Karen
@klnovak538.bsky.social
Writer between projects. Therapist to a Silver Lab (apparently). Currently renovator of a house that hasn't been painted in 30 years. I know this because I painted it--and ragged-on finishes *will* too come back in style. Thinks too much.
Useful character-creating info: Emotions and feelings are not the same things. Emotions are a body's physical response to situations. Feelings are a mind's complex of meanings attached to that physical response. Rapid breathing, hot face, tight chest = fury, shame, and anxiety all at once.
#writing
#writing
December 18, 2024 at 10:07 AM
Useful character-creating info: Emotions and feelings are not the same things. Emotions are a body's physical response to situations. Feelings are a mind's complex of meanings attached to that physical response. Rapid breathing, hot face, tight chest = fury, shame, and anxiety all at once.
#writing
#writing
Reposted by Karen
#Writing software resources for SFFH writers and more!
The big list of worldbuilding software! I know this just scratches the surface, but hopefully it's helpful if you're starting out
#writing
open.substack.com/pub/cjsubko/...
#writing
open.substack.com/pub/cjsubko/...
The big list of worldbuilding software
For writers and Iore-builders
open.substack.com
December 16, 2024 at 6:41 PM
#Writing software resources for SFFH writers and more!
In regard to the patriarchal Jabberwok waiting on the threshold of the coming year, I keep thinking about the final line of Terry Gilliam's film Time Bandits: "Don't touch it! It's Evil!" The warning goes unheeded, and terrible things happen. A strange but apt parable for 2025? #writingcommunity
December 14, 2024 at 11:05 AM
In regard to the patriarchal Jabberwok waiting on the threshold of the coming year, I keep thinking about the final line of Terry Gilliam's film Time Bandits: "Don't touch it! It's Evil!" The warning goes unheeded, and terrible things happen. A strange but apt parable for 2025? #writingcommunity
Reposted by Karen
I think perhaps my greatest talent is my ability to respond to both compliments and criticisms with the exact same anxiety spiral
December 13, 2024 at 3:02 PM
I think perhaps my greatest talent is my ability to respond to both compliments and criticisms with the exact same anxiety spiral
The best writing advice I ever received: "Stop trying to prove you can write, and just tell the goddamn story."
#writingcommunity #writing
#writingcommunity #writing
December 13, 2024 at 3:00 PM
The best writing advice I ever received: "Stop trying to prove you can write, and just tell the goddamn story."
#writingcommunity #writing
#writingcommunity #writing
What was the first book you remember reading with an awareness of the power in the writing? Mine was Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Velvet Room. I read it in fifth grade, back in the late 1960's. It has stuck with me since and is probably why I always write about big, old houses.
#writingcommunity
#writingcommunity
December 12, 2024 at 1:14 PM
What was the first book you remember reading with an awareness of the power in the writing? Mine was Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Velvet Room. I read it in fifth grade, back in the late 1960's. It has stuck with me since and is probably why I always write about big, old houses.
#writingcommunity
#writingcommunity
Reposted by Karen
I used to dream of being a millionaire, celebrity author. Now I really just want to have people love my books, a little house with my cat and corgi, and for writing Gaslight to be my job instead of something I work on around a full time job and two full time chronic illnesses. #writingsky
December 11, 2024 at 10:29 AM
I used to dream of being a millionaire, celebrity author. Now I really just want to have people love my books, a little house with my cat and corgi, and for writing Gaslight to be my job instead of something I work on around a full time job and two full time chronic illnesses. #writingsky
Reposted by Karen
Medium or Wordpress or Both?
Looking for help and guidance for anyone with experience or either or both platforms.
I’m an aspiring short story writer that wants a platform to publish my own works for others to read.
Can you help?
#wordpress #medium #both #publish #writer #shortstory
Looking for help and guidance for anyone with experience or either or both platforms.
I’m an aspiring short story writer that wants a platform to publish my own works for others to read.
Can you help?
#wordpress #medium #both #publish #writer #shortstory
December 11, 2024 at 9:52 AM
Medium or Wordpress or Both?
Looking for help and guidance for anyone with experience or either or both platforms.
I’m an aspiring short story writer that wants a platform to publish my own works for others to read.
Can you help?
#wordpress #medium #both #publish #writer #shortstory
Looking for help and guidance for anyone with experience or either or both platforms.
I’m an aspiring short story writer that wants a platform to publish my own works for others to read.
Can you help?
#wordpress #medium #both #publish #writer #shortstory
With a new writing project percolating up from the depths, I am wondering what, for you, is the more necessary: writing from empathy for a suffering person or writing that suffering in hopes of evoking empathy in the reader? Especially when having no direct experience of their pain?
#writing
#writing
December 11, 2024 at 10:34 AM
With a new writing project percolating up from the depths, I am wondering what, for you, is the more necessary: writing from empathy for a suffering person or writing that suffering in hopes of evoking empathy in the reader? Especially when having no direct experience of their pain?
#writing
#writing
Way back in the early 2000's, Bloomsbury USA published four of my novels: Five Mile House, Ordinary Monsters, Innocence and The Wilderness. I was incredibly blessed by great editors and production staff. The books are still up in different formats and being read. Still incredibly blessed.
#writing
#writing
December 7, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Way back in the early 2000's, Bloomsbury USA published four of my novels: Five Mile House, Ordinary Monsters, Innocence and The Wilderness. I was incredibly blessed by great editors and production staff. The books are still up in different formats and being read. Still incredibly blessed.
#writing
#writing
When COVID hit in 2020, I couldn't focus for more than 3 minutes at a time. I stopped reading. Now, wanting to return to books, I am hoping for recommendations. What would you suggest as the first fiction to reach for after 5 years away?
#Booksky 💙📚
#Booksky 💙📚
December 5, 2024 at 11:39 AM
When COVID hit in 2020, I couldn't focus for more than 3 minutes at a time. I stopped reading. Now, wanting to return to books, I am hoping for recommendations. What would you suggest as the first fiction to reach for after 5 years away?
#Booksky 💙📚
#Booksky 💙📚
Reposted by Karen
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.”
— Octavia E. Butler
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.”
— Octavia E. Butler
December 3, 2024 at 7:33 PM
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.”
— Octavia E. Butler
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.”
— Octavia E. Butler
Two days ago, we gave Watson the early gift of a new toy, Checkers the Chicken. Yesterday, I came into the room to find the dog had knocked over couch pillows to create a throne for Checkers--like an icon of some canine religion. This is the glare I got when I started laughing.
December 3, 2024 at 11:17 AM
Two days ago, we gave Watson the early gift of a new toy, Checkers the Chicken. Yesterday, I came into the room to find the dog had knocked over couch pillows to create a throne for Checkers--like an icon of some canine religion. This is the glare I got when I started laughing.
Reposted by Karen
Religion does NOT belong in our schools!
Agreed? ✋
Agreed? ✋
December 1, 2024 at 11:52 PM
Religion does NOT belong in our schools!
Agreed? ✋
Agreed? ✋
Reposted by Karen
When we fight, we win!!!! Remember that!!!!
Made a starter pack of some of the coolest people I know — folks who are in the trenches every day, doing the hard work to rebuild our party and our nation!
LET’S DO THIS ‼️
go.bsky.app/NeayWmc
Made a starter pack of some of the coolest people I know — folks who are in the trenches every day, doing the hard work to rebuild our party and our nation!
LET’S DO THIS ‼️
go.bsky.app/NeayWmc
November 30, 2024 at 7:06 PM
When we fight, we win!!!! Remember that!!!!
Made a starter pack of some of the coolest people I know — folks who are in the trenches every day, doing the hard work to rebuild our party and our nation!
LET’S DO THIS ‼️
go.bsky.app/NeayWmc
Made a starter pack of some of the coolest people I know — folks who are in the trenches every day, doing the hard work to rebuild our party and our nation!
LET’S DO THIS ‼️
go.bsky.app/NeayWmc
Reposted by Karen
can’t stop thinking about this Mary Oliver poem 🥹
November 28, 2024 at 4:23 AM
can’t stop thinking about this Mary Oliver poem 🥹
In September, while revising a long-in-progress novel, I heard a kind of click and then a clarity of voice saying, "Okay. I'm done." Not done with writing, but done with telling that story. I'd told it often enough. Awaiting the next idea to land. Do we choose our content or does it choose us?
November 28, 2024 at 3:18 PM
In September, while revising a long-in-progress novel, I heard a kind of click and then a clarity of voice saying, "Okay. I'm done." Not done with writing, but done with telling that story. I'd told it often enough. Awaiting the next idea to land. Do we choose our content or does it choose us?
Reposted by Karen
This is a real team effort, fellow patriots. 🇺🇸
November 24, 2024 at 5:22 PM
This is a real team effort, fellow patriots. 🇺🇸
Reposted by Karen
Your writing process will change on a daily basis with every project, because every project is different. Whatever gets you to the final product is the way that that book needed to be written.
So I need you to stop scrolling and say this aloud right now.
"My writing process is not broken."
So I need you to stop scrolling and say this aloud right now.
"My writing process is not broken."
November 24, 2024 at 6:55 PM
Your writing process will change on a daily basis with every project, because every project is different. Whatever gets you to the final product is the way that that book needed to be written.
So I need you to stop scrolling and say this aloud right now.
"My writing process is not broken."
So I need you to stop scrolling and say this aloud right now.
"My writing process is not broken."
Art is looking into another person's mirror to see yourself in different guises.
November 24, 2024 at 5:12 PM
Art is looking into another person's mirror to see yourself in different guises.
Reposted by Karen
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Shakespeare: Is this a cup I see before me?
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Shakespeare: Is this a cup I see before me?
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Science Fiction Writer: The cup is a crystalline super computer and the liquid is hyperintelligent, they want to know why humanity should be allowed to exist, you have 30 minutes to respond and the answer must be danced by a cat
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Science Fiction Writer: The cup is a crystalline super computer and the liquid is hyperintelligent, they want to know why humanity should be allowed to exist, you have 30 minutes to respond and the answer must be danced by a cat
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Cosmologist: The cup is dusty or full of gravitational waves
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Cosmologist: The cup is dusty or full of gravitational waves
November 24, 2024 at 3:43 PM
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Shakespeare: Is this a cup I see before me?
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Shakespeare: Is this a cup I see before me?
I sometimes weary of deconstructing everything in search of its human and therefore fatal flaw. This, however, is a good point...
writersaresuperstars.substack.com/p/the-hypocr...
writersaresuperstars.substack.com/p/the-hypocr...
The hypocrisy of Wicked
THERE'S NO EMPATHY IN OUR SOCIETY
writersaresuperstars.substack.com
November 24, 2024 at 4:35 PM
I sometimes weary of deconstructing everything in search of its human and therefore fatal flaw. This, however, is a good point...
writersaresuperstars.substack.com/p/the-hypocr...
writersaresuperstars.substack.com/p/the-hypocr...
Reposted by Karen
I keep seeing this reference to public bathrooms as women's "private spaces" and I just do not understand it. Strangers are strangers even when they're women! We're not communing in there for hours at a time, talking about perimenopause and who's getting divorced and shaving our legs.
November 21, 2024 at 2:17 PM
I keep seeing this reference to public bathrooms as women's "private spaces" and I just do not understand it. Strangers are strangers even when they're women! We're not communing in there for hours at a time, talking about perimenopause and who's getting divorced and shaving our legs.