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The Plutarchy Cometh
If the middle class is a big balloon, it’s like someone untied the balloon knot and know the thing is slowly but surely leaking air, sputtering around the room like a cartoon dirigible. I feel like we’re living in truly absurd times. Times that, were you to read about them in a book, you’d say, “Oh! This is satire.”
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Human Google Makes Twitter Chili
On the other hand, when I turn to Twitter and I say, “Hello, excellent humans of Twitter, please bequeath unto me the essential ingredients to chili,” I get a flood of great answers. What did I learn? Well, I learned that chili recipes are as individual as the people who make it.
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Worldbuilding Is A Kind Of Masturbation
In terms of doing any prep-work for your story, it behooves you to first conceive of the story you want to tell at all levels of complexity (from the barest level of boy meets girl to the more complex outline, treatment or synopsis) and then use the world to prop up your story. Worldbuilding should be a slave to storytelling, not vice versa.
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Storytelling And The Art Of Sadness
Sadness doesn’t merely lurk at the heart of sad stories, but rather, at the heart — the heart’s heart — of all stories. Or, at least, all good ones. The sadness needn’t be overt or outright. It doesn’t have to be the driving force behind a protagonist’s goals and desires, but it feels like it should still be there, behind the scenes.
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The Carnival Of Pimpage Is Open
I want you to pimp somebody or something. Not yourself. Not one of your own projects. The work of another. A blog post. A book. A game. A tweet. Or, if not their work, fuck it, just say something awesome about somebody. Regale the world with tales, tales about your pimp target’s kind ways, tremendous hands, humorous outlook, and truly magnificent genitals.
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How We Speak On The Internet Matters
So no, I don’t think we should be afraid of critique or review, nor do I think we should be afraid of having opinions or giving advice. I just think that how we convey that matters. The message matters most, but what that message purports to be — what supposed truth it delivers — can’t matter if it’s poorly put forth.