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volkswagonblues · 3 years

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2020 in review - my fave books I read this year:

[some of them are published this year, others I read for the first time this year]

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Okay, so this was straight up the funniest fucking book I’ve read this year. I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long time, and I picked up a copy at a free library and was instantly hooked. It was issued to American soldiers in WW2 and apparently it was like, the most popular paperback ever, and if Betty Smith was a man then she would have gone down in lit history as a “humorist” and a “great American novelist”, etc. etc. This books is SUCH a bawdy picaresque of Depression-era Brooklyn. It’s packed with such sharp insights about immigration and poverty, but it’s also filled with so many delicious minutiae about the early 20th c. There’s a whole sketch when Johnny takes a bunch of kids fishing in a tuxedo (he has never fished before) that begins with an anecdote about a kid who was breastfed until he was 6 and ended with a rotten fish exploding on a train and ugh – fantastic.

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

This is like Black Mirror if the writers had a single thought process other than “how do we tell you that phone are bad hur hur”. One novella in it, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", was astounding to read. It’s about a group of software programmers who raise AI lifeforms in a virtual MMORPG setting, and as the AI lifeforms grow up they become...beings who are not human, but not animal either. And their carers genuinely love them and are fighting to bring them up as best as they could, just like any normal parent would with their human children. It’s tender and thought provoking and it’s so, so smart about humans and our capacity to love. Fuck black mirror, read this instead.

Upstream by Mary Oliver

“The clock! That twelve-figured moon skull, that white spider belly! How serenely the hands move with their filigree pointers, and how steadily! Twelve hours, and twelve hours, and begin again! Eat, speak, sleep, cross a street, wash a dish! The clock is still ticking. All its vistas are just so broad—are regular. (Notice that word.) Every day, twelve little bins in which to order disorderly life, and even more disorderly thought. The town’s clock cries out, and the face on every wrist hums or shines; the world keeps pace with itself. Another day is passing, a regular and ordinary day. (Notice that word also.)”

Stargazing by Jen Wang

this is the cutest and most heart-wrenching comic ever. that is all

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

TREMENDOUS. The last third, after Cromwell gets shut in the Tower of London – I couldn’t put it down. I read a lot of good books, but only now and then I read a genius book. The way that Mantel uses the flexibility of prose to convey Cromwell’s consciousness, the way the prose moves back and forwards through time and memory and through the rich texture of Cromwell’s senses, the way the story engages with myth and history and the very idea of England as a nation. ARGH. This whole trilogy changed the way I understood literature.

Saqiyuq by Nancy Wachowich, in collaboration with Apphia Agalakti Awa, Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, and Sandra Pikujak Katsak

it’s an oral history recorded by a sociologist who traveled to Nunavut. She interviewed three generations of the same family: the grandmother, the mother, and the granddaughter. It’s a portrait of a people whose life has gone through a sea change in the last century. And the rhythm of the language in the first section, the interviews with the grandmother, is so hypnotic and readable, I felt like I’m in the room. In the very beginning of the book she tells you a story about how she accidentally shot her half-brother because they were playing with her father’s rifle, and the intensity of the story (which is just her life!) does not let up from there

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

“There is a siren that sounds in our small town to announce the curfew. At noon and at 10 p.m. Every time the siren sounds all the sled dogs howl, and I imagine that they think there is a large, loud god dog that rules the land howling. I equate this with religion. A short-sighted and desperate attempt for humans to create reason and order in a universe we can't possibly comprehend. The simple truth is that we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe.”

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

hey you ever want to read about Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, but like, with heavy thematic reference to Homer’s The Iliad? You want to read some of the most polished, crafted prose of your life? You want to think about war and womenhood and the violence inherent in everyday acts for 500 pages? Of course you do

#books #literature #a tree grows in brooklyn #ted chiang #mary oliver #jen wang #stargazing #the mirror and the light #hilary mantel #saqiyuq #tanya tagaq #split tooth #the shadow king #maaza mengiste #personal

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the-hot-zone · 3 years

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no pressure, and you should absolutely take as long as you need, but i was just wondering if you have a prospective timeline for publishing the medical au? i only ask because I’m not on tumblr all the time and I’d like to make sure I don’t miss it when it comes out :)

Hi, Anon! This is such a lovely ask, thank you. The simple answer for your question: not any time soon. The long answer for your question: it’s complicated.

I almost--almost--have everything I need to start writing this fic in its entirety, which will not take me long. The most lengthy aspect of my work is always the researching and planning phase, and the editing phase. Wrt the researching and planning phase, I got three new books for the holidays: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel, and Saqiyuq by Nancy Wachowich in partnership with Apphia Agalakti Awa, Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, and Sandra Pikujak Katsak.

I will never be done learning about indigenous issues, but these three books (in addition with the research I’ve already done; see here), will give me what I need to confidently write Olympians. I also have my beta, Eagle, to thank.

SO BASICALLY. It will not be published in the next two-ish months. After that? Well, be on the look-out. No promises, though. This fic is special to me. I want to give it all the time it needs. Thank you for the ask!

@everyone who’s following the zukka medical AU, ty for your patience. Be on the look-out for a snippet, as a New Year’s treat. :)

#hi anons <3 #thehotzone's answers #zukka medical au #Olympians #I am also v. excited for sokka's anatomy skdfk #Sokka's Anatomy Cinematic Universe #SACU #TY FOR THE ASK!#I am doing my best <3

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volkswagonblues · 4 years

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how i did research for my avatar the last airbender fic

@elilim asked me what’s my research process like for fic + how much time I spent on research, only when I started writing my response I realised just how ridiculous it was to send through tumblr’s chat function. So here’s the longer text post about how I researched for firebender’s guide, along with an example of my writing process

PART 1 - RESEARCH

1. I look up first person memoirs

OKAY. Avatar is set in a fantasy universe, and the closest parallel to all of its cultures go something like (forgive me if I left something out):

Fire Nation= pre-WW2 imperial Japan

Earth Kingdom = pre-1949, pre-communist China

Water Tribe = Inuit, Yupik, Iñupiat people, and this my personal suspicion here, but Old Norse too

Air Nomads = Tibet monks, Monoglian nomads

The first thing you can do is just...read the Wikipedia article on each topic, which I think gives a good broad overview. But for writing, what we’re all really interested in is the everyday texture of different people’s world. What do they write with? (from what I’ve seen, ATLA does not use quills) What do they have for breakfast? What crops are in season, what does their house look like, what do they do for fun?

And I think the best way is to look up autobiographies or oral histories from people who lived through those eras and those time. I drew a lot of Fire Nation details from My Asakusa: Coming of Age in Pre-War Tokyo, and then a lot of Water Tribe details from Saqiyuq.

MORE UNDER CUT

2. I look at what kind of art they make

Something else that helps with putting yourself in the right mindset of another culture is to look at art. I hate to give this away here, but Google has an arts and culture site where you can look at online exhibitions, tour museums, and explore bits of history in a really fun, visual way.

Look, this is me literally typing in just “japan”:

https://artsandculture.google.com/search?q=japan

...something about cast iron tea kettles? wouldn’t this be a fun detail to put in a story where Iroh appears???

3. YOUTUBE + GOOGLE BOOKS

When I’m trying to figure out where to set stuff, or how to describe a place, I hop over to youtube or google books and simply type in “[EQUIVALENT CULTURE]+ [PLACE I”M THINKING OF]”

ex. Youtube video of “japan palace”

ex. Google books result for “japan temples”

OKAY SO THAT’S RESEARCH

And now I should talk a bit about my own process for writing fic, my biggest secret is that sometimes I screenshot/copy paste whole passages into a word doc, and then start writing underneath. For instance, when writing chunks of firebender’s guide I would literally have My Asakusa open and whole passages copied down. For instance, i LOVE this detail about changing clothes according to a seasonal calendar.

So when I’m writing, I have it inserted into the word doc. This has a VERY IMPORTANT FUNCTION: IT EATS UP WHITE SPACE SO WRITING BECOMES LESS INTIMIDATING.

THIS IS IT BUDDY. THIS IS THE FIRST AND ONLY WRITING TIP I CAN OFFER.

COPY PASTE PASSAGES YOU LIKE (COULD BE RESEARCH, PROSE, A REALLY NICE POEM) INTO THE DOCUMENT YOU’RE WORKING IN. REFER TO IT OFTEN.

PLAGIARIZE IT. AND THEN RE-WRITE IT UNTIL IT BECOMES YOUR OWN.

Here’s mine:

Li and Lo nodded. “The meal will begin in a quarter of an hour,” said the sister who hadn’t spoken yet.

Zuko dove behind his dressing screen and grabbed the first layer of his embroidered formal robes. At least there were fewer of them than normal: in the month past midsummer, the royal court’s fastidious rules about seasonal dress finally relaxed enough for only two layers of raw silk. “Why didn’t anyone send for me earlier?” he wailed, trying to tug his head through the neck hole. (firebender’s guide, chap. 2)

(NOTE: i might do a part 2 about everyday life in Fire Nation and Water Tribes - stuff like kneeling at tables instead of sitting, how to prepare ink and brushes for writing, common foods and chopstick etiquette, etc....stay tuned)

#Avatar The Last Airbender #my fic #thefirebendersguidetolivingLAD #sorry this is a very incomplete response #and to be honest #I don't do THAT much research all in all #I just grab details i like as if im a magpie #i skim and then copy paste and then....thats it #but also my benchmark for research is skewed because im a nerd

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the-hot-zone · 3 years

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hi, hello, your zukka medical au keept popping up today and i saw the post with the soft zuko scene again, and now im just kinda wow super excited each time i see it cause it's such a good concept

🥺🥺🥺 Tumblr-user veeaziel, this made my night. Thank you so much! I’m very excited to get this project off the ground, and every day I get closer to doing so. However, there are a few more things I need to research--medicine and culture-wise--before I finish it. I’m currently waiting on two books in particular to arrive: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, and Saqiyuq: Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women.

But wrt overarching plot, character development, and drama scenes? Most of those things are planned out and in writing. I hope it’s worth the wait. <3

#*hides the prequel and sequel behind my back*#Olympians #atla #avatar the last airbender #zukka medical au #Sokka's Anatomy #<3333 #thehotzone's answers #thank you oml #veeaziel

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