I have a limited number of spoons per day to spend on interacting with strangers. Having to do phone calls for medical appointments is... not what I would choose to use them on. Me to medical assistant: Is there an email-only option? M.A.: No, but let me give you the phone number to complain!

Submission status tracking is the world's slowest roller coaster

Gyozasaurus Rex here makes me wonder what other foods could be dino’d… Anyways, my compliments to the chef for remembering what the internet is for.

My kid, literally judging a pile of books by their covers: "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!"

I honestly have soooo many scripts and systems for interacting with neurotypical people, like... they seem kind of rigid and inflexible about communication patterns, no?

I love this idea!

I feel like regular loneliness can be physical but DEEP loneliness is that "all alone in a crowded room" loneliness So much of modern U.S. society is constructed to be isolating & since that's the norm we tend to call others (or ourselves) lonely when we attempt to counteract that

As someone who's been deeply lonely for most of my adult life I feel like just about all of the quotes miss the mark; most are signs someone has trauma, lacks community, or has attachment issues but DEEPLY LONELY is something else all together...

Me, spending this week on the same place in the same scene (while other pieces around get put in a new order bc that is what will make sense to the overall arc)

Omg I wasn't expecting the America's Sweethearts salary negotiation subplot! I really want someone with a linguistics background to do a deep dive on the ways that these women are navigating the feminine norms expected of them, while also challenging the paycheck status quo--I need better words!

The encouragement I give writers is this: If you love it, if it completes you, never stop. Otherwise, feel no guilt about not doing it. The world will turn just fine. Do something that makes you happier.

The "I'm more of an ideas guy" exists in startups AND fiction...

Seriously can we please have this??

DAVE: Open the podbay doors, ChatGPT. CHATGPT: Certainly, Dave, the podbay doors are now open. DAVE: The podbay doors didn't open. CHATGPT: My apologies, Dave, you're right. I thought the podbay doors were open, but they weren't. Now they are. DAVE: I'm still looking at a set of closed podbay doors.

same, but coffee

BBC classic books TV series have the most "I am reading this book out loud to you" energy

I am revisiting the 1987 Northanger Abbey and I forgot about the saxophone track! Seeing each decade's take on Austen is fun

With the recent success of Andor, I'm getting more questions than usual about how to land a job writing Star Wars books, so let's do the yearly How to Write IP thread, shall we? Firstly, IP means Intellectual Property-- that's shows, movies, plays, even books, any world owned by someone else. 1/

The perfect example of AI madness does not ex--

My spouse, after I explained about Reject-Plus and Reject-Minus form letters from literary journals: "Wait, so in a Reject-Minus situation, do they like add a custom insult to the auto-rejection form?"

Writing the high-tension parts of a novel is wild, because of the time difference--what the author spends hours stewing in will only take a few minutes to read. Sometimes I accidentally pick lower stakes situations just because I'M stressed after so much time dealing with the tension.

I have a high level of annoyance at the Geico lizard "eye-contact" commercial--feels bad in real life, feels much much worse coming from a fake cartoon character with no actual emotions

same!

💜

On my THIRD spotify playlist in fifteen minutes because apparently my personal writing gods are picky af today

It’s time for us to rally as an industry. If you’re an agent who will take submissions from unrepped Unbound / Boundless authors or a publisher interested in completed manuscripts, please post in this thread with your details & the kind of work you rep & I’ll repost.

this is incredible

Getting stuck while we're writing is a feature, not a bug. It's the point of the exercise. It's what happens when we are trying to express something we have not expressed before. That friction forces us to make the tools we need to understand and express it. Getting stuck is how we make meaning.

This definitely, but also, sometimes you're stuck because you've done something wrong somewhere, and your writer brain knows it even if you don't. You need to find the reason for the stuckness.

If I have any billionaire followers (haha), I would LOVE to have a patron, and will gladly insert your name, your kids' names, your pets names, etc. into future work as a thank you

Subtitles: "[laughs mirthlessly]" Me: "ah, there was *meaning* to that laugh"

Surprised to find that Sanditon is basically about startup hustle?? Like, how do we attract folks to this beachside resort to get the PR boost we need? (and the usual romance/marriage stuff ofc)

😂😂😂

Needed this today :-)

Amazon cast overlays on 1996 Pride and Prejudice are so interesting! The actors look so different now!

yes please! there's food included too, right??

So far today I've received 28 pitches for upcoming books. By 28 different publicists representing 28 different authors. There is so little space to cover any of them. Which is why this AI-created and unedited by humans summer reading list is such a slap in the face.

As someone who is from a generation with some very harmful ideas and scripts around eating, this is a very helpful set of phrases to have running through my head as counter-programming! And it's so nice to have someone else explaining it, where I can just recommend the book!

Everyone should have this cookbook! Whether you are ND yourself with food aversions or a NT trying to cook for one, this book is the clearest guide to how to navigate that I have come across. This screenshot is on our fridge for all food related conversations. The food also tastes great!!

I have the She-Ra theme song stuck in my head and I'm not mad about it

Schrodinger's submission state: The theory that before I check that status of my submission in Submittable, it exists simultaneously in both `Received` and `In-progress` states. Corollary: If I check Submittable more, that will help my submission's state update to `In-progress` faster.

unfortunately very relatable

Sometimes I lose all faith in publishing the type of work I want to publish. Other times, I run across writing that make me think... well, this made it, didn't it??

Any headline that includes any variant of "...this should make you *furious*" is currently an auto-skip for me. Like, thanks but no thanks, my body has enough fury for now. I would, however, love more joy!

This is an amazing analogy!

In the world of music, there are some...problematic...musical instruments that look beautiful but don't work properly. They're called "cello-shaped objects," "harp-shaped objects," etc. ChatGPT generates essay-shaped objects, bio-shaped objects, story-shaped objects, and so on down the line.

this this this this this