tragedy enjoyers when even good intentions lead to ruin

1920s sand dollar print

While it might look like an abstract painting, it's actually the surface pattern off a cedar tree trunk washed up onto the beach. I found it to be a fascinating mix of shading, energy and flow. I can see people, fish, the flow of rivers - the record of a whole life story just waiting to be discovered and retold.

Zinaida Serebriakova - Girl with a candle. Self portrait (1911)

Harold Harvey (British, 1874-1941)

Out to Sea, ca. 1902

This would be an adorable little tattoo. 💕 1908. Source.

i hope you write (i hope we both write)

hand in unedited hand

i know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: a big, big part of maintaining your confidence & self esteem as a creator is fully embracing the concept of “you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.”

for example, i’m not someone who’s particularly good at coming up with complex, elaborate plots or incredibly unique ideas.  it’s just not how i choose to write.  and it would be easy for me to look at someone with an elaborate, super unique plot & decide that because i don’t write like that, i’m not a good writer.  after all, unique plots are good, and my writing lacks those, so my writing must not be good, right?  well, no, actually.  i just have different strengths, like taking a simple premise & digging super deep into its emotional depths.  that’s what i do well & it isn’t any better or worse than people who do elaborate world building or come up with really creative and unexpected plots.

your writing is never going to be all things to all people.  it just isn’t.  inevitably, you’ll have to make creative choices that favor certain aspects of writing over others.  there is truly no getting around that & it’s honestly a good thing, because it means you’ve developed your own style.  but you’ll always encounter other creators who posses strengths that you don’t.  it doesn’t mean one is better than the other or that your writing isn’t good enough. 

comparing yourself like that would be like taking a piece of pizza & a cupcake & going “oh no, that cupcake is so sweet & my pizza isn’t sweet at all.” or “gosh, the garlic crust on that pizza is delicious and my cupcake doesn’t have ANY garlic.”  obviously your pizza isn’t sweet.  obviously your cupcake doesn’t have garlic.  a food can’t have every single delicious flavor at once.  the cupcake is good like a cupcake.  the pizza is good like a pizza.  so you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.

This also means that sometimes you will get writing advice on how to improve your cupcakes and sometimes you will get writing advice on how to add garlic to your cupcakes because the reader doesn’t get that you’re not making a pizza

The best advice comes from people who generally like what you’re going for

Mallard duckling . . . Cupola Park, Millsboro, Delaware . . . 8/1/23

早春の空

2019年、小石川植物園。

寒桜が春の訪れを告げる。

In what world is tall muscular man not conventionally attractive

We've all been down here too long. I truly think there's a chunk of tumblr's population that can no longer survive sunlight.

women will say “hear me out” and show u a photo of pyramid head and then tumblr users will go “this is a perfectly normal man and an ice cold take”