"Well, what can I say, I was made in God's image, not in an editor's."

(from You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant by Brad Neely)

"The simplest representation of a chaotic phenomenon is the phenomenon itself. There is more to a cuckoo than a cuckoo clock can contain."

William Poundstone, Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge

The great Ursula Le Guin was once asked what she would do to save the world:

"The syntax implies a further clause beginning with if...

1/3

“When I started writing, the easiest thing for a woman to do was, in a sense, to be an honorary man. To pretend to be a man, to put men at the center of the story. Which does seem to be very important to men.

(1/3)

"Pasha, my young one, there's only a hair's difference between being a storyteller and being a liar," said old Ivan. "Even tall people with whiskers and learing sometimes forget the difference."

--from Gregory Maguire's The Dream Stealer

"To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have."

—from Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

#writing #art

You know what we #writers, #editors, and creatives don't talk enough about?

With all this time we spend hunched over our desks and laptops, what are your favorite neck and back stretches?

I'm partial to this one:

You know that if you have writing questions, you can just ask me, right?

My only rule is you ask out in the open (no DMs please) so everyone can learn from us.

#askaneditor #writingtips #writing

We're so pleased to bring back Ursula's "Navigating the Ocean of Story" posts from 2015-2016. In this series, originally hosted at Book View Café, she took questions about fiction writing and gave thoughtful answers about structure, genre, character, publishing, and so much more.

Another book rec for defeating writer's block:

❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️

Do you ever feel like you're writing the same kinds of sentences over and over? Want to break out of the cycle?

Then allow me to introduce you to Virginia Tufte's Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style.

#writer #author #writersblock

Look, I like to keep it cutesy here. I'm just a wee little man who dances through your manuscript and slides your commas around la de da...

But whenever some tech bro bloviates about AI disrupting books or whatever, all I can think is, gee, what a roundabout way of telling the world you don't read.

If you'd like to publish your book without enriching four entities that emerged from the bio-jelly of a thousand pulped tech-bros, you could scan this writeup I put together on self publishing Legends & Lattes, which cost less than 5k and involved human artists and editors
medium.com/@travisbaldr...

Learned a new word today that I thought I'd share:

CRITICASTER (n.) an inferior or petty critic

Extra credit to anyone who uses it in a sentence.

And extra *extra* credit to anyone who writes or otherwise creates art in spite of the criticasters out there.

Reading Jack Vance's The Tales of the Dying Earth and letting all the proper nouns just wash over me like a warm summer wave.

I will, however, be checking under my bed for Chun the Unavoidable... *shiver*

If you know, you know.

#fantasy #booksky

I don't like assigning homework, but Ursula K. Le Guin's The Language of the Night should be required reading for all #writers.

Recommended especially for #authors in a creative rut.

Thanks to everyone who followed me today!

Little Guy is a small business (pun intended), and I'm an editor, not a marketer. Your support means everything.

So, who needs their novel edited in 2025? 👀 👀 👀 👀

#writing #writingcommunity #indieauthors

"Let us not forget that [myths and fairy tales] were improvised in social spaces as an early form of collective bargaining, with call and response, give and take, and a chatty back-and-forth that often took the form of 'That's not how I heard it.'"

- Maria Tatar

#writingcommunity #writing #myth

Favorite reads of 2024:

▫️I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane

▫️Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum

▫️This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

▫️The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin

▫️Tracer by Frederick Barthelme

What do you recommend I read next?

hi, bluesky! i'm little guy.

i edit novels and tabletop roleplaying games for a living, and i don't take up that much space, so i've got that going for me.

follow if you like:

✅️ storytelling advice

✅️ quotes from great writers

✅️ grammar and syntax tips

✅️ a short king