@Ash Can't you still get interesting Q&A out of less-deep literature?

Thread to keep an eye on:

@Ash But...it's still telling stories, no? It must be doing at least that. I doubt this site is just there to dispute what holds the earth together in its innermost elements.

There seem to be quite some possibilities for delving into people's motivations, especially in scenarios as strong as romantic relationships.

Please listen to Ash. You've asked someone to do something and they've declined, for various intensely personal reasons having to do with their existing experiences on this site and their relationship to the subject at hand: they said no, and they said no because they don't feel comfortable with the site in that regard.

Uh, what's going on right now?

I feel like I said something much more strong or binding than I actually did.

You added to an existing conversation that was already going sideways, in the context of this chat having a history of pressuring Ash to participate in ways they've explicitly said they don't want to.

@Ash Absolutely. The only reason I pinged you specifically was because you seem to have a lot of expertise/enthusiasm in romance, probably more than anyone else in this room. Sorry if I came across as pushy.

I'm sorry for giving my two cents on a public chat conversation. Next time maybe ping her in a private chatroom. I don't even have a dog in this race, I don't really give a rat's ass if she asks romance questions here or not. I'm not sure what you're trying to make out of this.

You are not being singled out, Napoleon.

You are part of a conversation that went sideways.

Camp NaNoWriMo started today, if anyone was interested/planning on participating this year.

@Mithrandir What's that when it's at home?

Sounds a bit Soviet, using morphemes instead of letters for an acronym.

@Ash I don't think so, but for Camp you can get assigned to a cabin and chat with other people who are also writing, and, well, it's April and not November ;)

@Randal'Thor National Novel Writing Month, although it's kinda international by now, which takes place in November and encourages amateur writers to write a novel.

@Ash I used to enjoy the Writing SE weekly writing exercises, before they moved to meta and petered out.

@Picard Oh hey! Did you get promoted?

@Randal'Thor And they got moved to Meta because the chat ones kinda petered out...

@Randal'Thor Umm. NaNoWriMo started in San Francisco in 1999.

@Mithrandir I love writing novels ... just wish I had time for it these days.

@Randal'Thor yep, Riker is now on the Melbourne

@BESW Oh yeah, I didn't think it was Soviet.

@Picard Gone Aussie?

<ooc> no that's just the name of the ship he got promoted to iirc </ooc>

Thread to watch:

"Fresh voices: 50 writers you should read now," in The Grauniad Guardian.

It's almost funny how self-admittedly insular the Grauniad is with some of those picks.

"Writing While Autistic #9: Do allistics even have theory of mind?" by Rose Lemberg on Patreon.

"Apparition Lit Recommends! Poetry," by Rebecca Bennett for Apparition Lit.

^^

@Randal'Thor Reading Ayn Rand is its own reward :) I'm actually really fascinated by Guy Francon this time around... he seems like a much more decent, human character than last time I read The Fountainhead. An old fraud, yes, but still a halfway decent fraud that has some really good moments as a character.

@Randal'Thor Still listening - the beginning was a bit slow but it's starting to get more interesting now

Out of curiosity, what do people think about maybe having a book on literary theory or something like that as a reading challenge?

I've been hunting around for a good non-fiction book to suggest, too

"La Borinqueña Fights for 'Ricanstruction' in New Comic Anthology," by Sameer Rao for Colorlines.

I find comics so much easier when they aren't the interminable never-beginning never-ending always-changing never-growing DC/Marvel song & dance hootenanny of horrors.

Also, when they aren't desperately trying to recapture the magic-that-was-never-there nostalgia for the Miller Time Edgefest and Alan Moorecrazy.

That makes sense.

Hmm.

Have you tried The Tea Dragon Society? I haven't finished it yet, but it IS a finished work and very adorable.

Not black and white, but doesn't do a lot with shades and gradients so.... [shrug]

The dragons are cat-sized and have antler-horns that grow tea leaves!

Oh! Goldie Vance. It's a space-race-era teenage detective series with a pretty straightforward art style.

I hope it's helpful! No pressure at all.

I know, right. It's so nice to find really good quality stuff that isn't determined to make me feel sad.

Or angry.

Most of the Middleman comics are black and white, just because they didn't have the budget for anything else until their Indiegogo campaign funded The Pan-Universal Parental Reconciliation.

They're a bit more cynical but still a lot of fun. Not a simple art style to parse, though. I have trouble with the lack of good line variation.

(There's a TV show too. It's not bad. Cancelled after one season.)

Enough of The Power of the Dark Crystal would probably work for you that I was about to recommend it, but then I went and looked and remembered that... some of it's really really not gonna work for you.

@EJoshuaS Oh, I forgot you had the audiobook! How do they manage the double-storyline thing there? Different voices for the "red text" and "green text" parts (the bits in Fantastica and the bits with Bastian in the real world)?

Yeah.

I wish it was easier for people to understand the admitted value of the "death of the author" lens without thinking that means we can't or shouldn't consider the author as also integral to their own work.

Complexity exists, and is awesome.

Really, I think the value in "death of the author" lies in giving us space and permission to treat the reader's interaction with the text as just as valid and valuable to consider as the author's.

Shoghi Effendi once said in a letter that two things can appear completely contradictory and both be completely true, if they are equally distant from a shared truth but in opposite directions.

They appear to contradict if we compare them to each other, but we can see how they are in accord if we compare them to the shared core from which they originate.