no other ingredients (:"

[writingrailroad]

the toughest part about writing isn't getting words on the page. the toughest part about writing is ignoring the voice in my head that says,

"hey man— sorry to interrupt, but that last sentence? it could use a few more emdashes. maybe just— and i know this seems nuts— ten or fifteen?? thanks— great stuff btw."

[writingrailroad]

the one thing i want to be able to do as a writer is make people come back to something ive written. i want that piece of text to haunt them, i want their thoughts to be briefly consumed by this. i want this to be something they remember long after its time. thats the one thing i want to do

[writingrailroad]

"Who are you outside of the media you consume" I am not "consuming media" i am watching or playing or reading I am expiriencing stories. Who would I be without making stories or listening to music or playing with dolls or eating food? Maybe I'm not doing these things to drown my brain with them so I wouldnt have to deal with me but because I like them. Because I like stories. Because even if I lived in a time without the internet I'd still be reading books and gossping with friends and humming to songs I like. And even furhter before that before books Id still be sitting around with people hearing the stories they make and making my own!

[writingrailroad]

Are Animals Becoming Extinct in Fantasy Novels?

Recently, I read this post titled “Animals have been taken off in novels since 1835. Is fiction undergoing its own extinction event?” which talks about a study that found that since 1835, the use of wild animals in fiction has dropped drastically.

Many are blaming this “slow extinction” on modern societies disconnect to nature. After all, not everyone spends their days outside, so they might not notice mice, birds, or even the insects at their feet. If they do not think about animals in their daily life, why would they think about them while writing?

That is the theory, at least.

It is worthwhile pointing out what several other writers and readers are; there are plenty of animals in children’s fiction. That is true, but what about young adult to adult fantasy? Since that is what I personally write, that is what I wanted to talk about.

Just going off what books I think of first, it seems like often in fantasy novels, the only prey animals (like deer, squirrels, or rabbits) that we see are after nearly always during or after they are hunted. Then there is the complete lack of mosquitos, leaches, biting ants, and other annoying creatures.

Sometimes, there is a mention of the sound of birds singing, but rarely ever are there any details of the birds or what they are doing. Where are the ducks and swans on the lakes? Where are the birds building nests?

Now you may be going “What is the point? Why should I care?” and I get that, but by eliminating these creatures, your novels could be losing a sense of realism.

For example, in Stephen Kings The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — which I argue is a light fantasy story, not a horror story — has a girl is lost in the woods and stalked by a creature. Interestingly, even most survival books fail to mention animals apart from for food, but Stephen King did not do that. He had deer, water bugs skittering across ponds, and even wasps that attack the main character. This added a sense of reality to the novel. It was not just a forest with some trees and plants, it was a forest filled with life, and that can be dangerous for anyone, let alone a young girl.

So, go ahead, raise the mood with your characters. If they are miserable, make them more so by having the mosquitos bite at them day and night or have them step in a anthill. If they are happy, they could watch a mother bird feeding its young or a swan rubbing necks with its partner.

Adding more hints of nature could not only amplify the mood, but it could also make your forests seem more real.

#as a biologist i approve this message #also if you are looking for some speculative fiction HEAVY with biology i recommend jeff vandermeer

[writingrailroad]

god makes me suffer on purpose because i look handsome in the depths of agony and covered in blood

[writingrailroad]

I need someone to give me a tour into writeblr and get me further into it

[writingrailroad]

temporary clown fix

fyi friends, you can right click on the clown, click "inspect", and then hit your delete/backspace key and it'll remove it. you should be able to navigate around tumblr a little bit without it showing back up, but if you refresh the browser window, it will come back 🙃

[writingrailroad]

Okay so turns out if you've got an adblocker on, you can block specifically just the clown pirate and they'll vanish. I've got AdBlock, and I just right-clicked and chose "block this ad".

As far as I can tell, there's no way to make them go away otherwise.

Putting this out there for everyone who may be scared of clowns, doesn't like shit clogging up their dash, or just is sick of seeing them

[writingrailroad]

2023: missives from desktop tumblr suggest that per the latest update my mutuals are being hunted by some kind of grotesque clown. staff assure us this is driven by user feedback.

#yeah um what the FUSk is up with this pirate clown??? #i can't get rid of him

[writingrailroad]

Born to read my own story, forced to write it first.

[writingrailroad]

Just had a dream that a novel exists which is written from the POV of an old man dying in the 1920s in the form of diary entries and bit by bit it's revealed it's actually a closeted trans woman who was out during her youth and forced to recloset and now I desperately want to read it

#if it came to u in a dream then u gotta write it

[writingrailroad]

I have a story in this month's issue of Lightspeed Magazine! “In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance” is a science fiction piece set on a planet with horse-sized wasp aliens who form symbiotic relationships with humans and other primates. The story follows a retired scientist and his wasp companion as they study a man who should have perished alongside his own wasp symbiote.

This is by far one of my favorite pieces, so I'm so excited to get the chance to share it.

It'll be available for free online on the 24th, but you can buy the magazine to read it (and so many other amazing stories) now : )

#CONGRATS!!! #i like lightspeed so it's cool to see a writeblr make it in! #other writers

[writingrailroad]

"Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread..."

hello hello! this september 1st marks the 20 year anniversary of gregor the overlander, the first book in the underland chronicles series by suzanne collins! i wanted to do something special to celebrate and i thought a little (re)read event would be a lot of fun!

all of the details are in the images above (image descriptions provided), but here are the dates once more:

Aug. 7th-11th --- Gregor the Overlander

Aug. 12th-16th --- Prophecy of Bane

Aug 17th-21st --- Curse of the Warmbloods

Aug 22nd-26th --- Marks of Secret

Aug 27th-Sept. 1st --- Code of Claw

and remember to use the tag #TUC20 during the event to meet and interact with other fans + #TUC spoilers for any new readers we may have during this time. i'll be going through and reblogging posts, so feel free to tag me (@prophecyofgray) as well!

one more thing: i think it'd be a lot of fun if we did something extra special on the anniversary itself, but im not sure what. feel free to share ideas in the tags <3

that's it for now! boost this if u can + spread the underland chronicles agenda to your friends >:)

fly you high!

#OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD #GREGORRRRRRRRRR #tuc

[writingrailroad]

You gotta write for funsies sometimes. Everything doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. Like. Who cares if it’s a little silly it is made out of love