"We now know that 24 hours without sleep, or a week of sleeping four or five hours a night induces an impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of .1 percent. We would never say, ‘This person is a great worker! He’s drunk all the time!’ yet we continue to celebrate people who sacrifice sleep for work."
My dad is a pilot, and this fact has always been such serious irony whne it comes to his job. Because the sleep deprivation is terrible in his job. They would straight up fire him if they even THOUGHT he was drunk while flying but wow they’re totally fine with making him fly like 4 trips with barely any time to sleep in between.
Seriously. They are only reqired to give him 8 hours exactly, and that includes time to get to hotels and time to get up get ready and get to work, so he usually only gets about 5 tops. And then he has to go fly a 16 hour flight. and then repeat the whole thing for days
i’m so in love with this. i can’t even. ah. my favourite feeling in the world is putting your head beneath the water and entering an entirely different place, so peaceful, so quiet. what i miss more than anything when i’m living away from the ocean is being able to duck under and leave all my worries on the surface.
yeah i love dunking my head in saltwater and not being able to see shit
PLEASE TAKE YOUR CAT TO THE VET IF YOU SEE THEM DOING THIS BEHAVIOR OVER TIME.
It’s called “head pressing” and it occurs in dogs and cats.
Head pressing is characterized by the compulsive act of pressing the head against a wall or other object for no apparent reason. This generally indicates damage to the nervous system, which may result from a number of varying causes, including prosencephalon disease (in which the forebrain and thalamusparts of the brain are damaged), or toxic poisoning.
No see this isn’t the work bronies, this is the work of the Cloppers. You need to know the difference so innocent blood isn’t spilled during the slaughter.
ALL BRONIES
It’s worse than it’s said here. They specifically asked the bronies to leave the disabled kid/character alone. So naturally, they attacked the character as ‘pandering’ and being ‘too PC’ and when asked to please NOT turn it into a porn character, they went out of their way to make as much porn as possible.
get the fuck out of here with that “it’s not the bronies! it’s the cloppers!” bullshit
Please consider emailing Time magazine at feedback@time.com to get them to reconsider not putting Laverne Cox on their list. She overwhelmingly got voted in at 91.5%, but was not put on there. Meanwhile, Carrie Underwood had 25% of the vote and was put on there. The erasure of trans women, and women of color needs to stop. Ms. Cox does nothing but good work.
Mediocre looking white girls acting like they’re hot shit.
My condolences for your face.
from one white-passing woc to another -
this post is…
Love how she doesn’t even justify calling the person a racist. If you’re going to slap really nasty and serious labels on people (racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, biphobe, etc are very serious accusations to levy against someone personally), please have screenshots or links. I refuse to believe any accusations against anyone until such evidence surfaces or I’ve seen things go down myself.
How wrong has your life got to go before you’re 30 and bitter to the point of harassing people much younger than you on a social media site?
what if your dog suddenly turned into a really attractive human i mean wouldnt it be awkward if some giant hottie was just sitting next to you and kissing your face and got into bed with you and constantly wanted to go out on walks with you and it would be just like a relationship but you wouldnt be able to go out with them because it would be your fucking dog
In six seconds, you’ll hate me.
But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.
From this point forward—at least for the next half year—you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.
The list should also include: Loves and Hates.
And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those later.
Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”
Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “The
mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”
Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen had always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’s roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her butt. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.
Typically, writers use these “thought” verbs at the beginning of a paragraph (In this form, you can call them “Thesis Statements” and I’ll rail against those, later). In a way, they state the intention of the paragraph. And what follows, illustrates them.
For example:
“Brenda knew she’d never make the deadline. was backed up from the bridge, past the first eight or nine exits. Her cell phone battery was dead. At home, the dogs would need to go out, or there would be a mess to clean up. Plus, she’d promised to water the plants for her neighbor…”
Do you see how the opening “thesis statement” steals the thunder of what follows? Don’t do it.
If nothing else, cut the opening sentence and place it after all the others. Better yet, transplant it and change it to: Brenda would never make the deadline.
Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.
Don’t tell your reader: “Lisa hated Tom.”
Instead, make your case like a lawyer in court, detail by detail.
Present each piece of evidence. For example: “During roll call, in the breath after the teacher said Tom’s name, in that moment before he could answer, right then, Lisa would whisper-shout ‘Butt Wipe,’ just as Tom was saying, ‘Here’.”
One of the most-common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your character should spend very, very little time alone. Because a solitary character starts thinking or worrying or wondering.
For example: Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take…”
A better break-down might be: “The schedule said the bus would come by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic accident…”
A character alone must lapse into fantasy or memory, but even then you can’t use “thought” verbs or any of their abstract relatives.
Oh, and you can just forget about using the verbs forget and remember.
No more transitions such as: “Wanda remembered how Nelson used to brush her hair.”
Instead: “Back in their sophomore year, Nelson used to brush her hair with smooth, long strokes of his hand.”
Again, Un-pack. Don’t take short-cuts.
Better yet, get your character with another character, fast.
Get them together and get the action started. Let their actions and words show their thoughts. You—stay out of their heads.
And while you’re avoiding “thought” verbs, be very wary about using the bland verbs “is” and “have.”
For example:
“Ann’s eyes are blue.”
“Ann has blue eyes.”
Versus:
“Ann coughed and waved one hand past her face, clearing the cigarette smoke from her eyes, blue eyes, before she smiled…”
Instead of bland “is” and “has” statements, try burying your details of what a character has or is, in actions or gestures. At its most basic, this is showing your story instead of telling it.
And forever after, once you’ve learned to Un-pack your characters, you’ll hate the lazy writer who settles for: “Jim sat beside the telephone, wondering why Amanda didn’t call.”
Please. For now, hate me all you want, but don’t use thought verbs. After Christmas, go crazy, but I’d bet money you won’t.
(…)
For this month’s homework, pick through your writing and circle every “thought” verb. Then, find some way to eliminate it. Kill it by Un-packing it.
Then, pick through some published fiction and do the same thing. Be ruthless.
“Marty imagined fish, jumping in the moonlight…”
“Nancy recalled the way the wine tasted…”
“Larry knew he was a dead man…”
Find them. After that, find a way to re-write them. Make them stronger.
