Reblog This Post With The Most Useless Piece Of Knowledge You Know.

the artists that draw our favorite characters laughing together in kitchens are the pillars of the world, carrying its weight from collapse.

subwayhands + reading

Some aesthetic playlists for writing

For when you’re in an 80s teen montage

For when you’re in a jazz coffee shop in NYC

For when you’re on a quest to find the fae queen

For when you’re in a teen road-trip scene

For when you’re chilling on a spaceship hopping from planet to planet

For when you’re running along the roofs of renaissance Italy

For when you’re a farmhand taking his lunch break in the meadow 

For when you’re a high end classy ass art thief

For when you’re kicking butt with the beauty and sass of a k-pop star

For when you’re attending a coronation ball for the crown prince 

For when you’re going on an adventure

For when you and your best friends are trying to figure out life together

let me know if you want me to add more!!!

when elena ferrante said “there are people who leave and people who know how to be left” and when richard siken said “someone has to leave first. this is a very old story. there is no other version of this story.” and when sally rooney wrote “if i told you where my car is right now, i don’t think i’d be able to leave, i think i would have to stay here just in case you changed your mind about everything” and when mikko harvey said “the number of hours we have together is actually not so large. please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.”and when karese burrows wrote “i have never seen a door that doesn’t look like you leaving. look at me writing this poem. even here i don’t mean anything i say. except that I still want you. that whatever is in me still loves you deeply. it is a light i can’t turn off. i clap my hands and nothing happens.” and when margarita karapanou said “i never expected you to actually finish anything. you were always leaving. i always picture you with a suitcase in your hand.”

31 Horrific Days [October Writing Challenge]

So it’s still September, BUT the month of Halloween is quickly approaching and I figured some people may like to get a head start on this so they have things to post! Here are 31 prompts for writing, one for each day of October. Skip any days that irk you or that you just don’t have the time and energy for, but feel free to use the tag #31horrificdays so others can see your work! As always, the prompts are up for interpretation and are meant to inspire a plot rather than dictate how it goes - all fandoms, original characters, or even a changing cast is more than welcome! [I may do a part 2 of vague, one-word prompts for those who want something more flexible].

The character goes out on a date (or an outing with a friend) and comes home late that night to see all of their furniture moved/stacked oddly, rotten food in the fridge, but no signs of entry or security issues.

The character learns through conversation that one of their friends hates Halloween.

The character is distressed from several nights of nightmares/sleep paralysis, all of which leave them waking up terrified. Eventually, what they see in their dreams start to blend into reality.

Write a story about supernatural happenings.. from the POV of a character’s pet.

Write a story about a character receiving threatening letters in the mailbox that keep getting scarier and more dangerous every day through the month.

The character, along with one or more others, decide to visit a local haunted house attraction that’s just opened up.

Halloween is rolling around and an odd fair has come to town with all manner of old-fashioned clowns, fire-eaters, and jugglers. The character(s) get their hands on tickets to see the show and cannot resist.

After hearing about an abandoned house in the neighborhood that was supposedly the scene of a gruesome crime years earlier, the character and a friend or two decide to explore the property.

A fun, creepy night of urban exploration gets the character(s) into trouble.

While spending some time at the beach at night, the character comes across something else moving near the shore, something that may or may not be human at all.

The character didn’t plan on any costume for Halloween this year, but their best friend/partner wants to go shopping for the perfect costumes, perhaps even as a themed pair.

Write a plot about a character meeting a fae creature, but realizing they aren’t as pretty and delicate as the fairy tales made them believe.

After watching a horror movie, the character claims there weren’t scared at all. However, once the house is quiet and dark, they’re suddenly hiding under their covers in fear.

With Halloween approaching, weird people have been hanging around town. Very weird people. ‘People in masks standing outside of houses’ weird people, including the character’s house.

Two character end up in a battle over which is better: ghostly horror movies or monster movies?

After the death of a friend or family member, the character (and possibly one or a few others) finds a hidden trap door in their home while cleaning out their belongings. Inside, they uncover secrets the deceased was hiding.

The character makes a new friend who claims to be an actual witch. They end up proving it to them with an impressive display of magic (if the preferred character is actually a witch, feel free to change the POV)

The character ends up locked in another reality where everything around them is just a bit ‘off’, as well as the fact that no one seems to recognize them. Then they meet one other character who does remember them, and appears to be going through the same thing.

The character has a run-in with someone from their past; someone they know for a fact has been dead for years.

The character has had a near-death experience, and is seeing a few moments between worlds before they’re brought back to life.

The character(s) have a run-in with an odd trick-or-treater a week before Halloween, but the eerie child refuses to leave their doorstep

The character, along with one other, travels to the Suicide Forest in Japan (or another famous haunted wilderness of writer’s choice) and uncovers something grisly, or perhaps even gets lost and disoriented. 

The muse meets up with an old friend or family member, and together they find home videos from their childhood Halloweens. This could be either a heartwarming experience, or an eerie one if they see something spooky they didn’t remember from their past.

The character starts a brand new job, but quickly learns that there are warnings that come with the job. No wonder they can’t keep employees for more than a few days.

The character (one or more others are optional as well) has been kidnapped and locked in a cellar, trying to find the means of escape.

Write a ghost story including any characters of your choice, with one twist: the story takes place in a past decade or century.

The character has just moved to a new city and isn’t familiar with anyone or anything. As they’re taking a walk late at night to relieve their stress, they have an eerie feeling that they’re being followed down every block.

Write a horror plot centered around a gas station (petrol station).

The character lost a beloved pet a year earlier, and finally decides it’s time to bring home a new shelter pet to love. They’re magnetically drawn to one animal in particular, but once they take it home, they start to suspect that this animal may not be ordinary at all.

Write a story from the perspective of a legendary monster (lagoon creature, zombie, sea monster, yeti, etc)

It’s Halloween night - write a story about a costume party or get-together going terribly wrong.

“You don’t meet the people you love, you recognize them.”

― Anna Gavalda, “Life, Only Better” , trans. Tina Kover

“You and I know each other in our bones”

― Kurt Vonnegut, from a letter to Nanny Vonnegut 

“but everyone had this patina

  of slightly bruised longing, this shimmer of

  I think I knew you when we were children,

  this look of I’ve loved you ever since you

were born

  and probably longer than that”

― Paul Hostovsky, from “Everyone was Beautiful,” Dear Truth (Main Street Rag, 2009)

“He’s been here in my heart before I even knew him. Understand? He’s always been here. Always.”

― Sandra Cisneros , from Woman at Hollering Creek: Stories; “Never Marry a Mexican,”

“You came into my life–not as one comes to visit…but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps…”

— Vladimir Nabokov, in a letter to Véra Slonim (1923), Letters to Véra

“I love you. I feel as though we were never strangers, you and I, not even for a moment.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, from a letter to Mathilde Trampedach

“Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place.”

— Robert Brault

“Here when I say “I never want to be without you,”

somewhere else I am saying

“I never want to be without you again.” And when I touch you

in each of the places we meet in all of the lives we are,

it’s with hands that are dying and resurrected.

When I don’t touch you it’s a mistake in any life,

in each place and forever.

— Bob Hicok, Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem

“She said that she had been searching for my eyes in the crowd because she felt as if she were talking to my heart.”

— Audre Lorde, from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name,” published c. 1982

“Who knows? perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening…”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from You who never arrived (tr. by Stephen Mitchell); Uncollected Poems: 1913–1918

hi my reader friends lithub has a new syllabi section that has some great (u guessed it!) syllabi from much beloved writers like ocean vuong and ross gay here’s the full list that i have already added half of to my tbr:

ekphrastic poetry with victoria chang (featuring works of john ashbery, joy harjo, paul tran)

the literature of obsession with julia may jonas (obsession as transformation, destruction, catharsis and form)

place, space and landscape with alexandra kleeman (featuring didion, okorafor and hernan diaz)

lyric research with ross gay (books that combine research with an “I” like nelson’s bluets or christle’s the crying book)

hybrid poetry with ocean vuong (traditions, innovations and possibilities featuring bhanu kapil, rimbaud, clifton)

multigenre experiments in form with paul lisicky (for writing that explores connections between genres)

reading about writers with peter ho davies (books that teach the craft and give writing advice, think ‘the outline’ trilogy)

speculative women with lina maria ferreira cabeza-vanegas (a look at speculative works by women writers like jemisin, butler, k le guin)

writers and the world with viet thanh nguyen (rankine, baldwin, and coates)

sports and contemporary writing with sam lipsyte (exactly what it says on the tin)

snoopy of the day

And is this train due in 0 minutes in the station with us right now?