Melissa Goodrich

I feel so factually sad. It is alive and everywhere as skin.

nothing could have prepared me for how unraveling postpartum depression would be. in birthing my daughter, did i also (re?)birth a girl I thought I wasn't anymore, a girl I left in Iowa?

Bummed as I'm always bummed that they didn't get raptured.

The thing I like about dark mode is its easier on the eyes when a fresh new horror appears

a cartoon drawing of a butterfly flying around a stone pillar ALT: a cartoon drawing of a butterfly flying around a stone pillar

Happy Silksong, y'all

fucking annoying

Some really great examples of innovative chaptering, even something as simple as inverting a reader's expectations (starting with ch. 47 on p. 289 with the numbers counting down from there, as in Chuck Palahniuk’s SURVIVOR) can give us other pathways towards telling a story well.

#54: Putting Your Chapter Titles to Work Karen Russell, Brian Evenson, Danya Kukafka, Chuck Palahniuk, Diane Williams

Loved the latest substack from @mdbell79.bsky.social on putting title chapters to work: inspired me to mess around with the idea of including some clearly demarcated 3rd person passages in my novel so I can tell more stories of people in space...

mattbell.substack.com/p/54-putting...

I love this piece, Amy! I'm working with an unnamed narrator in my novel too, and I appreciate the question you're asking: "When the voice telling the story does not give you their own name, what else are they holding back?"

And yes—are there ways in which an unnamed "I" becomes a kind of "you"?

me: (checking that I'm logged into my own account before liking something)

me: 😑

oh my gosh their arguments against this being a class action lawsuit are so goofy. its bad because "seven million claimants would kill the company" and "it would be difficult to figure out the rights and compensation for each of the 7 million" so whyd you steal from 7 million people??? dingus!

a shark! and yes, I wrote shortform recently and it felt like a luxurious bath: I could tinker to my heart's content :)

So to ensure I'm not toying around with earlier chapters, I've got a list of "scenes to write" in a separate doc, and I'm just gonna tackle them one at a time.

Then I'll frankenstien and finesse as a treat.

In undergrad, it was especially hard for me to move on in writing a story if each sentence, each word, wasn't *just* right.

A college professor told me to stop finessing and keep going, just sit down and don't get up until the story has an ending.

I think this is novel advice too.

"When 8 men have more money than 4 billion people combined, folks relying on food stamps or Medicaid aren't the problem."

"What if we widen our understanding of greatness?

Life is not narrow and vertical, it doesn’t just go up or down.

Life is horizontal, unfolding, sprawling, vast. We don’t build life like a skyscraper."

Your life is not a ladder. The capitalist fever dream of greatness only has two directions. But life has more.

"Why does the myth of upward movement persist so stubbornly? Why do we measure greatness by vertical gain?
...Somehow, we believe that ‘up there’ where it’s bright, that's where life is truly happening."

Really appreciate this perspective from Nadia Meli.

substack.com/@nadiameli/p...

I haven’t drawn in years, but I was thinking about how little kids draw all the time—and how much unabashed joy they have—and I want to too

Who else is notebooks deep in Blue Prince? This game rules.

“Don’t talk about the moon, I remind myself. Ask everyone how _their_ day was.”

“I was busy…but I always have time to worry.”

This Miranda July quote (from ALL FOURS) hitting a little too close to home.

Highlighted text form THE NEW YORKER The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Reminds me of this eternal Ted Chiang banger-

babe are you ok you’ve barely written about your characters sighing, looking, or nodding & you’ve only typed the word “just” 40 times

For those interested in a more unhinged severance bingo

Building a severance season finale bingo card if anyone wants to play along.

I was I am a sing -le note in a bird ‘s caught throat

Woke up from a nap with this small rattling poem

us? the nation who ate Tide Pods? has resurrected measles??? I don’t believe it.

Phenomenal piece by @sfmontgomery.bsky.social :

“I’ve come very far in ignoring advice like this—the kind that suggests my writing is only of value if I demonstrate how far away from my disability I have managed to escape.”

Sometimes to counter the worry that robots are taking over I think about how a printer literally stops working if the paper is wrinkled.