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Wait — Wesley Snipes as Geordi?? (via youmightfindyourself)

"Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig."

DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #48. What is it about comparing writing to coal mining? (See also.)

Beautiful: the Peace Dollar →

Did you know that the United States had Art Deco money in the Thirties?

"Stories are not merely structured dreams, but items from the land of imagination and desire, and no matter the horror, nihilism, or cynicism of the events and characters within them, those stories originate from the same place as hope. Could it be that the act of telling a story itself is an expression of hope, regardless of what the story contains? Could it be that the act of imagining is, no matter its darkness, no matter its despair, an act that springs from idealism, even joy? The assumption of the storyteller is that someone will hear the story, that someone will receive the tale. The assumption of imagination is that things can be otherwise."

Matthew Cheney is reading through the Sandman books, and here he meditates on Sandman #4, “A Hope in Hell.” I can’t wait until he makes it to Season of Mists and Brief Lives.

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"Only way to get up in the morning and work steadily is to imagine there aren’t six million writers doing the same exact thing at the same moment with more imagination."

Rosecrans Baldwin prepares for the release of his novel You Lost Me There by keeping a diary.

"A ton of writers I know, and I include myself in that category, if you see them at a party texting someone, they are actually not texting. They are saving a piece of overheard conversation that they want to keep. Or they are noting down an idea."

Rosecrans Baldwin, Novelist - Writers on Process (via)

kmikeym:

Space Helmet

Hear, hear! These mountains need a lot of help.

itwasrighton:

recoveringhipster:

“I think they should name it something better. The top ends up flatter, but we’re not talking about Mount Everest. We’re talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here. And I’ve seen the reclaimed lands. One of them is 800 acres, with a sports complex on it, elk roaming, covered in grass.”

-Rand Paul Senator of Kentucky

By this same logic:

• It’s okay for me to set fire to your lawn, because “we’re not talking about the Great Plains here.”
• It’s okay for me to burn down your house, because “we’re not talking about Buckingham Palace here.”
• It’s okay for me to kill your dog, because “we’re not talking about Lassie here.”

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that the Appalachians are the oldest mountain range in North America, filled with an astounding variety of flora and fauna.  There are over 6,000 species of plants, as well as 255 documented species of birds, 78 mammals, 58 reptiles, and 76 amphibians.  Of these, many are found only in the Appalachians and the adjoining lowlands.

Okay, Rand… I’ll grant you that the Appalachians may not be the most tallest mountain range, but they’re still pretty damn impressive and worth saving.

"I also like to remind myself of something my dad said to me once in re. writers’ block: “Coal miners don’t get coal miners’ block."

John Green (Paper Towns) answering ideas and inspiration questions.

Off to a great weekend. (via sealust)

thebronzemedal:

“Teachers want us to work, and I say, ‘Fine, I’ll work. But you’ve gotta let me do the kind of work that I wanna do.’ And for me, it’s my drum kit, man. This is my passion. This is the essence of who I am now. But before I had this, I was lost, too. You see what I’m saying? You need to find your reason for living. You’ve gotta find your big, gigantic drum kit.”

-Nick Andopolis, Freaks and Geeks

(via seventhstring)

That is Nick’s 29-piece drum kit. Yes, I counted them.

Good reads: "Claire In Africa," by Emily St. John Mandel →

Brothers, love, reflection. I was worried that this story, which starts out on a downer and pretty much continues down for several thousand words, would have an unhappy ending. Thankfully, that isn’t the case.

Good reads: "The City," by Ray Bradbury →

I mean, gosh, this is just an imperfectly-OCRed version of the story, and if you really want to see the real thing by all means pick up the book. But even here, reading off this Scribd document on a glowing computer screen, I am transported back fifteen years to the dusty Hardin County library, where I pulled down a book of Bradbury stories off the shelf and sat on one of those metal wheeled library stools and just read.

Bradbury always makes me miss the musty-sweet smell of that building’s old air conditioner, the claustrophobic science fiction stacks on the second floor, and the way the thick old walls would slow summer afternoons to a crawl. It’s ironic that a forward-thinking science fiction writer could create such a sense of nostalgia, but then Bradbury’s magic always leads back to childhood somehow, to stillness, to the sense that the world is a much larger and stranger place than we give it credit for.