One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Indianapolis Star, November 22, 1918

Community Trash #20, 2025 Mixed media art waste (acrylic, tongue depressors, paper towel) on reclaimed plywood The tongue depressors and acrylic pouring overpour are both from Diamond Hearts Art Studio (diamondheartsartstudio.com), where I had my solo wall at the beginning of the year!

Movie you've watched more than six times (gif version). no LOTR, Star Wars, Marvel, Disney

Chickasquee #birds 🌿

The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service

I wrote about how wealth isn’t just “more time to write,” but resource-having in a way most of us can’t even imagine lillyluwrites.substack.com/p/wealth-acc...

I think the bigger problem will be when it's inevitably revealed that there's no machine learning analyzing these images, but instead contractors in India given 2.3 seconds to score a photo of a toilet bowl against a copy of the Bristol stool chart hanging in their cubicle.

We came home from a long road trip to find that my brother put up Christmas decorations in our yard. Wishing you a joyful and meaningful Leon 🙏🏻✨

They should do MyChart Wrapped

Community Trash #12, 2025 I like the plywood stamp showing through on this one. Catch this and/or many other trash paintings at Hunchback Gallery's Off the Wall show through December 27!

Does anyone have suggestions for SF & F in which the main character is a full time wheelchair user? Literally asking this for a friend who uses a chair and wants to see themselves in a book.

A change of plans left me alone today, so I cooked exactly what I wanted for dinner and nothing else

Everyone wants to hear about 'em but no one buys 'em. Sci fi, fantasy, horror, romance, literary... novels, novellas, short fiction. Poetry. Comics! I'm bad at focusing marketably! It's all here: derekdesanges.wordpress.com/books/

Every year around this time, I ask folks to consider doing something in support of Native people. This year, please join me in supporting the Native Organizers Alliance as they build grassroots power, defend Native voting rights, and equip our people for collective struggle through skill-building.

That cactus sure can thanksgiving

Hey, props to writers who got literally anything done this year.

The Writer's Not At All Disguised Fetishes Which Still Carry Meaningful Societal Commentary And Reflect Deeper Personal Values Somehow

Trash Painting #12.5, 2023 Waste acrylic on reclaimed plywood panel This is an older one -- I realized when doing inventory for a smalls show that I never took a picture of it. And yes, it is 12.5 because I forgot about it originally but wanted the series to stay in numerical order!

Unpopular opinion, but I love going to the dentist. It's one of the very few healthcare experiences where they consistently tell me "Great job, keep up the good work" instead of spending the entire appointment badgering me about my weight.

"there are no third spaces anymore" wrong. blast furnace

SCULLY: It's impossible. There's no one on earth who could teach you to fit that many marshmallows in your mouth. MULDER: Daff righ...... No one...... on urff...

🎨 Holiday early bird sale! 🎨 - Queer & spoonie block prints, patches, and artwork - 20% off everything in my shop this week - International shipping is back! fiddleheadfinn.etsy.com

🪩🐌🪩 #discosnail #aceo #artcard #painting #gouache #snail

if you're still writing using the hero's journey, your mind is closed to all the possibilities

it’s not that i think women authors should get a pass for writing bad books because they’re women it just does not escape my notice that the various women purveyors of mass market novels on sale in the airport are hunted for sport daily whilst james patterson and his ilk remain at large

(character in a netflix show) well here we are, at the abandoned mall. if that mysterious phone call we got earlier was right, we'll find the key that opens that safe we found out contains a map we need, in order to locate a device which, you'll recall, could be the cause of recent events, such as t

Finally got around to taking pictures of the miniature I assembled from a kit earlier this year!

forest foot

this. also, if you care about disability justice, hope you’re also pro-fat liberation. do you know how many people have gone to the doctor for troubling symptoms, been automatically dismissed and told to lose weight, and then developed late-stage/severe chronic and acute illnesses?

if youre trans and youre struggling to justify why you as a person should be allowed to take up space in the universe just consider that by your sheer existence you make a lot of the worst people on earth mad enough that they will die early deaths from stress. so thats a p good reason

I wrote about the exhaustion and dissonance of writing about TDOR for the past 15 years

Silly Pills

Some advice from a couple of years ago that I still think most creative people need to hear --

Community Trash #19, 2025 Discarded paint, used brushes, and PVA glue on reclaimed wood panel This is one of my favorites yet! A companion to my grid of empty paint tubes, here's one with a bunch of old, messed-up paintbrushes.

I have the most wonderful story for you all today: baby alligator spotted in Charles River, then immediately rescued by local reptile enthusiast

Sometimes I’m grateful that being diagnosed with celiac put me in a position to never have to care about novelty Oreos again

Hopefully people are remembering that sexual assault victims can read what they’re saying

Getting really close to finishing this round of edits from my husband on Latent Defects (novel I started in 2018)

"Mark my words, one wrong step in this town’ll land you in a whole heap of social services."

Please share this excellent essay with a young (or maybe not so young) person that hasn't gotten the encouragement they need.

Community Trash #18, 2025 Mixed media art trash on previously painted canvas For this piece, I saved a lot of the whole/finished pieces of art I wound up with in my trash collection -- my friend Sophie Pearson's old painting, a half-finished portrait from my husband, my own rejected block prints.

Why is the sound of a leaf blower the most distracting thing ever?

Went to the dentist wearing a red and white striped jumper. When I got up to leave, a little girl loudly whispered to her mother "Found him!"

Bodily autonomy is the fundamental human right from which all others are derived. I believe we should have the right to safely modify our bodies however we wish even in ways that do not have broad societal acceptance 🧵🪡: 1/8

a few months ago I said "having generative AI handle absolutely anything with regards to healthcare is a nightmare and should be banned" and a bunch of people made fun of me and called me stupid. anyways,

guys i figured out where the male loneliness problem is coming from