Do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you?
Midsommar (2019) dir. Ari Aster
You may not know this about me but I am a transgender woman, I know what’s like to be attacked and denied because of who I am. When I saw that alien being attacked I couldn’t let it pass I had to stand up, hold a mirror to that bully’s face and I made a difference.
I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school.
And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good.
And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways.
Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.
have to read the entire APA code of ethics for class this week… gonna make it fun by highlighting every rule that hannibal has explicitly broken.
losing you was a summer-long sunburn. everything hurt to touch. i couldn’t sleep, every position was a blister. i felt dried out, clammy and too hot at the same time, so tired and yet always awake. the worst part was that it still hurt after it faded. the worst part was that others looked and me and said they understood that kind of pain, but eventually rolled their eyes when i brought you up, telling me i should have known better than to not cover my little heart up. the worst part was driving home and seeing the turn i would have taken and feeling that flash roll up my skin. no the worst part was breakfast without you in it. no the worst part was just you. just you. just not having you ever again.