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justinasublimesense · 5 months

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on self-sabotage

the bomb, florence + the machine// appointments, julien baker// abject permanence, larissa pham// never wanted to dance, mindless self indulgence// king, florence + the machine// quote: lauren e. bowman// in the woods, tana french// does the universe fight for souls to be together?, jamie varon// olivia laing on loneliness, marrying the poet ian patterson and the challenge of intimacy// left alone, fiona apple// @mjalti //renegade, taylor swift// a burning hill, mitski// ICU, phoebe bridgers// legit tattoo gun, the front bottoms// just, radiohead

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justinasublimesense · 5 months

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and I don’t want the world to see me ‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand when everything’s made to be broken I just want you to know who I am

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justinasublimesense · 7 months

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A different smell of dirt.

The walk between

every appointment now quicker.

And clouds—in all their indifference—

somehow looking at you.

Aren’t you, too, unbelievable.

Aren’t you simply a you.

No doubt, as Woolf wrote

one October on Paradise Road:

the extremely insignificant position I have

in this important world. Choosing words

that won’t obscure how punishing we are.

Setting the alarm and keeping the eyes open.

Long. Into the dark. Or the wind—

suddenly matching our need

to change. The garment

with last year’s stain faded but there.

A dog barking for no one to hear.

Of course it is cold now

but somewhere it’s colder.

People don’t know what to do

with their hair, all their fear.

When you see the world,

introduce yourself like a guest.

Like a drop of paint outside canvas.

- Alex Dimitrov

#alex dimitrov #october #cold #poetry #love and other poems

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justinasublimesense · 8 months

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Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (trans. Michael Henry Heim)

[Text ID: “If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress.”]

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justinasublimesense · 9 months

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When arundhati roy said 'The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen.' And markus zusak said ' I don't have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.'

I am a big advocate of revealing big secrets in your story sooner rather than later.

See, if you keep all your secrets until the end, you risk becoming a Rowling, always with your GOTCHA right in the climax. You're just pulling the rug out from under the readers, and not giving them much time to do anything with that information.

But what if you revealed some of your secrets earlier in the story? Not even necessarily to the characters, either - you could have the person who knows about it reveal it to the audience through internal thoughts, but not letting the other characters know until later (and possibly not through them at that!).

The thing about doing it this way is, it gives you the opportunity to do more. The more your audience knows, the more you can do with them. It opens up new possibilities for plot threads or character development, and you don't have to work so hard to keep every little thing hidden. You get to build up your characters out in the open, where your audience can actually see what you're doing, even if they still don't have everything. Heck, it can build up anticipation, too! The readers know the secret, but the characters don't, and the readers want to see them find out.

I used to keep a lot of secrets in my writing. Now that I'm thinking back, a number of those secrets were about certain aspects of various relationships. For some reason, I always thought, wouldn't it be suuuuper neat to have this be a reveal at the climax or something? So I just kept saving it and saving it.

But then people would read a chapter here and there. They would ask questions about those relationships. And I started deciding to put those reveals earlier. I don't know what it was that made me do it like that, but it did. And let me tell you, it was such a weight off my shoulders. It wasn't some big plot reveal in the climax, it was just a part of who the characters are. And with that laid out already, I could build on it to create the real arc.

Now, I'm not saying you should reveal everything. Some things should be kept secret. It's the kappa element of storytelling, as C.S. Lewis called it, though perhaps not as thorough as he meant it. But it's a question of discernment:

Is this a plot point that needs to wait and be unveiled at the more proper time, or is this a vital part of the character that needs to be known to understand who they are?

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justinasublimesense · 11 months

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he cried today because his feet are cold. when i offered to warm it, he cried harder

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justinasublimesense · 11 months

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i'm a simple girl: i see sunlight on the water, i find god

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justinasublimesense · 11 months

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Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

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justinasublimesense · 1 year

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Nick Offerman

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justinasublimesense · 1 year

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On Seeing and Being Seen

by Ama Codjoe

I don’t like being photographed. When we kissed at a wedding, the night grew long and luminous. You unhooked my bra. A photograph passes for proof, Sontag says, that a given thing has happened. Or you leaned back to watch as I eased the straps from my shoulders. Hooks and eyes. Right now, my breasts are too tender to be touched. Their breasts were horrifying, Elizabeth Bishop writes. Tell her someone wanted to touch them. I am touching the photograph of my last seduction. It is as slick as a magazine page, as dark as a street darkened by rain. When I want to remember something beautiful, instead of taking a photograph, I close my eyes. I watched as you covered my nipple with your mouth. Desire made you beautiful. I closed my eyes. Tonight, I am alone in my tenderness. There is nothing in my hand except a certain grasping. In my mind’s eye, I am stroking your hair with damp fingertips. This is exactly how it happened. On the lit-up hotel bed, I remember thinking, My body is a lens I can look through with my mind.

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justinasublimesense · 1 year

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