lin·gua·phile

Graduate student specializing in 18th century British literature with an emphasis on the novel. Lover of John Milton, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte. (Yes, I know none of them published in the 18th century.)

Occasional writer of lengthy fictions, seven-time NaNoWriMo participant and former Office of Letters and Light intern.

Reader of much young adult and/or fantasy lit. Lifetime lover of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, recently fanatic about Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy, blaming it all on Harry Potter.

Wanderluster. Left my heart in London, reclaim it bit by bit through tea and Doctor Who and Sherlock and Downton Abbey.

Fandoms Ask me anything

Text 5
Notes Sometimes I think I just need to make a list of “why Diane Duane is awesome and you should have read all of her stuff already”

but really I would have to keep adding to that list on a daily basis, and then I’d never get to do any writing of my own, which would probably be counterproductive, seeing as one of the items at the top of that list would be “knows how to give tough love to other people who want to be better writers and won’t settle for excuses.”

SO YOU SHOULD JUST GO READ HER OKAY

#Diane Duane #writing
Quote 37
Notes
"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

Martha Graham (via butiwouldntwanttolivethere)

In love with the phrase “a queer, divine dissatisfaction.”
(via dduane)

#writing #art
Quote 2539
Notes
"In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They were not necessarily the same sentences the professors pointed out, which would turn up for further explication on an exam. I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment. For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do."

Jhumpa Lahiri, My Life’s Sentences (via azspot)
(via the-eyre-affair)

#writing #wordplay
Text 52045
Notes This blog is run by someone who is way too attached to fictional characters.

dduane:

Especially insofar as they pay my salary. :)

At first I thought about deleting DD’s comment because it wasn’t relevant to me, and then I realized that actually in a really roundabout way they pay my salary, too.
(Source: spooningwithironman)

#grad school #actually the best #writing
Quote 6538
Notes
"
Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024
"

My new favorite job application letter, from 1934. He ended up winning an Oscar for screenwriting!

(via Letters of Note)

We like words too.

(via good)
(Source: megangreenwell, via dduane)

#writing #wordplay
Quote 3878
Notes
"[The] average daydream is about fourteen seconds long and [we] have about two thousand of them per day. In other words, we spend about half of our waking hours — one-third of our lives on earth — spinning fantasies."

The Storytelling Animal – the science of how we came to live and breathe stories. (via explore-blog)

Some interesting science pointing to daydreams as a crucible of creativity.

(via jtotheizzoe)

On the one hand I pretty much feel that the new trend toward cognitive cultural studies is awesome, because it legitimates in the eyes of many the kinds of things that I do and love. On the other hand, I knew all of this before anyone ever told me that it was a biological truth, and (in what would probably be my only exception to a belief in the power of scientific rigor) if someone ever discovers that it’s not a biological truth, I would refuse to believe them. (And I also hate the fact that there is a hierarchy of disciplines in which literary studies can only legitimate itself to the “outside world” by way of the sciences. I can’t help but assume that the people for whom science legitimates storytelling have just never read the right books.)
(Source: , via jtotheizzoe)

#science #art #writing #dreams
Text 45
Notes Oh cripes, not again

dduane:

A line that just fell out onto the computer while I was writing:

“So the Lone Power, the Defender and the Whisperer walk into a bar – “

(headclutch) Great, just great. Another joke that it’s going to take me a decade or two to find the punchline for.

(wanders off muttering)

Man I love/hate/love those lines that just fall out onto the computer while you’re writing and are TOTALLY EFFING AWESOME.

(I mean. Mine are never that awesome. But still, the feeling is lovely.)

Also, am I the only one who sees “bar” in a YW context and immediately thinks of The Man in the Bar? No? Good. Because the first punchline I can come up with looks something like this:

The Lone Power, the Whisperer, and the Defender walk into a bar. The Doctor sees them coming, throws an assortment of strange things from his pocket onto the bar to cover his tab, grabs the forearm(s) of whichever companion(s) he’s with at the moment and says, “Run!”

#Young Wizards #Doctor Who #Diane Duane #writing
Text 3618
Notes

dduane:

raxacorico:

you know that moment

when you can’t tell if your essay actually makes sense

or if you’re starting to believe your own bullshit

Believe it or not, this is the point where you’re trembling on the brink of success. You’re halfway there already.

All you have to do now is get them to believe it, and YOU WIN.

Forward!

Genius is really just bullshit no one else thought of before.
(Source: wasraxacorico)

#writing
Text 1
Notes Pretty sure this isn’t an A paper.

Also pretty sure I don’t care right now.

If you knew me you would know how strange BOTH of those admissions are.

#please excuse my real life story #grad school #writing
Photo 61
Notes

ilovereadingandwriting:

(via writing nook | Flickr - Photo Sharing!)

I am pretty sure I just made an involuntary keening sound when I saw this, because WANT. No desks for writing should be anywhere other than in front of windows. (Sadly present desk does not fulfill this criterion.)
(via tasseomancyandtiaras)

#places for writing #writing