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With Halloween just around the corner, NASA has released its latest Galaxy of Horrors posters. Presented in the style of vintage horror movie advertisements. As fun and creative as all three posters are, they're based on real phenomena. 🎃
Can you hear this exoplanet screaming?
As HD 80606 b approaches its star from an extreme, elliptical orbit, it suffers star-grazing torture that causes howling, supersonic winds and shockwave storms across the planet. Its torturous journey boils its atmosphere to a hellish 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit every 111 days, roasting both its light and dark sides. HD 80606b will never escape this scorching nightmare.
This bone-chilling force will leave you shivering alone in terror!
An unseen power is prowling throughout the cosmos, driving the universe to expand at a quickening rate. This relentless pressure, called dark energy, is nothing like dark matter, that mysterious material only revealed by its gravitational pull. Dark energy offers a bigger fright: pushing galaxies farther apart over trillions of years, leaving the universe to an inescapable, freezing death in the pitch black expanse of outer space.
Cygnus X-1 Presents:
It’s Dinner Time and You’re The Meal!
Lurking in our galaxy, approximately 6,000 light-years from Earth, is a monster named CygnusX-1. This black hole, which has about 14.8 times the mass of our Sun, will stretch and squeeze anything it captures in its immense gravity. Cygnus X-1 is waiting, snacking on its neighboring star. Don’t get too close, or you’ll become its next meal!
This chillingly haunted galaxy mysteriously stopped making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang! It became a cosmic cemetery, illuminated by the red glow of decaying stars. Dare to enter, and you might encounter the frightening corpses of exoplanets or the final death throes of once-mighty stars.
Something strange and mysterious creeps throughout the cosmos. Scientists call it dark matter. It is scattered in an intricate web that forms the skeleton of our universe. Dark matter is invisible, only revealing its presence by pushing and pulling on objects we can see. NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will investigate its secrets. What will be revealed?
In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light, known as gamma rays. These beams of doom are unleashed upon their unfortunate surroundings, shining a million trillion times brighter than the Sun for up to 30 terrifying seconds. No spaceship will shield you from the blinding destruction of the gamma ray ghouls!
These doomed worlds were among the first and creepiest to be discovered as they orbit an undead star known as a pulsar. Pulsar planets like Poltergeist and its neighboring worlds, Phobetor and Draugr, are consumed with constant radiation from the star’s core. Nothing but the undead can subsist in this most inhospitable corner of the galaxy.
This far-off blue planet may look like a friendly haven – but don’t be deceived! Weather here is deadly. The planet’s cobalt blue color comes from a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing clouds laced with glass. Howling winds send the storming glass sideways at 5,400 mph (2km/s), whipping all in a sickening spiral. It’s death by a million cuts on this slasher planet!
my profs’ advice/comments on impostor syndrome –
- “i’ll tell you how i’ve learned to deal with this sort of thing. i didn’t develop a sense of joy in my academic study until i realized that what really matters is the work itself. it’s not about trying to impress anybody or trying to earn a specific grade. it’s all about loving the work, the reading, the writing, the critical conversation. and i think you do love those things, and you do enjoy your academic work when you can get out of your own way about it. now, where i’m at in my career, i have to think about what gets me up in the morning, and that’s not publishing 20 articles a year or seeking external approval. what it is, is writing, reading, and teaching about what I love, my own little academic world that i’ve created.” – prof c
- “i wrote shitty papers in college, and i still got a phd. you’re not supposed to know everything yet! you’re still learning! you know what, write that on a post-it and stick it on your laptop. you don’t have to know it all yet. you don’t have to be perfect.” – prof s
- “while i can assure you that you should not feel like an imposter, i can also confess that the syndrome is common at all levels of academia – so you should not think yourself abnormal to be experiencing it.” (x)
- “i hate to say/write this, but it’s sort of true: that you having these impostor-syndrome reactions, these worries about disappointing those you respect … to me, that sort of signals that you do have traits common to many successful academics! even people who have masses of success behind them – and, come to think of it, particularly the people who have a lot of cred *and* outside affirmation of it – suffer from impostor syndrome *if* (and the if is important) they genuinely care about the quality of their work. so: if it’s possible to think of these feelings as symptomatic of a characteristic many good academics share, then please do. (…) the important thing is this: how counterproductive it can be for self-sabotaging people to think of themselves as being ‘born’ to do something. it makes any possibility of missing the mark immediately existential. academic work is something one chooses because one has a strong interest in a certain field of study, an ability to study and produce credible work (as judged by ‘authorities’ in said field), and a social possibility to choose to proceed in that direction. sometimes, i, at least, find it helpful to remind myself of the simple facts of this. (…) i do think it’s important to put the activating gesture of entering grad school very firmly in your own hands. you are choosing this. you are choosing it because you want it, others have said that you are capable, and you have the practical possibility of choosing it. this is enough. the work will be enough without the existential heft, and the existential heft will not make the work better.” – s
- from my lit teacher’s wife, an english prof at ucb who graduated from yale – ”yes—i feel like this often—and so does every person i’m close to in academia, and every graduate student ever. the key is to just feel the fear and do it anyway, especially when ‘do it’ means ‘write.’”
“Know that you can start late, look different, be uncertain and still succeed.”
— Misty Copeland
why you should keep writing your story
- because it’s a puzzle no one else will ever arrange the same way as you.
- because there are ideas that simply won’t come to you until you write down the wrong words.
- because all the bad scenes are the bones of the wonderful scenes.
- because someone will love it: someone will read it once, and twice, and thrice; someone will ramble to you about the complexity of it; someone will doodle your characters out of love; someone will find it in exactly what they were looking for with or without knowing it.
- because they have things to say, your characters. they’ve told you all those secrets and they have more to tell you, if you will listen.
- because you love it even when you don’t; even when it drives you mad or when it accidentally turns into apathy; even when you think you’re doing it all wrong; you love it, and it loves you back.
- because you can get a treasure even from things that go wrong; because if a story crumbles down you can build a shinier one on the same spot; because you won’t know where it will take you until it takes you there.
sarahtaylorgibson
Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”
You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.
Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.
First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.
Example:
Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.
Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.
There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.
There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.
There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.
Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.
Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.
Mages who only wanted to see the sun.
This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.
sarahtaylorgibson
Damn I made relatable reblog- bait post and writer Tumblr went hard with it. This is legitimately very good advice.
For more neat tricks (aka figures of rhetoric) like epizeuxis and anaphora, read THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE by Mark Forsyth. It’s both educational and delightful, not to mention overflowing with wry wit. Great book.
jj-flemings-writing
Holy shit.
These sound like techniques for making prose have more in common with poetry, or even with music. I just put the book on hold at the library!
HEY WRITERS OF ALL KINDS AND AGES AND MAYBE EVEN DNDERS OR TABLETOP GAMERS ARE YOU READY FOR SOMETHING SUPER RAD? I HOPE SO ‘CAUSE
RANDOM
MAP
GENERATOR
WITH
EDITING FEATURES AVAILABLE
IT DOESN’T REALLY DO LAND MASSES OR ANYTHING BUT IT SURE AS HELL WILL MAP THAT CITY/VILLAGE/SHIP/DUNGEON/WHATEVER THAT YOU’VE BEEN MEANING TO MAP OUT FOR YOU
Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.
Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.
But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”
Okay but…if someone wants to take me on a date to a Barnes and noble and get me dinner and a drink and then let me peruse the stacks like I’m not saying no. A sandwich, a beer, and 2-5 books on various topics I hope I’ll someday read about? Good night.
The Swedish equivalent of Blockbuster is now best known for its candy, snacks and sodas.
This is El Ateneo Grand Splendid, an old theatre turned bookstore in Buenos Aires:
The stage itself was turned into a cafe:
You can’t even begin to comprehend the massive amounts of money this place makes, despite the fact that they turned the theatre boxes into reading nooks like this:
I’ve literally spent days holed up in there reading books for free while also consuming massive amounts of coffee and pastries.
Adapt or die, people.
Take me to Buenos freaking Aires… Leave me in this bookshop… Never look for me, you will not find me again.
So, heading to Buenos Aires @bookishdiplodocus? I know it’s not a library, but it’s no less awesome for that.
FUCK yeah, dude. See you in the airport in five minutes.
Wait for me!!!
Publishing for Fun and Profit
So there was a list going around tumblr for a while that made it to my dash of literary journals that accept open submissions (and will pay!), but upon inspection about half of them were closed indefinitely, and I found quite a few other places that looked interesting through further research, so I wanted to post my own list.
I tried to focus on things that paid professional grade (at least 6 cents per word), were friendly to speculative fiction, and specifically encouraged diversity and writing about marginalized groups.
(Please note that as of right now I have never submitted or been published with any of these, so if anyone has experience with them, good or bad, please feel free to message or reblog this with your experiences.)
Speculative Fiction
- Strange Horizons — Speculative fiction (broadly defined) with an emphasis on diversity, unusual styles, and stories that address politics in nuanced ways. 8c per word. Up to 10,000 words, under 5,000 preferred. Responds within 40 days. LGBT+ positive.
- Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine — Sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. 7-12c per word. Up to 25,000 words. No response times listed.
- Asimov’s Science Fiction — Primarily sci-fi but accepts fantasy and surreal fiction, but no high fantasy/sword and sorcery. Prefers writing that is character driven. 8-10c per word. 1,000-20,000 words. Responds in about five weeks.
- Evil Girlfriend Media — Horror and urban fantasy centered on female empowerment and defying gender stereotypes. $100 flat payment. 4,000-7,000 words. No response times given. LGBT+ friendly.
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies — Fantasy with a focus on secondary worlds and characters. 6c per word. Up to 10,000 words. Average response time 2-4 weeks.
- Fantastic Stories — Speculative fiction with an emphasis on diversity and literary style. 15c per word. Up to 3,000 words. Responds within two weeks. LGBT+ positive.
- Fiction Vortex — Serialized fantasy and speculative fiction. $300 for featured stories, $50 otherwise. 3,500 words or less. No response times given.
- Shimmer — Speculative fiction with an emphasis on diversity, strong plots, vivid characters, and beautiful writing. 5c per word. 7,500 words or less (will consider longer words with query letter). Usually responds within two weeks. LGBT+ positive.
- Clarkesworld Magazine — Sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. 10c per word up to 5,000 words, 8c per word after. 1,000-16,000 words. Responds within days usually, gives a tracking number.
- Apex Magazine — Speculative fiction of all kinds. 6c per word, +1c per word for podcast stories. Up to 7,500 words, all submissions over will be auto-rejected. Responds within 30 days.
- Heliotrope Magazine — Speculative fiction of all kinds. 10c per word. Up to 5,000 words. Responds within 30 days.
- Lightspeed Magazine — Speculative fiction of all kinds, with creativity and originality in terms of style and format encouraged. 8c per word. 1,500-10,000 words, under 5,000 preferred. LGBT+ positive. Submissions temporarily closed for their main magazine but is accepting for their People of Color Destroy Science Fiction special.
General Fiction
- The Sun Magazine — General fiction, likes personal writing or writing of a cultural/political significance. $300-$1500 flat payment and a one year subscription to the magazine for fiction (also accepts essays and poetry). No minimum or maximum lengths but over 7,000 words discouraged. Responds in 3-6 months. Physical submissions only.
- One Story — Any and all varieties of fiction, “unique and interesting” stories encouraged. $500 payment plus 25 contributor copies. 3,000-8,000 words. Usually responds in 2-3 months.
- Camera Obscura — General fiction. $1000 for featured story, $50 for “Bridge the Gap” award, no payment for other contributors. 250-8,000 words. Response time vary, running just over two months as of now.
Flash Fiction
- Daily Science Fiction — Speculative flash fiction (including sci-fi, fantasy, slipstream, etc.). 8c per word. Up to 1,500 words, but shorter stories given priority. Response times not listed.
- Vestral Review — General flash fiction. 3-10c per word depending on length to a max of $25. Up to 500 words. Response within four months.
- Flash Fiction Online — General flash fiction. $60 flat payment. 500-1,000 words. Response times not listed.
Novels/Novella
- Riptide Publishing — Any LGBTQ manuscripts between 15,000 and 150,000 words. Currently especially interested in lesbian romances, trans stories, asexual/aromantic stories, romances with a happy ending, and genre fiction such as urban fantasy. Also has a YA branch. LGBT+ positive.
- Crimson Romance — Romance stories of all kinds, currently seeking LGBT+ stories with a focus on emotional connections and relationships, especially m/m romance. Novel (55,000-90,000 words) or novella (20,000-50,000 words) length. LGBT+ positive.
Kindle Direct Publishing
- Kindle Direct Publishing — Allows you to set your own prices, create your own cover art, and make royalties off of each sell. Any and all genres are welcome and if you’re prolific and smart about how you’re publishing you can make pretty good money.
- General Guide to Kindle Publishing — Gives a good rundown of the publishing process on Kindle.
- 101 Guide to Kindle Erotica — Great guide with lots of resources about how to make money publishing erotica on Kindle.
Publishing Comics/Graphic Novels
🐱 ♥️ 🐰 absolutely love this
By: Cat Cafe Comics
roselinbooks-deactivated2021032
A Writing Reminder:
🌟 Your writing has value! 🌟 It’s okay if you’re too busy to write at the moment! 🌟 It’s okay if you want to take a break for a bit! 🌟 You’re going to be okay!
“To me there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For me, that’s the only way I can make sense of the world, with all the dance that it involves.”
— Arundhati Roy (via keepcalmandwritefiction)
disgruntledinametallicatshirt
you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!
Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.
He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.
The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”
It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.
He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died. He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.
Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough.
You’re not Terry Pratchett.
You are you.
And Terry would love that.
Chapter 1 - Gentleman & Cat
This is the first chapter of a lovely little web manga called Ojisama to Neko, which I’ve translated as “Gentleman & Cat”. Manga by Umi Sakurai, translation and scanlation editing by me. You can read the original on the author’s Twitter, and it’s also being published in Japan! If you enjoy this manga, please support the official release if possible. =)
Have you ever wondered where books come from?
Well then, let me show you, because that’s what I do for a living.
Right now, it’s this time of the year, and the little ones have just freshly hatched:
You’ll notice they’re still blind and naked when they hatch. So I make them little coats to keep them warm during their first winter:
See how they happily line up to put them on:
See? Better. Now they’re ready to go and explore the world.
And if they make it through the winter and we take good care of them, they will grow up to be strong and wise like their older fellows:
So, in case you were ever wondering, now you know.
bluelightseven
As a Publishing Professional I can say that this is 10000% accurate, and I am a little concerned you’re just giving away all of our industry secrets on Tumblr.
I am a famousy awards-winning author of BOOKS and I endorse this post.
I am literally crying from how cute this is
IMPORTANT BOOK KNOWLEDGE!
smallest-feeblest-boggart
i cannot believe this post reached neil fucking gaiman
The best scene in Nosferatu 1922, sound remastered because i felt that we had to have this
Me sneaking into the kitchen at 3:42 to eat leftover pasta
turn on sound and you’ll see what i mean
Vintage Posters for Libraries and Reading
After a look at those vintage ads for iconic books, how about some vintage ads and posters for all books? Delightfully colorful and brimming with endearingly bad copywriting, these mid-century gems exude the same charming literary enthusiasm we’ve previously seen in the reading PSA posters of the WPA era.
see more via: brainpickings