Read Books Guys

Read books guys

I'm telling you. Read books. There's an entire world of dead useful knowledge contained. There are so many books that have a TON of useful information while also being easier to read than textbooks.

Listen, I know the internet's gone to pieces. Misinformation is practically the only thing you can be certain of with any search engine.

But books.

I mean yeah, there are books that are inaccurate. Or outdated. But for the most part, if someone cares enough to compile so much information on a subject together into a book, they care enough to make sure it's right. After all, it's not so easy to edit it like a blog once it's published. They're not spending so much time and labor putting together random units of information they stumbled across on the internet. They're doing this with genuine research and careful time and knowledge.

Let me emphasize one more time that there are so many books with real information that are NOT COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS (though those can be incredible sources of information too!). There is real information out there in very easy to process formats if you're willing to open a book and thumb through the index, table of contents, or even just all the pages.

...I mean, it does require us to care a little bit. It's certainly not as fast and convenient as a quick internet search. But it is so much more reliable, and if you care to know more about a subject I think it's important to care enough to get some solid information about it and not just a once-and-done.

Side note, did you know the Dewey Decimal System has a number for everything? Actually everything? Want to pick up a book on crochet or leatherworking? Dewey's got you. Learn about moths? Yup. Politics? Public speaking? Languages? Writing? Architecture? Librarians have master's degrees specifically so they can help you find things in the DDS (and also for other reasons but ya know).

On Writing Trauma

This is more of a personal opinion post, but I always prefer stories involving trauma to be about healing said trauma in the end.

Angst is a wonderful dramatic tool, but especially to the younger writers out there, remember that your writing says something about you as a person. The writer always leaks themself into the writing, the artist always leaks into the art. If your characters are always stuck in pain, agony, death, look at yourself: are you the one that's stuck?

I'm not saying to make all stories light and rainbow filled. I myself use trauma and pain in my writing. But your message must poke through: Is trauma a spectacle that is always preset? Or is it a momentary period that will bring greater meaning in the story (or in your life) in the future to come?

My characters have PTSD nightmares. My characters have parental trauma. My characters have unhealthy attachment issues. My characters mask to hide the damage inside. But all of it is in the work so that people that have the same problems can be seen. My characters will talk about the nightmares and realize that they can feel understood and seen. My characters will find solace in the fact that the other characters also have hard family dynamics. My characters will learn to heal and love in healthy ways.

Your writing is a message. For those that want to hear it, they can heal parts of themselves through it. Pain and trauma healed is one of the most fulfilling experiences in the world, and your art can spread that message.

32 notes View Post

its-okay-youre-adorable

4 months ago

ok i just got this thought out of nowhere but blog divers (people who scroll through a blog and reblog things that were posted YEARS AGO) are actually a super important part of the tumblr ecosystem

With people going inactive and deactivating, a lot of classic tumblr posts and also missed gems get lost because those connections get broken. Even on my own blog I forget about posts I made until I see someone in my activity reblog one of them- which then inspires me to reblog it myself because it was a good post and I want my new followers to see

do not feel bad about diving through someone's blog and reblogging shit from years ago, it keeps dashboards alive

(and if anyone has a problem with that, they can just block you or they can delete the root post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, two things that have absolutely no effect on the grand scheme of our lives)

87K notes View Post

its-okay-youre-adorable

5 months ago

"I love you guys, but you cannot get that in baking"