Writing Across Universes

BY ERIN ENTRADA KELLY

Years ago, I was a young journalist sitting in Ernest Gaines’ living room. He had just been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His Lafayette home was well-organized, tidy, and succinct. So was Mr. Gaines. The first thing he said was “you’re late.”

Despite our rocky start, I sat across from him with young writerly fascination. This man—son of sharecroppers, Stanford fellow, Nobel Prize nominee—had written A Gathering of Old Men, Lesson Before Dying, and now he sat before me, a wide-eyed, somewhat naïve journalist who had a stack of unfinished novels in her closet and a million more in her head.

I asked the question that is too-often asked: “What’s your writing routine?”

This is actually a great article for those struggling to make time while busy (like me)).

its time to reintroduce my favorite venn diagram back into the biome

Treating kids harshly and saying it prepares them for the world is like throwing shit on an open wound and saying it prepares it for bacteria.

The Main six Baldur's Gate Companions

yknow it's a real shame that romans didn't have access to australia specifically for augury reasons. i really wish i could have seen a roman augur have to deal with australian birds. like imagine trying to properly interpret an omen from a fuckin. cassowary

loving that the general consensus here is that "the omen when you see a cassowary is that you are about to die of cassowary"

The cassowary evaluates your innards, not the other way around

If this isn't the truest thing

DIRT WIZARD DIRT WIZARD DIRT WIZARD

Found this far funnier than I should have

someone please tell me if this is actually in accordance with how you spell irish stuff

I appreciate your curiosity!! This is exactly how we’d Gaelicise English names.

The J in Jason becoming an S is based on the model of Seán being the Irish version of John, and of Séamus being the Irish version of James. Séason would be pronounced Shay-son.

T is pronounced very softly in Irish, and when it’s followed by an E, it becomes a CH sound. The EA diphtong in Tead is pronounced as ‘ah’. So Tead would be pronounced as Chad, exactly the same.

As above, the EA is pronounced ‘ah’ and the combination GH is silent in Irish, so Hearraigh would be pronounced as Harry is in English, despite the initially alarming length.

Darach is already an Irish name, meaning ‘like an oak,’ and it’s usually Anglicised as Dara or Darragh (pronounced identically to each other), so suggesting Dairech = Derek is just extra funny.

I don’t think I’ll actually be able to scrub Ailfiagh out of my mind. It sounds too Irish, to the point that it’s replaced Alfie as the default spelling for me.

In short, We Need to Talk about Caoimhín (Kwee-veen) is a genius.

The Virgin latinize vs the tead gealicise

@whosayscrimedoesntpay

(dry evil grin) I’ve met all too many people who’d like to reduce the real-world Ireland to the kind of theme-park status it presently holds in their poor sad brains.

After thirty years here… nothing to do but sweep one arm in the general direction of the Irish language, and say: “Here. Knock yourselves out.” :)

Why do so many people make tiktoks while they're clearly driving. What the fuck. Stop that shit, you're gonna kill someone.

I think people online treat driving too casually tbh, like there was a poll about people's bad habits while driving and they weren't bad habits or problematic or whatever, they were all things that literally kill people every single day. You are driving a massive vehicle that can very easily turn into a murder weapon with your carelessness, take this shit seriously.

"Haha I never use my turn signals" you are going to kill someone.

"I don't do full stops at stop signs lol" you are going to kill someone.

"Sometimes I text while I'm driving 🤭" YOU ARE GOING TO KILL SOMEONE.

Also people who speed up or suddenly stop or swerve a lot to freak out someone in the car for fun: it stops being funny when you get into a car accident because of it. Just so you know.

as a professional driver with advanced training and multiple certifications, none of this is an exaggeration. you WILL kill someone if you keep rolling the dice.

this being said! since my profession has me navigating denver, a place where basically everyone is trying to kill each other, i have some tips to keep yourself (relatively) safe from these kinds of roadborne pests:

when you drive you are operating heavy machinery at speed so have some respect for that

The daily struggles of Ishgard

Based on this reply by Yoshi-P from the New Year questioning:

Respectfully, Ireland is the best country on the planet

from the same thread:

I have witnessed so much slaughter and death here

People with low spoons, someone just recommended this cookbook to me, so I thought I’d pass it on.

I always look at cookbooks for people who have no energy/time to do elaborate meal preparations, and roll my eyes. Like, you want me to stay on my feet for long enough to prepare 15 different ingredients from scratch, and use 5 different pots and pans, when I have chronic fatigue and no dishwasher?

These people seem to get it, though. It’s very simple in places. It’s basically the cookbook for people who think, ‘I’m really bored of those same five low-spoons meals I eat, but I can’t think of anything else to cook that won’t exhaust me’. And it’s free!

SPREAD THE WORD THIS IS FUCKING GOD TIER OH MY GOD, SOMETIMES I HAVE SPOONS SOMETIMES I DON’T BUT NO COOKBOOK OFFERS LEVELS IN THEIR RECIPES THIS ONE DOES!

People’s souls vanish from the afterlife if their names stop being mentioned by those in the living world. You, an average person who hasn’t accomplished anything exceptional or abhorrent, have been here for 500 years and still haven’t vanished yet.

need you all to know rick astley was given his own NYE show on the bbc and the very first song he played after the fireworks stopped was never gonna give you up. the new year is 14 minutes old and the whole of the UK has been rickrolled. this is the tone for 2024

Maquinn