If you hate writing outlines it’s because of how they’re taught in school. Toss out indentation and Roman numerals and map out your writing how you want to. Outlines are your FRIEND, dammit.
This goes for everything, from political essays to fanfiction. If it’s written you need an outline because the outline is for you. It can be general, vague, or a mixture of both! Be as informal as you want, who cares. They’re to keep you on track and keep your writing flowing, so don’t disregard them even if you dreaded making them in grade school.
My outlines by chapter tend to look like this:
1. Character “P” goes to the diner to meet character “Q.”
2. “P” tells “Q” about how the confrontation went. (dialogue I thought up on a bus ride) That’s when shit goes DOWN. They’re yelling, they’re drawing attention to themselves, but before they can take it outside, “P” says (dialogue I thought up in the shower).
3. THEN “Q” SAYS THAT ONE LINE THAT “R” SAYS TO HIM IN CHAPTER FIVE BECAUSE THAT’S CALLED COHESION WOOOOO
4. idk they both leave??? you’ll figure it out later
5. Self-reflection for “P.” Keep your main point on how his moral compass goes to extremes and hurts others. He finally is realizing that HE is the PROBLEM
6. “P” drives to “Q’s” house to apologize but GUESS WHO ANSWERS THE DOOR it’s “R” and then just end the chapter there
This is coming from someone who didn’t write with outlines for years. Now I don’t write anything longer than 400 words without one! Make them your own, make them so that they’re useful to you. That’s their purpose, so accept the help!
I keep thinking about a post I saw the other day, and likely won’t be able to find again, which proposed as a response to “you’ll be fine if you have nothing to hide” the phrase:
“ I have nothing to hide, but I don’t trust your intentions and judgement”
Was it this one?
“I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgment and intentions are.”
the man who owns and runs the thai restaurant in my town knows me by name. he is one of the kindest and most thoughtful men i know. i started ordering from his place back in january, which was when i got my fibromyalgia diagnosis. back then i was using a walker, had limited mobility in my entire body but especially my hands, and was very visibly in pain. i always ordered the same thing: yellow curry with no meat, potatoes and carrots only (i have texture and other dietary issues). he always made it a point to make sure i could get out the door and carry the food safely. he had his workers package the food so that it was easier for me to open. as i kept coming back and i told him a little bit about my health status, he would always encourage me to keep going. he told me about how the spices he used were good for inflammation and began to edit the recipe just for me so that spices that were even better for fighting inflammation were used. he’d give me extra portions and despite the fact that i would tip every time, i realized later that he never charged my card for them. as time went on and my condition began to get better, especially with the help of a physical therapist, he would make encouraging remarks and tell me how happy he was for me. the day i came in without my walker, he practically jumped for joy, and despite my insistence, he gave me my meal for free that day. i continue to make progress with my conditions and i continue to go to the thai place. this man who does not know me personally and who i hardly know anything about is one of my favorite people. it’s interactions with humans like these that make loving life easier. and his curry really does help my chronic condition. it’s comfort food taken to the next level.
tbh shoutout to the over 40s on tumblr, sorry the internet acts like yall belong in the retirement home when ur literally just regular adults with hobbies
I was going to leave comments in the tags, but I decided this was important enough to put on main.
In college, my friend group collectively got into the SCA - Society for Creative Anachronism. They’re the people who get really into medieval reenactment, the fighting and crafts and cooking, they have kings and queens and knights and events and a good percentage of them (but not all!) work or have worked at Ren Faires.
I am forever grateful my friends dragged me into that, because it was my first introduction to fandom in older adults. Middle-aged dorks. Elderly nerds. Absolutely as intense and weird and hilarious and fun as any fan in their teens or 20s. I started getting into fandom already knowing there was a road ahead for me as I got older, full of handmade costumes and late night movies and shelves of pewter dragon goblets and mixed-aged road trips to meet ups and conventions.
And it kills me that so many people don’t know that sort of community even exists. On both sides, even! I went to Philcon a few years ago, which tends towards older fans, and an older woman I was talking to sadly told me that she thought fandom was dying out, because she never saw younger fans any more.
Over the past decade, there’s been a really toxic movement towards keeping different ages strictly separated, both in and outside of fandom. There’s this strong implication that if an older person wants to interact with a younger person, there is something inherently predatory about that.
Yeah, that attitude sucks. That drive towards separation and puritanism sucks. Declaring that younger people should have nothing to look forward to and that older people should stay separated and lonely sucks. It sucks and we are all worse for it.
Don’t fear age. Don’t put an age limit on having fun. Give yourself a damn future.
Beverly passed away in 2019, but she was one of many of my favorite, elder cosplayers that frequent DragonCon and remind all of us to keep playing as long as we can.
I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.
because LIFE is uncomfortable. Death and suicide and sex and pain are straight up going to happen. not having words for the way it discomforts you doesn’t make it more comfortable, it just makes you less able to reach out about it.
even more vital, you gotta be able to say words like “rape”, “abuse”, “queer” or “racist”. cause we fought fucking hard to name those experiences. to identify “rape” as distinct from “sex” and “racism” as distinct from “acceptable behaviour” and “queer” as distinct from “invert”
like the function of communication is not to minimise immediate discomfort. we gotta be able to talk about stuff that’s hard or sucks or causes difficult conversations.
This is what’s so goddamn terrifying about the Internet slowly collapsing into the same 3-5 websites–if Facebook deprioritizes you for saying “sex” and TikTok shadowbans you for saying “suicide” and Twitter X locks your account for saying “racism” we’ve lost a lot more than just the culture of the old weird internet
And the whole alternative spelling to try and circumvent these restrictions are finding their way into tumblr and ao3. It’s doing an extreme disservice for the people who use the tags to exclude topics that may trigger their traumas or they simply don’t like.
If these words are banned, we cannot articule the issues which impact us. It is censoring and silencing.
“Unalived” is the one that bothers me the most, probably. I’m a (disabled former) hospice chaplain. I’ve seen, every day for years, the concrete impact that acceptance or denial of death has. By concrete impact I mean: on average, the people I’ve met who were more comfortable talking about death, were more comfortable when they approached their own deaths. The people who were more afraid, had more difficulty (emotionally, spiritually, often physically) in their last weeks. A person’s capacity to face and move through grief is directly tied to their comfort with and acceptance of death. Children who ask questions and receive honest answers about death, have an easier time grieving and healing than children who know they’re not supposed to talk about it.
Everyone dies. Everyone has loved ones who die. Avoiding the word just makes the concept more frightening and strange. If you can’t name it and talk about it, how on earth can you be prepared when it inevitably shows up at your doorstep?
Halloween is the perfect time to read the incredible works of Emily Carroll, my absolute favorite horror cartoonist and storyteller. You can read many of her worksfree on her website!
I cannot over-recommend Carroll’s short story collection Through the Woods, which is one of the best works of fiction (horror or otherwise) I’ve ever read. If you can, get a copy from your local library or bookstore!
Got to go, it’s Halloween and I’m spending my evening sitting in the dark, drinking hot chocolate, re-reading these spooky comics while the wind rattles at the windows.
Every October I give these stories a re-read. And recently Carroll published a new graphic novel, A Guest In The House, which I am very much looking forward to getting a copy of!
