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How do aspiring fiction writers get better at plots?
I'm doing a little fiction writing. A very little. I've always been ok at some parts of writing (dialog, description) but find the generation of plot to be a mystery. Is this something one can learn?
Let 2018 be the year that the stars came closer for all of us.
Last night, N.K. Jemisin made history by becoming the first author ever to win three consecutive Hugo awards for best novel for the final installment of her Broken Earth trilogy. Her acceptance speech [transcript here] is a "shining, rocket-shaped middle finger" at all the naysayers who claim her success is unearned because of political correctness or identity politics.
Silent Sam is Silent
On the last night before the start of classes at UNC Chapel Hill, protestors finally topppled Silent Sam, the statue on campus commemorating Confederate soldiers. (University's response here.) The protests started to show solidarity for Maya Little, the UNC history graduate student who was arrested in the spring for splashing red ink mixed with her own blood on the statue after she read the statue's dedication speech by Ku Klux Klan supporter Julian Carr.
We Got Some Work To Do Now
Scooby Dos and Scooby Don'ts is a podcast that aims to review every single episode, special, movie and other narrative-based product in the Scooby Doo franchise (including stat counts and property damage tallies). Currently, they're up to the chaotic and nostalgic 'wilderness years' of the 90's and early 00's, but still have many movies/special and four (going on five) entire TV series to go, and plan to pick up the podcast whenever new media is released thereafter.
What is this? A bridge for ants?
The wasp nest was seemingly out of the reach of the invading army ants... but the ants would not be denied. [twitter]
move over, David Attenborough
Blessed redeemer! It's the piebald moose.
Friends Nancy Andrews and Roxanne Rowsell captured a piebald (ghostly white) moose on video. The footage of the rare moose is interesting, but it's the women's Newfoundland accents and their charmingly goofy commentary that have sent it viral.
"Plant spacious parks in your cities, and unloose their gates...
...as wide as the gates of morning to the whole people." Frederick Law Olmstead, most well-known for designing Central Park, also designed many other parks across the U.S. And now the Library of Congress has digitized his papers.
Cracking the hard shells of its prey with a multi-tool head
Half a billion years ago, Habelia optata lived and hunted prey at the bottom of a warm shallow Cambrian sea. Protected by its thick, hard, spiny armor, it walked on five pairs of articulated legs. Only 2 to 3 centimeters long, it detected and grasped smaller less fortunate animals. With its many comparatively large jaws, it cracked through the hard shells of its prey.How Art Makes Better Science: a short case study of the 2-D and 3-D interpretations by Joanna Liang of one of the many weird creatures of the Burgess Shale. via
Sectarianism that is fuelled by the very act of being vocally sectarian
“When radicals attack each other in the game of good politics, it is due at least in part to the fact that this is a place where people can exercise some power. Even if one is unable to challenge capitalism and other oppressive structures, even if one is unable to participate in the creation of alternative forms of life, one can always attack others for their complicity, and tell oneself that these attacks are radical in and of themselves.” The stifling air of rigid radicalism, an excerpt from Joyful Militancy.
You're not going crazy, Arthur, you're going sane in a crazy world!
In 1986, 18-year-old cartoonist Ben Edlund created The Tick as a mock-hero mascot for a newsletter for New England Comics, where he was a customer. A few pages of The Tick were included in the New England Comics Newsletter in '86, and two years later, NEC published the first of the black-and-white comic book series, featuring wacky superheroes and bizarre super villains. From there, The Tick and his compatriots has been in a three-season cartoon series on Fox Kids, a live-action series on Fox in 2001, and again as live-action in an Amazon exclusive production. One of the many things that makes The Tick’s situation unique is that Edlund has been centrally involved with every version since the ’80s, including the most recent live-action series.
Women SF Writers of the 1970s
Fighting Erasure is a series by writer and critic James Davis Nicoll where he recommends books by female science fiction and fantasy writers who debuted in the 1970s. It's in ten parts: A-F, G, H, I-J, K, L, M, N-P, R-S, and T-Z. Some writers Nicoll hasn't read, or has missed, are discussed in comments. He was inspired to start the series by Jeanne Gomoll's classic 1987 essay An Open Letter to Joanna Russ, which noted that erasure of the previous decade's women writers and fans had already begun, and Susan Schwartz' 1982 article in the New York Times about women and science fiction.
can you believe this freakin' Alexander Graham Bell guy
look at this telephone-inventing-ass dude with his tetrahedral kites, all flying Sierpinski pyramids around like he owns the place
Coping with loss of faith
I have been a practicing [member of X religion] for most of my life, and now I'm not. It's kinda sad, how do I cope?
Grass roots LGBT history: a thread
This is a thread about what my friend found in her attic. (Single link Twitter thread by Gavin McGregor, best to read first.)
Please help me figure out my friend's annoying comments
I went on vacation with a group of friends recently. One friend made numerous annoying comments about her looks and eating habits and I'm trying to figure out the root cause of those comments.
Lede-Buried Voicemails from Your Mom
Hi, sweetie. It’s Mom. Do you remember Mr. Levert? He lived behind the high school with that garden. You’d do yard work over there sometimes? He loved you; I’m sure you remember. Anyway, he was in a car accident. Died on impact. Call me back.
Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies.
Whatever you do this World Chocolate Day, don’t buy yourself an 85% dark chocolate and sea salt bar solely as a tool to look down on those who prefer white chocolate, because “dark chocolate is real chocolate, unlike that sweet filth other people eat”. Don’t be that person. No-one likes that person.
Rethinking journalism through the lens of mediation and psychology
Amanda Ripley of The Atlantic spent three months working with mediators, psychologists, and rabbis to learn how to disrupt toxic narratives and help people open up to new ideas. After spending more than 50 hours in training for various forms of dispute resolution, I realized that I’ve overestimated my ability to quickly understand what drives now people to do what they do. I have overvalued reasoning in myself and others and undervalued pride, fear and the need to belong. I’ve been operating like an economist, in other words — an economist from the 1960s.
"Canned beans and ramen noodles night after night"
Budget Bytes is a weblog/recipe collection I use every single week. It has priced-out ingredients for each recipe and often recipes stay under about $1.50/serving, which is nice for those of us on tight budgets.
Taj Mahal of Spain
Like the Taj Mahal, Don Justo’s cathedral was born out of unwavering devotion to someone, and both of these magnificent specimens of religious architecture rose up from ordinary farmland.
Unlike the Taj Mahal, though, the ex-monk Don Justo has built his masterpiece from donated materials and to no plan. And now it's under threat of demolition.
First Law of Robotics
Uber’s Self-Driving Car Didn’t Malfunction, It Was Just Bad.
There were no software glitches or sensor breakdowns that led to a fatal crash, merely poor object recognition, emergency planning, system design, testing methodology, and human operation.
Article 40.3.3
On Friday May 25th Ireland will hold a referendum to decide whether or not to repeal the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, which was added to the constitution by referendum in 1983. The 8th amendment inserted a subsection to the Irish constitution equating the right to life of the unborn with the right to life of the mother, effectively banning abortion in Ireland in all cases bar the most severe risk to the life of the mother.
[+] - - - --->!!!<--- - - - [-]
Psst, kid, you wanna see some magnets colliding at a thousand frames per second
Book: Treason's Harbour
The ninth book of the series finds Jack and Stephen at ease in Malta. Jack basks in the twin glow of Tom Pullings's captaincy and the clockwork chelengk on his number one full-dress scraper. Even his once-nemesis Andrew Wray, the acting Second Secretary of the Admiralty and accused card-cheat, has done Jack a noble turn. Stephen is less at ease. Too many people seem to know the plans of the disgusting British Empire, and even more telling: the handsomest woman in Valletta is paying him particular attention – he, with his shrewish phiz, a known urinator. Something is amiss, and there's not a moment to lose, and what is more, speed is the essence of attack.
All gone a bit pear-shaped
How does a pear-shaped person look good in men's trousers?
Make it easy while I'm in the Big Easy!
The girlfriend and I are getting ready to go to New Orleans next week for the first time.
We are not big partiers but would call ourselves foodies.
What spots so we make sure we hit keeping away from the touristy stuff?
Outside of great restaurants, what else are must sees in New Orleans?
Thanks in advance
Amsterdam's Bridge Houses Become Tiny Hotel Rooms
From the 1600s to the 2000s, these structures helped control the canals.
Now they've become redundant and a hotel company has begun modifying them into hotel rooms, each different, each alluring.
The Police never record "Tea In the Sahara," for one thing
How would the Earth's biomes be different if it rotated in the opposite direction?
If Dinosaur Train was a documentary, would we know?
What if dinosaurs had an advanced civilization? To be clear, they almost certainly didn't. But, if they did, would we know? The question is relevant to xenobiology, which aims to find traces of alien life, perhaps long after it is extinct. A new paper [pdf] suggests that synthetic molecules like plastic and potentially nuclear fallout, would be detectable in the geologic record, although it might be challenging to separate signals like climate change from other abrupt events. Others have argued that, over geologic times, even plastics will be gone. (except from the fascinating book A World Without Us) [prev.],
What does CBT for avoidance look like?
I have developed an extremely avoidant personality in the last few years. I don't recall being this way before my late 30's. It manifests as extreme avoidance of conflict or difficult conversations.
What would a CBT approach to working on this look like?
nothing is safe from the content vortex
"On March 21st, New Yorker food correspondent Helen Rosner tweeted a photo of her pointing a Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer at a raw chicken. She was trying to remove moisture and maximize the crispiness of the chicken skin before roasting it, and she wanted to share her snow day plans with her followers.
But this story is not about chicken. Well, it’s kind of about chicken."
Gradually, and then Suddenly
Building on an earlier hypothesis and using a new stratigraphic analysis of part of the Mediterranean seafloor, scientists have discovered new evidence which provides a convincing argument (and video!) for their their hypothesis about the Zanclean Flood, which rapidly refilled the Mediterranean over a mile-high waterfall and ended the Messinian Salinity Crisis.
A Jane Collective for the Trump Era
“Anna started posting on Facebook about abortion, looking for direction. Eventually, a friend reached out to her, offering to introduce her to a woman named Natalie. The two talked on the phone. Anna admired how Natalie spoke with such authority and openness. Natalie liked how casually smart Anna was, how she connected reproductive health care to social justice. After several calls, Natalie told Anna about a side of her life she hadn’t yet shared: She was helping with a workshop on how to provide home abortions. Anna was welcome to attend. She just had to keep it a secret.” A secret network of women is working outside the law and the medical establishment to provide safe, cheap home abortions.
What should I read/do to prepare for becoming a dog owner?
I’ve wanted a dog for some time now, and I have decided that I’m going to aim to adopt one this summer, after my next round of board exams is done. I’ve never had a dog of my own before. What books should I read in the meantime? I’m planning to adopt an adult dog, not a puppy. Is there someone I can talk to about finding the right kind of dog for me? I’m primarily looking for a dog for companionship.
To read before getting a dog
We are probably getting a dog within the next year. I know nothing of dogs. Please recommend books.
Personal tracking Android app?
I'd like to keep track of what I'm actually doing with my time outside of work. This might be a long-term thing, but I want to at least get a really good picture of two weeks. I'd like for it to be able to nudge me once an hour and ask what I spent the last hour doing. Recommendations for an Android app?
"It was astonishing, almost too good to be true."
Dr. Neil Theise (@neiltheise), a liver pathologist, panpsychist, and Jewish Buddhist, published a paper today in which he and his collaborators announced the discovery of an entirely new human organ, the "Interstitium."
Primary Matters
With only 3 days left to resigister to vote in the NYS Democratic primaries, the focus is on voting out members of the IDC, the ‘Independant Democratic Conference’ a breakway group of Democrats that vote with Republicans. Nearly all have a primary challenger this year with endorsements allready falling in thier favor. Robert Jackson and Jessica Ramos Talk about primarying thier IDC opponents, rent regulation, and worker protection. (City Limits) Second IDC challenger wants to be New York’s first transgender state senator. (City and State). Even established Dem seats aren’t safe: Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the candidate who wants to defund ICE, bring Medicare For All, and unseat Joe Crowley (Splinter).
Meanwhile, on the heels of scandals, gaffes, and no-shows, Gov. Andrew Cuomo finds himself facing a challenger in actress/activist Cynthia Nixon. “A real Democrat doesn’t slash taxes on the wealthy. A real Democrat doesn’t slash corporate taxes. A real Democrat doesn’t give away billions of dollars in economic development money to his cronies and his donors with no strings attached.” (Glamour)
Meanwhile, on the heels of scandals, gaffes, and no-shows, Gov. Andrew Cuomo finds himself facing a challenger in actress/activist Cynthia Nixon. “A real Democrat doesn’t slash taxes on the wealthy. A real Democrat doesn’t slash corporate taxes. A real Democrat doesn’t give away billions of dollars in economic development money to his cronies and his donors with no strings attached.” (Glamour)
And Justice For All
“If you are seeking a sentence of 3 years incarceration, state on the record that the cost to the taxpayer will be $126,000.00 (3 x $42,000.00) if not more and explain why you believe the cost is justified.” Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Leading A Criminal Justice Revolution (The Intercept). Inside The Fight Against Cash Bail, Meet The Advocates Working To End The Predatory Practice (Pacific Standard). A Billionare And A Nurse Shouldn't Pay The Same Fine For Speeding (NYT Opinion).
Incompetence, Malice and Underground Trains
The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down
— in which Aaron Gordon, writer of Signal Problems, the best newsletter on the subway, and Village Voice MTA reporter finds a report from 2014 and the best facebook group ever, and gets to the heart of what really be slowing down the trains in New York.
I can't believe I have to ask this question
It's time to deal with the fact that I'm psychologically addicted to weed. But how on earth can I convince myself to give up the one and only coping mechanism I have that actually works?
Movie: Annihilation
A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition where the laws of nature don't apply.
West Virginia Wildcat
“As soon as we called the work stoppage for Thursday and Friday our locals took it upon themselves to start working with churches and food banks and different places to provide day care for the parents who needed it, to provide meals for the many students who get their hot meals at school.” West Virginia Teachers Walk Out (Dissent) - All public schools in all 55 counties of West Virginia are closed until at least Tuesday as the teachers strike for smaller class size, higher pay, and benefits. Local support is high (The Guardian). An Open Letter to the State of West Virginia From Its Students (The Nation).
Older Queer Voices
Sassafras Lowery wrote at Older
Queer Voices
We Know How To Do This - “If you don’t remember a time when your government hated you, those of us who do will help you learn how to survive it.”
We Know How To Do This - “If you don’t remember a time when your government hated you, those of us who do will help you learn how to survive it.”
Alternatives to grad programs I don't really want
I'm set to finally get my BA in May. It looks like I will have good options for grad programs, but I'm really burned out and want to be done with school. I'm worried about throwing away great opportunities without understanding the alternatives. What are some ways to think about a non-academic future for myself as a research-minded person?
Help me embrace being bad at hobbies (without judging myself)
I want to start using my free time to explore more creative hobbies, like drawing and writing (or, ideally, combining these things and making short comics). I've always wanted to make things, and right now I spend way too much of my free time mindlessly refreshing social media and reading the news compulsively. But I'm scared to try -- I'm having a hard time accepting the feelings of anxiety and inadequacy that come from being a beginner at something, and also wrestling with feelings of guilt over doing creative things.
"𝕎𝔼 𝔾𝕆𝕋 𝔸 𝕁𝕆𝔹!"
Abby and Brittany Hensel are dicephalic parapagus twins from Minnesota with separate heads and joined bodies (previously). After as normal a childhood as possible, they graduated from college in 2012 and became part-time teachers. (via)