Sakura2arashi - 月に村雲

I used to feel bad about writing paragraphs on completely different pages and trying to show where they are supposed to go, but I will never feel bad about the legibility of my drafts ever again!

you don't need to have cute handwriting girl, Dostoevsky's manuscript drafts looked like this

left- draft of Demons. right- draft of The Brothers Karamazov

writing takes so long and its so tiring but if i dont write for the rest of my life ill die

Every time I have an idea for a fic, I overthink it and talk myself out of it. I don't know the characters well enough. This doesn't fit the setting/canon. Which is why in all the years I've been writing, I only ever wrote one Pokémon fanfic when I was like 14 and a fictionalization of a Slayers RPG I ran. OCs are easier because I make the canon!

He reinforces the theme when Sarah nearly kills Miles Dyson. She's methodical and cold and ready to kill him without a thought. It's when she realizes what she's doing - murdering an as-yet innocent man - that she pulls back in horror and needs to be comforted by her son.

Although as a side note, the first time I ever saw this movie was on TBS and I missed the first 30 minutes (and the first movie). I legitimately thought that John was lying about Kyle Reese's existence. I thought John Connor had been the one to travel back in time and save his mother and he'd simply given a pseudonym. I totally got these incest vibes from how overly concerned John seems about his mother.

"During the writing process, he was in his living room excitedly explaining the T-1000 to his friend and collaborator Stan Winston when Winston raised a concern. "I don't know who the bad guy is," Winston said. "I need a specific character, a specific image." To Winston, what Cameron was describing sounded like a blob of goo, not an iconic evildoer. "From a story standpoint, I thought it was a problem," Winston later recalled in an interview for the picture-book history of his story, "The Winston Effect." Cameron respected Winston's instincts for creating memorable characters, and he started reconsidering how he would shape this one. Later that same night, the effects artist got a phone call from his friend. "I've got it!" Cameron said. "He's a cop!" The form the T-1000 would take for most of the movie was a Los Angeles police officer. This solved the storytelling dilemma Winston had raised and also gave Cameron an opportunity to underline a central theme in both of the Terminator movies - how people, especially those in violent jobs, like soldiers and cops, can become barbarized. "The Terminator films are not really about the human race getting killed of by future machines. They're about us losing touch with our own humanity and becoming machines, which allows us to kill and brutalize each other," he says. "Cops think all non-cops as less than they are, stupid, weak, and evil. They dehumanize the people they are sworn to protect and desensitize themselves in order to do that job.""

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Futurist-Life-Films-James-Cameron-ebook/dp/B0034184U0

This post convinced me to finally dump Duolingo since it's been getting worse and worse since they fired the translators.

I tried Busuu once before and I was frustrated because it looked like I had to start over. You don't. You can select the level you believe you are and do each checkpoint until you're where you believe you are. The lessons obviously don't match up and I found that Duo left way more gaps than I thought. But I can fulfill the lessons I want and still skip the ones I think I know by doing the checkpoints. They also have a lot more speaking by native speakers than Duo and I think it is more natural than Duo and in my (ten-year-old opinion) Rosetta Stone. I've only checked Spanish right now, so I can't say how well Japanese works, but to be honest, Duo was trash at it anyway.

As the post above states, Busuu does use AI for conversations and it's made it into Spanish. Right now, it's completely skippable and good thing because it comes with a warning that it will record you conversations for learning purposes. I'm hoping that feedback will keep Busuu from adopting this model.

My only real issue is that it's Spain Spanish and I was learning Latin American Spanish, so I really hope my brain is able to comprehend the difference (like I instinctually know the difference between American and British English).

i cannot keep quiet about this anymore.

if you're in the US or Canada and interested in learning a language using a free app please get a library card and download MANGO. it's very good and extremely free with a library card (there are many public libraries and universities using the service, so make an account and use the search feature here to find out if there's one near you).

mango currently has 72 available languages and dialects (that's right! different courses for french or canadian french! spanish or latam spanish!). it's set up basically like an audiobook with text. the idea is that the narrator explains the words while you read, and you repeat after them or say the translation out loud when prompted. there's a daily review where you go through flashcards. you can also use the flashcards at your leisure and create your own. at the end of each chapter there's a listening comprehension quiz and a reading comprehension quiz. i cannot emphasize how effective this all is. and it's free with a card.

if you're not in the US or Canada and/or looking for something more like duolingo (don't use duolingo btw tldr they fired translators and replaced them with "ai"), then try BUSUU! it only has 14 languages atm but the lessons are really descriptive and effective. it also has a feature where you can correct other people's open-ended speaking/typing exercises. you set your fluent languages, and exercises by people learning those languages will appear in your feed for you to correct. you can even add others as friends! and, much like duolingo, it has a streak and leaderboard system for you to strive for, minus the guilt-tripping owl.

busuu is free (you watch ads to unlock lessons and they're all skippable after like five seconds), although it also has paid premium/plus versions (i don't use the paid version—the language courses are available for free, and the ad system is Really unobtrusive).

so that's my wisdom for the day. mango and busuu. please check them out :)

It me.

Me to myself: no, you can't write something new, you're supposed to be working on WIP! *gestures to sad WIP in the corner*

Also me: okay, fine, I won't write something new. *starts scrolling on social media* Happy?

I've been using Microsoft Word for over twenty years and somehow it gets worse each year...

[Image Description: First image is a Microsoft Word screen shot where it suggested that the user change "mauled" to "mailed", changing the sentence to "The body had been mailed to the point that it was unidentifiable."]

I've tried not to internalize these formulas, but I find that it's simply too exhausting to try to market my work afterward. Perhaps I should just self-publish and be happy if someone stumbles across my work and buys it.

I write because I like writing. Because I think these stories should be told. These characters are real people to me.

But is it wrong to want to make a living from your work?

When Did Books Become So... Formulaic? Part 1

When did books start feeling like they had to follow a set formula to be considered “good”? When did writing become less about creative expression and more about ticking off boxes—engaging opening, structured setting, the “right” pacing? Everywhere you turn, someone is telling you how to write a book, how to make it “marketable,” how to fit it into a mold that guarantees an audience. And I get it. I’ve internalized it too.

But what even is writing? Shouldn’t it be art? Shouldn’t it be free? Shouldn’t a book be a canvas where words don’t have to march neatly in line but can sprawl, dance, or drip like paint? Who says the text has to be left-aligned? What if a story unfolded in a spiral, or if every chapter was a shape, a rhythm, a feeling? What if the structure itself was part of the message, not just a vessel to deliver a pre-approved plot?

And the thing is—people are doing this. There are writers experimenting, bending form, breaking rules, making books that are more than just books. But where are they? Why aren’t they the ones being given the biggest platforms? Why do the same kinds of books, the same kinds of authors, the same familiar beats keep getting pushed forward while boundary-pushing works are dismissed as “niche” or “too risky”?

Traditional publishing doesn’t seem to make space for them. If they want to be seen, they have to carve their own path, fund themselves, market themselves, do everything alone. And that can be exhausting. It can drain the passion out of something that was once pure expression. It can force people to conform just to survive.

So I guess my question is—why? Why do we act like writing is a machine instead of an art form? Why do we reward the safe and familiar while sidelining the bold and visionary? And what would books look like if we truly let them be free?

Let's discuss this...

I've been thinking about this and I got a lot of rambling posts on this topic.

Cuz it hit me like powe

I should start a blog called "How to Do Things Wrong". People can watch I do as much research as my attention span will let me do that day and then witness my anxiety foil all my preparations.

(Sponsored by the fact that it took me an hour to fill out a form that asked me to describe me and my work.)

I've begun singing lately as a way to try to rediscover joy (and learn how to unmask). Unfortunately, my shiba inu tends to be the target of such serenades. She often slowly backs away and hides, all the while looking at me with the same expression I'd expect on a peasant mother who's just discovered that her child is possessed.

Putting on shows for this unwilling audience has become the highlight of my day.