Ending Your Novel

I think Matty Healy is awful but I’m still proud of Taylor putting “but daddy I love him” on the record.

There are songs on the album about her realising he love bombed her and manipulated her. Realising she fell for all of it, she was never going to fix him, and he was never going to be her saviour. She is scathing towards him, but also towards herself for falling for it. She could have left it at that and maybe copped less criticism. Instead she acknowledges the backlash and the defiance she felt in that moment.

It makes me feel the same way her putting Ours on Speak Now does. Grateful that she is open to sharing her stories even when the muse isn’t deserving of the words she wrote, even when releasing it fans the fires of the “I told you so” crowd.

And much like Ours is not a defence of Mayer, BDILH is not an acquittal of Healy. The phrasing she uses is not “he’s a good man they just don’t know him like I do”, it’s “I’m not coming to my senses” “I’d rather burn my whole life down”. The message of the song is not her trying to convince you he’s a good person (he’s not), it’s about a woman stumbling through a crisis and her desperate need to be able to make her own decisions, and that includes her own mistakes - which she seems to be acknowledging Matty was.

“i hate it here” is peak escapism and hearing her talk about how she lives in a garden no one else has access to in her mind (unlike the rest of her life) for most of the year is sooooo. made up scenarios and imagining living in the 1800s… it’s giving the lakes except she’s alone and she can’t actually leave. so much of the album is about feeling stuck and this one is about feeling stuck in herself.

“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”

— (via be-killed)

𝔯𝔢𝔭𝔲𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: リボーン (reborn) | Taylor Swift

// reputation as a comic book

in the death of her reputation, she felt truly alive.

If Taylor Swift used her power for good she would be such a great stochastic terrorist. She would post on Instagram "Hey guys, Tay here. Just wanted to say that whoever delivers me the head of Ron DeSantis on a platter will get free Eras Tour tickets. #ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay." It would be at her doorstep in two hours.

how did I get past my writer’s block for a specific scene I was rewriting?

i tried rewriting the same scene in the same way with different words

i tried changing character povs

i tried cutting out the first part of the scene

i tried cutting out / significantly changing the second part of the scene

i basically just wrote a hundred false starts and hated all of them.

but all these false starts helped me build context. I learned more about the characters, and I learned about what the scene did and did not need to do to be successful.

i took a step back and looked what was important - primarily introducing the main conflict and giving the reader a sense of the main character’s personality, but on a subtler level I also need to set up the important relationship that the entire story hinges upon. And this last part turned out to be the missing key - I needed to make the inciting incident tell us more about the relationship between the two characters.

So I did a bit of everything in the end. I cut out the initial writing-myself-into-the-story bits but kept the first bits of action, and just did a better job of weaving character development into that. I moved the inciting incident a little further back to allow for more character development time, and also to make the character introduction feel more natural and meaningful.

and yeah, it still needs line edits and some fleshing out (it is still only draft two), but I finally don’t hate this scene and it makes way more sense for what I want out of an opening scene for this story

> What brings you joy? 💌

whenever someone notices hidden details about me, specially if I didn't notice it first

there's nothing that makes me happier than my books and stuffed animals <3

The smell of rain.

Getting the best table in a cafe.

Getting to use that esoteric knowledge.

A comfortable silence between you and a loved one.

Your favorite song turned up loud.

Sunsets and the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves crashing

I love when we stretch, especially in the mornings, it’s so cute.

I love how we leave flowers for loved ones. Flowers are nature’s beauty and I think it’s a really sweet gesture

I Like how we journal. Like, we just write whatever we want just for ourselves to see.

I like the idea of a chair. It’s just like a piece of elevated ground for us to sit on.

I love mountains overlooking oceans or massive bodies of water.

I love putting Vaseline on my lips because they feel soft after.

I really really love books. I won’t go into it because so many already have.

I love photography and sculptures. Wowow, I looovee sculptures.

Starting a new notebook

Pens with *that* glide. Pen snobs know

Random acts of kindness

Seeing people achieve a goal - big or small, just seeing their face when they realise they did it

Light reflected on water - Moonlight, city lights, doesn’t matter

When someone *really* enjoys something I cooked/baked for them.

Feeling the sun on the back of my neck

The smell of fresh laundry… Oh! Fresh bed sheets

The way new books smell

One time, I had a really Really sweet raspberry. Like, this raspberry was probably the best thing I’ve ever had so far in my years of living. It was a cathartic experience, eating that raspberry.

watching my cat yawn (it’s adorable)

I love writing cursive t’s and I’s and I love when people say “crossing ts and dotting i’s”

i think jack o lanterns look cheerful

I really like the taste and texture of mushrooms (:

the sound of waves

i absolutely adore clementines (: i eat them till i get sick

I love eye contact. It makes me feel really human in a way I can’t describe. It makes me feel smiley and warm inside

I love looking at the moon or a cloud and thinking someone else is looking at the same thing I am right now while being so far away.

I love it when people make food for people, or just randomly bring over food, it’s such a cute way of caring.

I love when you look at someone and they look at you back and you’re just kinda squinting or raising your eye brows or smiling at each other.

I love when people do something cute or embarrassingly cute and you’re the only one that sees it

The warm sun on your skin after being in a cold building. Dancing. Storytelling. Iced coffee. Sunflowers. Thinking about Jesus. Poems that reach into your brain and pull your heart out. Mismatched teacups. Laughing until you cry. Texts from friends you haven’t heard from in a while. Notes in books from past owners. Summertime. Ballets. Dogs.

I love the feeling of sun on my skin

Your blog makes me happy

Watching rain turn to snow makes me happy

The smell of espresso makes me happy.

I love when people out of nowhere start whispering.

This one is kinda weird but I love when people have physical reactions like flinching ever so slightly or moving out of the way.

I love dough. And I love when I’m making dough I think back to people from many many years ago and I think about if they loved the soft, squishy feeling of dough as much as I do.

when my cat snores

when someone tries to hide a smile but can’t help it

when the air smells different in spring

when I close my eyes with the window down in the car and let the breeze and sun hit my face while a good song plays on the radio

when the light changes in my bedroom as day turns to night

daydreaming

writing

Had this thought while showering but I love our skin. And I love the fact that there is probably a horse with an almost exact skin colour as myself and everyone

lifes kinda crappy but i make bread from scratch and give it to people i love. and im always looking forward to the next time i can take a walk in nature.

Writing on my journal snuggling my cozy blanket

Playing Sudoku on my phone with EDM on the background

Hugging one of my six cats, or the six of them!!!

“Seriously, Hun, I've been spending the last 8 months of my life asking to myself this question, because I realized I knew what I dislike, hate or feel uncomfortable... But I wasn't that suuure about what my "happiness" is. Now I feel like happiness is the choice I make that give me either freedom, inner peace or a spark of joy... So I see happiness in almost every decision I make through the day”

sunsets at the beach. The salt in the air. The sound of seagulls and the stars

the moon makes me really happy

The pitter patter of rain against my window

Freshly baked bread

@pscentral event 18: adaptations

SAM CLAFLIN PAGE TO SCREEN ADAPTATIONS

Daisy Jones and the Six (2023) dir. James Ponsoldt, Nzingha Stewart, Will Graham Journey's End (2017) dir. Saul Dibb The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) dir. Francis Lawrence Love, Rosie (2014) dir. Christian Ditter The Riot Club (2014) dir. Lone Scherfig Me Before You (2016) dir. Thea Sharrock Enola Holmes (2020) dir. Harry Bradbeer Adrift (2018) dir. Baltasar Kormákur My Cousin Rachel (2017) dir. Roger Michell Their Finest (2016) dir. Lone Scherfig

Can we talk about the cover for a second? Do you remember how she said she specifically chose the picture where she wasn't smiling because she didn't want to give away the album or have people form an opinion on it based on the cover and the mysterious one was better? But now with her own version she's full on smiling with her whole face shown, hair blowing in the wind and she looks so joyful and free.