(via merlin)

neil-gaiman:

Neil Gaiman

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like…

strangewood:

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

Charles Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977)

(via halfanesraa)

bostonpoetryslam:

“The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

-Mark Twain

6. STOP WASTING TIME ON THE INTERNET

All these tweeters and bloggers and gifs of cats, that’s what’s keeping you from writing! Articles like this! You’re totally wasting daylight here! Stop being so distracted. There’s nothing so very important happening on the internet that won’t be happening next week. Or that you will remember next week. “It’s 11:11 on 11/11/11!!” Good for you. It’s taken me since January to write this article, which I am writing in a few hours finally on a Saturday. Why? Because I’ve been much too busy fucking around on the internet to actually get anything done. Can you believe who the New York Observer named “The Sexiest Nobodies of New York 2012??” I know, neither can I! Don’t worry. The Observer will always have another Top 50 list of unbearable people in the works. If you want to write a novel, no one but yourself is stopping you. In my novel, the character of Tim is in love with the cute lady who works at Marlow & Daughters, who he sees whenever he goes in to buy sausages. What will happen to Tim? We’ll never know! Because I’m too busy writing this. And then looking at cats. And then playing with myself.

neil-gaiman:

A statement I stand beside, and an image I think sums up so many of our childhoods and lives.

kjmichalak:

“[D]on’t ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that’s what they’re there for. Use your library). Don’t apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend’s copy. What’s important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read… ” 
― Neil Gaiman

neil-gaiman:

Excellent links and information:

captainjhwatson:

Since Uganda is getting a lot of interest on the internet right now, I figured it was important to try to present an alternative source of information. Invisible Children is, as many already know, a highly problematic organization, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying to help. Here are some other sources of information, statistics, and ways to donate/help.

• American Progress’s 2007 report, “What to Do About Joseph Kony”
• Amnesty International’s 2011 report on Uganda
• Global Security’s page on the Lord’s Resistance Army
• Washington Post, “A Child’s Hell in the Lord’s Resistance Army,” May 2006.
• HRW: “Protect civilians from LRA abuses,” May 2011
• AllAfrica.com, “Amnesty International wants Kony arrested,” May 2010
• AI’s Uganda Portal
• Human Rights Watch’s Uganda portal
• Democracy Now!’s Uganda portal

(via bostonpoetryslam)

Teller, of Penn and Teller, in a letter at http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2009/9/21/14-years-ago-the-day-teller-gave-me-the-secret-to-my-career.html

Strangely, advice as good for writers or musicians as it is for magicians. 

(via neil-gaiman)