Timothy Johnson

Well this was nice to see today. Thank you so much! 🥹

Today I realized I will never know how many emails I accidentally signed from Tom.

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight Make America Healthy Again: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

“In its current form, MAHA is not about making America healthy again. At best, it is about laundering the reputation of an administration that is doing the exact opposite.”

youtu.be/3lzfH86avIc?...

I have a novel I’m looking to publish. I think it’s pretty good. It’s about the end times and America, and there are monsters. Anyway, if you know any decent people who’d like to work with a storyteller like me (or me, in particular), I’m open, or whatever. *shoves hands in pockets and kicks rocks

28 Years Later is a bizarre trip with some interesting filmmaking choices. It feels more Danny Boyle than Alex Garland to me. It’s not what I hoped it would be, but if you’re willing to go on an apocalyptic journey that feels pseudo-hallucinated, you might enjoy it.

Perspective is a vital thing you bring when you consume a story.

In my brief stint teaching lit, I learned it didn't matter how many times I studied a text; new students always showed me new ideas.

Which is to say insight is a product of perspective, not intelligence, and your perspective matters.

I see you. I accept you. I welcome you. I love you. I will ride into battle with you.

Happy Pride Month!

We talk a lot in craft essays about how storytelling works, but ever think about *why* it works? I do. Like, a lot.

timothyjohnsonfiction.com/blog/why-sto...

I have this wacky idea that, while we fiction writers often learn, think about, and teach certain storytelling elements independently, they're vitally and inextricably connected, exerting force on each other. What if we think about them as triads?

timothyjohnsonfiction.com/blog/storyte...

Me: Reads book. Enjoys the heck out of it. Pulls it up on Goodreads. Finds it’s a 3-star book.

Also me: Reads book. Really struggles through it. Pulls it up on Goodreads. Finds it’s a 4+-star book.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m not sure I can trust people who walk by the best coffee shops in the area to go to a Starbucks or Dunkin. No disrespect if you like those places. They definitely have their utility. But try the local places. They’re usually awesome.

Now that Microsoft has made Copilot so fully integrated in Word with no option for installing without it, I’m canceling my O365 and switching to an open-source alternative. I hope publishers will forgive any future issues in compatibility and formatting.

What if we think of stories as arguments and apply Aristotle’s framework for rhetorical appeals? I know that’s been bugging the heck out of you. Fret no more, because I explore it here!

timothyjohnsonfiction.com/blog/four-ar...

Hey Disney, here’s a pitch: an office sitcom about people who work during the Empire’s reign and casually discuss how awful everything is and how there’s nothing they can really do about it.

Okay, you go to a fiction writer’s website. What are the top two or three reasons you’re there?

@petebuttigieg.bsky.social highlights the common ground that can be found with liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, around the Trump administration’s lack of constraint.

Trump says he’ll use revenue from tariffs to “offset” more big tax cuts.

Those tax cuts will disproportionately benefit wealthy Americans and big corporations.

But revenue raised from tariffs will be coming disproportionately from average working people.

See how this works?

If you’re querying, don’t check your email before you get out of bed every morning. It just makes for bad starts to your days. Do as I say, not as I do.

Why don’t we have matchmaking services for writers and agents? The infrastructure is right there with dating apps. You like Severance, dogs, and mountain vistas and are looking for stories with deep characters in rich, speculative worlds and are willing to get weird sometimes? Me too!

My favorite part about xAI buying X is Elon stole mountains of IP to create a product to bail himself out of his incredible incompetence, and we not only let him do that but also are still letting him monetize the federal government. Even if he fails, he succeeds just because he has a lot of money.

Trickling out episodes is probably better for engagement, which is probably better for monetization. As a viewer, though, I prefer to experience the stories I love on my own terms, and it feels bad to have to wait while navigating the unavoidable minefield of spoilers.

It’s okay to read narrowly. It’s important to push yourself to read widely, but it’s also healthy to, every once in a while, reread a book you love or dive deeply into an author’s work if you know you like them. I think that’s a benefit of pushing yourself into new stuff: you learn where to dig.

Sure. What we really need is for our food, medication, healthcare, and pandemic preparedness to suck more. Super.

Haven Spec Magazine, Submission Page Fiction for the 21st Century!

We're open to submissions this month by authors of historically marginalized backgrounds!

We want to read more works by Black writers, Indigenous writers, disabled writers, gay and lesbian and trans writers, and other folks writing their truths!

Send us something!
www.havenspec.com/submit/

I’m losing hope in the possibility for us to succeed at educating people this isn’t creativity and what they’re doing is robbing themselves of their own creativity.

Artistic creation happens when you’re crawling around in the dark with no idea where your piece is going. It’s hard and messy and that floor is somehow both mucky and dusty, but then your fingers find an object or, if lucky, a light switch, and the work is worth it. Gen AI denies you that.

Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We...

ICYMI: We're back cataloging Trump's cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes.

Finally, room-temp coffee gets a bad rap, but that’s the ideal time to taste it, as our tongues aren’t adept at tasting very hot or cold things (which is why people who drink bad beer prefer it ice cold). If you don’t like your coffee when it’s room temp, you don’t like your coffee.

/TED Talk

The roasting process makes extraction require less energy, so a darker roast will get bitter before a lighter roast. Play with whatever you can play with using your equipment until you eliminate bitterness and sourness. That’s where you find your particular coffee’s true flavor.

Quick coffee tips you didn’t ask for:

- If your coffee tastes bitter, you’re over-extracting it. Try a lighter roast, lower temp, coarser grind, or shorter brew time.

- If your coffee tastes sour, you’re under-extracting it. Try a darker roast, higher temp, finer grind, or longer brew time.