Laura Keating

A screenshot of Mad Men of Don Draper yelling. The subtitle has been edited to read, “that’s why I write books!”

I just don’t want “film a video and hope it goes viral” to be a “reasonable” expectation of authors!! I hate being on video! I am too awkward for video!

An unfortunate shared writer experience 😑

I once very proudly told someone that I had finished 2000 words that day (and they were Good words!)
This person was smugly confused, "That took you *all day*? I thought you could type faster than that?"

And I thought it'd be harder to throw someone through a plate glass window, but here we are.

And when you're not working with word limits, only your own creative backing, the fact is sometimes you show up to work and the characters don't.

So you take notes and hope the team is back on board after a walk around the block.

One of the more frustrating aspects of being a writer is when people ask, "But how much do you have left?"

I don't know, man. 600 good words? 2000 mediocre ones? The good words take longer, but many medi ones don't make the cut so you have to redo?
Writing is not typing into a spreadsheet, Tonya.

James Van Der Beek

A real gasp left me. I knew that he'd been sick ... this one hurts a lot.
I grew up with Dawson's Creek. Having followed him for the last few years, James Van Der Beek was such an interesting, humane, and insightful man. His poor family.
48. Heartbroken.
RIP.
Fuck cancer.

Devastating news coming out of Tumbler Ridge BC 💔

RIGHT!!!!

Saw a pic on their instagram of Peter dressed as one of vampires and thought it was a Halloween costume. NOPE!

If you are not familiar with July Talk, they are an incredible band from Toronto. It has baffled me for ten years that they are not a household name.

(but no surprise that Ryan Coogler would know them; he's a man of immaculate taste).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyw...

Even then ✨she was faerie✨

Peter Dreimanis, black and white portrait

Peter Dreimanis as "Bert" one of the singing vampire trio in "Sinners" (2025) A wholesome looking white man with dark hair, grinning in a very not wholesome way.

HOW AM I ONLY JUST RECOGNIZING THAT BERT IN 'SINNERS' IS PETER DREIMANIS OF JULY TALK WHAT

(The very first story I can remember writing was in the second grade and it was about a selkie; I wonder if mum has the pages lying around somewhere!)

This one is lovely, Brónagh!
I still have yet to see "Song of the Sea." Will make this the next family movie night selection 💙

Post a banger not in English

Ich kündige by Grossstadtgeflüster

All of their catalogue rules, but have been feeling this one lately.

A rabbit in overalls and a goat in pants are sitting on the ground drawing pictures. The rabbit is saying “ART POSES A THREAT TO CORPORATOLRATIC SYSTEMS BECAUSE A PURPOSE OF ART IS TO REMIND THE INDIVIDUAL OF THEIR INHERENT AUTONOMY.”, the goat adds “THEIR HUMANITY.”

Make Art (1/4)

This was actually really fun, especially recognizing so many people in my orbit of the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Authors nebula. Hey, folks!

Get worse, clogs everything, they have yet to come up with a problem that it is the solution for.

It's time they stop trying to make 'fetch' happen.

I get so disheartened, it's hard not to when the door you keep banging on just won't open, but I least I have integrity & know art is a chance to say something worthwhile, to connect with people in a meaningful way, and entertain as you go

I may never Make It, but at least I'll never Make Sh*t.

Been hearing from agents that the wait times for query responses have become so brutal (or non-existent) bc of the HUGE influx of queries in their inboxes due to AI slop.
So a hearty F*CK YOU to AI sloppers for making the jobs of Literary Agents (who work on COMMISSION) & debut authors even harder 🫠

Flat illustration of a Great-tailed Grackle with beak to an apple with a bite taken out of it titled "Grackle of my eye".

Someone please make this happen

Can attest for how great Peter is as a moderator, and would absolutely love to hear/see this specific in-conversation piece 👏

I don't know what to tell you. You can't sit at a piano for the first time ever and play a sonata. You can't pick up a tennis racket for the first time and serve a 110MPH Ace.

You have to fuck up.

You have to be able to handle failing.

You have to love it enough to not get it right and keep on.

Will be taking a little Blue Sky break. Need to focus.

Catch you later.

Two crows are flying in front of a gray-blue sky. One says to the other "Do you think we're best friends in other universes too?" The second panel splits into a three by three grid of different reactions of "Um"s and "Well"s from the second crow, in a multiverse sort of way. The third panel is further split again by three, so there are nine by nine squares of the same two crows flying together, the only distinction between the squares is a different sky colour. In the fourth panel, the square are again divided by three so there are now 27 by 27 filling the panel. We can see now that there is a greater pattern emerging from the colours of each square, a pixelated form is starting to emerge. In the fifth panel, the many many squares of different universes is reminiscent of a painting using pointillism, which each dot of colour represent one of many thousands of realities. We can see now very clearly that the pixelated forms are the two crows, flying in front of a gray-blue sky. We return to the visual resolution as we saw in the first panel, as if no time has passed at all. The second crow responds "It doesn't seem likely".

Improbably Compatible #oldknees

The Romantic artists are so incredibly interesting and lived such huge, groundbreaking lives, every time I see reduced yassification of their work and relationships to one another I become fully Mark Corrigan smh that they know nothing of what went on in Stalingrad [or in this case, Geneva].

Capping it with "6-7," because everyone knows that if anything is cool and in-touch with the youths, it's overdone teenage jokes wielded by middle-aged folks.

Sounds rad

A dog running towards the viewer on a rocky beach

The empty wooden bed of an old-fashioned pick up truck

A man stepping between a wire fence in a snowy yard

A black dog, alerted from sleep, lying at the top landing of a flight of stairs.

The art of Tom Forrestall, Nova Scotian artist (1936-2024)

He studied with Alex Colville at Mt. Allison, in case you also see the similarities in style.

Incredible