He wanted to sink you in steaming water, and put into your ashen mouth a slice of thick bread with roe shining on it like rubies. He wanted to sink you in steaming water, and brush your hair, and make you well. But he could not. You were too far gone. So instead he and I held you between us and I fed you, I fed you like a chick. I chewed up stars and sunlight and the rind of the moon and vomited them back into you, the most wholesome food we have known since the youth of the world.
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente

When Ivan returned from his work, he, too, often looked older. He ate his cutlets and bread silently, with a sullen kind of savagery, and with a sullen kind of savagery he wrapped Marya up in his body, and kissed all of the skin she had, and cursed her for not having more.
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente

It was late spring when Marya Morevna slid her brass key into the lock of the house on Dzerzhinskaya Street, feeling it slide, too, between her own ribs, and open her like a reliquary full of old, nameless bones.
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente

And Marya turned. She saw a young man, but not so young, with a broad, sun-reddened face and dark gold hair, like a coin that has often changed hands.
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente

Zemlehyeh looked more or less like what you would get if a particularly stunted and ugly oak tree had fallen passionately in love with a boulder and produced, at great cost to both, a single child.
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.
Anne Lamott (via loveyourchaos)

some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice, some say in lists of 50 must read sci fi novels
@lavietidhar

"Most of it she spent gluing pieces of Toby’s heart back together for another Barbie to gently break it with her off-key birdsong."
@nanowrimo_txt

but if capitalism is destroyed how will we know how much yours or mines life is worth how will we know many green papers a piece of bread is
@aliendovecote

Arguing about whether rape joke are funny is like arguing over whether poison tastes good. It might be delicious, but that's not the issue.
@pervocracy

"Since your relationship with the fox has grown stronger, it will give you a discount on its services inside the TV." #videogames
@vogon

夢見た　世界が
どこかに　あるなら
探しに　行こうか？
風のむこうへ

If the world I saw in my dreams
exists somewhere
would you like to search for it with me
far beyond the wind?

Tabi no Tochuu, KIYOURA Natsumi

She was ugly in a good way, like how a good orgasm makes everyone momentarily hideous.
Fight of Your Life, Snap Judgment #230

I was particularly frustrated by the emails and tweets, because they were out of my control. I suppose no one handles other people’s attention carefully, so one must be vigilent in preserving their own headspace. The tragedy is that cognitive clutter sneaks up on you, no matter how good your intentions.
Frank Chimero

It must needs be that those who aim at great deeds should also suffer greatly.
Plutarch (in Wired for Story)

MYTH: "Show, Don't Tell" is literal — don't me John is sad, show him crying.

REALITY: "Show, Don't Tell" is figurative — don't me John is sad, show me why he's sad.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)

MYTH: Withholding information for the big reveal is what keeps readers hooked.

REALITY: Withholding information very often robs the story of what really hooks readers.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)

The only true voyage of discovery…would be not to visit strange lands but to possess [new] eyes.
Proust (in Wired for Story)

To create organic, compelling obstacles that work, you must make sure that everything your protagonist faces — beginning on page one — springs specifically from the problem she needs to solve, both internally and externally. This will help you avoid a very common pitfall: using a generic "bad situation" to create the protagonist's goal.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)

MYTH: Write what you know.

REALITY: Write what you know emotionally.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)

Indeed, feelings don't just matter — they are what mattering means.
Daniel Gilbert (Stumbling on Happiness)

…plot is not synonymous with story. Plot facilitates story by forcing the protagonist to confront and deal with the issue that keeps him from achieving his goal. The way the world treats him, and how he reacts, reveals the theme. So at the end of the day, what the protagonist is forced to learn as he navigates the plot is what the story is about.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)

Contrary to what people think, a story is not just something that happens. If that were true, we could all cancel the cable, lug our Barcakoungers onto the front lawn, and be utterly entertained, 24/7, just watching the world go by.

…A story isn't simply that happens to someone either.

…A story isn't even something dramatic that happens to someone.

…So what is a story? A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)