Sure, this is a writing community; but dedicated writers are always reading. What am I reading? To my daughter (who is almost 6): - First: Doctor Who and the Runaway Tardis - Next: 4 pages of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban each night - After that: Some combination of Goodnight books (Goodnight Lab, Goodnight Unicorns, and/or Goodnight Moon) For myself? I'm bouncing around. - Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (great ideas for character flaws and uncomfortable emotions) - The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (great for tactical thinking and understanding motives) - Various cooking/baking recipes (great for structure and rooting myself in the tangible world) - Dead Space: Martyr by B. K. Evenson (writing genre research; SciFi Horror) Your turn. What are you reading and why, and/or what's your favorite book(s) and why?

Does anyone here write their stories by hand? 🤔 I'd never written a book by hand....until now. I've always been an avid journaler and I love the feeling of putting pen to paper. It feels organic and natural. But this is my first time writing a book this way. And so far, I'm loving it. ⭐️ Here are some of the reasons why. - It feels like I can tap into the magic much more easily and the story comes more naturally. - It's nice not to be staring at a screen (which I do too much of already). - I can't tap around on other tabs and pull up YouTube when I'm feeling stuck. - It stops me from editing as I go along. That last one is a biggie for me. When I'm typing on my laptop I have a tendency to go back and edit as I write, but I'm not supposed to be doing that on a first draft! 👨🏻‍🦳 James Patterson said. "Get your first draft out of you as fast as you can, and don't look back until it's finished." It's kind of crazy, but I think I actually write faster by hand than I do on my laptop. Because I'm not editing myself and I can't get distracted by the internet. I'm only just starting, but so far so freaking good! Do you write by hand✍️ or are you sticking to the keyboard? ⌨️

Anger is a river I cannot cross, A fractured mosaic, with fragments of glass strewn atop the bottom of its bed, tiptoeing into it’s imperceptible depth my every breath focusing on the next step, light as a feather, one foot, then the other; Screaming violently silent inside, internally steaming, boiling over the stream and seeping through skin in tones, demanding tunes my voice struggles to stay ahead of, a pairing of notes from a mandolin with the stoicism of a mannequin to preserve what humanity remains unblemished, to preserve the small semblances of peace; Piece by piece I am picking and sifting through the shatter, shifting tinier and tinier shards with sharper edges and watching air oxidize what is within before forcing itself out between small scratches, bleeding into the river and skewing its color like a palette to paint with.

Eclectic acrobats swinging from desire to necessity like a child’s indecision, This or that trinket, this or that water, food, shelter, or blanket, Dollars of various denominations trickling out of pocket like the broken spigot, fumbling down the proverbial drain, or just onto the lawn off the pavement, There is always some other arrangement, some obligatory bill like a warning or advisory of a storm forever looming just out of mind’s sight. Trash becomes treasure, becomes more than unused toys, play becomes time with others to satisfy the undeniable hunger of materialism reestablishing what matters, money relinquishing it’s powers reluctantly like the bully no one is afraid of, like the object it was never meant to be, just another version of a life one is never meant to see.

Im feeling blue like brass tunes, weighed down underneath heavy jazz, but I can’t hear the music or understand the muse, just background sound to another outsider here for some amusement; Parking myself to watch the bodies bounce like crickets, the people are cutting up and down the floor with classic moves and intentional switches from ten toes of one foot to their own flow and back again, their movements like life, unscripted. Here the heat escapes and climbs like friction or a static shock, hot like streets underneath summer sunbeams, I’m sweating without participating, perspiring beneath a melancholy looming uncontrollably over me, fighting to avoid feeling defeated or downtrodden, run down and beat up by a life I can’t seem to figure out the moves to; Im circling the spot, obsessing over this mental block, I can’t seem to build with and spiraling with thoughts and questions like: If life’s a game are you playing to win or playing for your enjoyment? If you’re playing for enjoyment how does one afford it? And if you’re playing to win then what is it that reports it and what measurements record it? All around me humanity walks through waves of personal and external struggle, wading against the wake and into an unknown that renders my own dancing feet with an unbearable stagnancy, So here I sit stationary, just a spectator praying tomorrow treats me fairly.