life in the woods.

Seven Rules For Tumblr Writers

1. Cut The Fat: No one wants to read a long, grueling post. If you want to be read, keep your posts skinny.

2. Make It Shiny: Tumblr is visual. Make your writing visual. Poetry is appealing- so are lists and pictures. No blocks of text!

3. Short Sentences Win: This is not the place for semicolons and lengthy sytax. Meet the dash- a great  informal solution.

4. Say Something: What are you giving your followers? Is it entertainment, information or something to relate to? Say Something. 

5. Title: Your title is your hook, your lead. Make it shout. Give it humor, an opinion, a bit of satire. Give it something.

6. Skinny Paragraphs:  Make your paragraphs short and frequent. Don’t be afraid of one-sentence paragraphs— They demand attention.

7. Features: Write for yourself. Don’t worry about intellects or the editor’s watchful eye. Write for you, the everyman. The features will come, and if they don’t- they’re missing something brilliant.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

By Mary Oliver

Avengers vs Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.

I Loved The Avengers.  Everyone did. It’s funny, It has some mild references to physics- it even holds as a political allegory. But there’s something missing

Darkness.

The villain, along with most Marvel supervillans, is from another world. He’s “evil” -obsessed with power and domination.

But that’s the thing about villains. You don’t have to leave this world to find them, you don’t have to be insane or a God from Asgard. You just have to be human.

This is the brilliance of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy. Batman is more than just a superhero fighting evil- he’s fighting the darkness embedded in human nature.

Heath Ledger’s Joker personifies this. He’s obsessed with bringing out the darkness in everyman.  He doesn’t want domination, he wants to prove to Batman that mankind is  evil, and to some extent succeeds.

This is fear. Knowing that we can be the villain- that we are the villain. Harvey Dent’s fall is tragic because of this truth.

Is Batman a hero or a villain? He’s something more. There isn’t a clear line between what’s good and evil- right isn’t always good, and wrong isn’t always evil. This dark truth is what makes the current Batmen series untouchable. Until Marvel can find a way to step from the mainstream and into the depth darkness allows,  their films will countiue to be little more than giggles and action.

Three Authors With Really Horrible Lives.

1. Edgar Allen Poe:  He married his 13 year-old cousin, gambled  away  his inheritance and was almost always intoxicated. But who could blame him? His father left,  his mother died, his foster father abused him and he watched each of his wives, starting with the 13 year-old, die dramatically.

2. The Brontes: Even disregarding the alleged sexual abuse, the Bronte tale is captivatingly miserable. The two eldest died as infants, Brother Branwell became an opium addict and an alcoholic. Emily and Anne  died in their late twenties of tuberculosis, and Charlotte, after an affair with her professor, died in childbirth at age 39. 

3. Earnest Hemingway: Hemingway went insane. He was convinced the FBI was monitoring him and was eventually checked into a mental hospital. He was  treated with electric shock 15 times and released  ”in ruins”. Three months later he was found holding a pistol to his temple and readmitted for more EST- two days later he shot himself in the head.

Read Some Of Their Short Stories (For Free!)

• Edgar Allen Poe: http://www.readbookonline.net/stories/Poe/109/
• Anne Bronte: http://www.readbookonline.net/books/Bronte/37/
• Charlotte Bronte: http://www.readbookonline.net/books/Bronte/24/
• Emily Bronte: http://www.readbookonline.net/books/Bronte/6/
• Hemingway: http://tabootenente.tblog.com/post/1969893029
• http://archive.org/stream/firstfortyninest030256mbp/firstfortyninest030256mbp_djvu.txt 

religion-of-solitude asked: I'm baffled by your claim that "there's nothing to analyze" about Wuthering Heights! As somebody who has studied this text in university, I can tell you that there is A LOT to analyse, especially in comparison to Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. I don't mean this as an insult though, I respect your opinions! I was just a little surprised to see that you dislike this text so much when I, generally, agree with most of your other opinions :) I'm also a big fan of TGG, but agree with you re Fitz.

I will never take an argument as insult. I love debates. Even if i get crushed i end up learning something and scooting my opinions closer to truth.

So in that regard- what specifically is there to analyze in Wuthering Heights? I remember Shakespearian allusions and the effects of setting- but that doesn’t touch Jane Eyre.

There is a significant amount to analyze in Jane Eyre- i think the dynamics of the protagonist alone provides  more than most Victorian novels. In Pride Prejudice there is nothing- absolutely nothing (maybe Darcey’s house as a symbol for his character). My point concerning those  two was that the enjoyment factor makes up for the lack of substance. Even if analyses is stripped from Jane Eyre it holds brilliant. Pride and Prejudice is topical- but  enjoyable :)

Ultimately, a book should be enjoyable. If you strip away analysis and context it should still hold something to cling to. Wuthering Heights, at least for me, didn’t achieve this.

Why I Don’t Like Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby

Wow. You guys are passionate about your lit! My inbox is flooded from the “Books That Annoy Me” post. Most of you agree Twilight is horrible- but you folks are  in love with 2 and 10. Here’s my defense:

2. Wuthering Heights- It’s so negative. There isn’t a single redeeming quality in any of the characters. Even Lockhart is a selfish little twerp. And I know Heathcliff is adopted so technically there’s no incest but still- it’s weird. And there’s nothing to analyze! If I’m going to read victorian fluff there needs to be a plot i enjoy. Jane Eyre is enjoyable, Sense and Sensibility is enjoyable, Pride and Prejudices is enjoyable- Wuthering Heights is negative winy nonsense. 

Having said that.. Heathcliff is a sex god and i constantly use the term “tolerably attractive” which the dear Bronte penned.

10. Great Gatsby- I have issues with Fitzegerald. I don’t think he deserves his seat next to Hemingway, Stein and Anderson. All the latter dramatically changed literature- he didn’t.

“The Great Gatsby” is just romanticized nonsense with the backdrop of the 20’s and a little mixture of conflict. Still though, i enjoy reading him. I love  ”The Side of Paradise”- Gatsby’s plot is lacking. But the ending is brilliant.

Popular Books That Annoy Me.

1. The Twilight Saga 
2. Wuthering Heights 
3. Eat, Pray, Love 
4. Mockingjay
5. Wicked
6. The Notebook
7. Romeo and Juliet
8. My Sister’s Keeper
9. Ethan Frome
10. The Great Gatsby

Disagree?

Message me- Let’s launch an epic debate.

4 Short Storys You’ll Never EVER Forget.

1. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” By Flannery O’Connor
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html 

2. “The Lottery” By Shirley Jackson
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html 

3. “The Snow of Kilimanjaro” By Earnest Hemingway
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/heming.html 

4. “A Rose For Emily” By William Faulkner
https://flightline.highline.edu/tkim/Files/Lit100_SS2.pdf 

READ THEM! It’s 10 minutes of literary bliss :)