Collin > Recent Status Updates

sorry if this is gatekeepy but I do think that calling "Take Me To Church" 'the lesbian anthem' should get your gay card temporarily taken away

“When [royal officials] tried to push into town politics they were often rebuffed again. One of them, around 1350, had made sterling efforts to stop the illegal duel between the sergeants….; but, having failed, the king’s representative was next seen hanging over the duelling fence, urging the contenders on as loudly as the next man.”

"History keeps memorials of the great, the saintly or the vicious, but we may pine for the chance to hear about men and women more like ourselves: common folk. Marques was preserved, in effect, in the tittle-tattle of his neighbors. Reading the documents about the jug of gold, we hear the ancient equivalent of lace curtains being moved aside."

“The best reason to finish whatever you are writing is that everything inside you says not to.”

“If you’re writing fiction, within a page or so of your protagonist appearing, prove through the eyes of another character that they are lovable and lovely.” “All the [books] I read had a first-page scene in which the protagonist was complimented by another character. … That’s a character to root for.” haha this is funny sarcasm. oh… oh, wait, you mean it? you’re for serious? oh dear

like. Was the last time you read “genre fiction” the mf’ing 70s? What are you TALKING ABOUT. Horror, sure, sometimes, that’s not unexpected. But SFF is SUCH an introspective and character-driven niche right now, and frankly has been for a long time if you read the right books. I read very little historical but I feel insulted for them, too.

“Some authors present us with archetypal characters who adorn fabulous settings and plots. Genre fiction—historical, sci-fi, horror, whatever—focuses mostly on how the characters deal with the outside world of things and other people, and their characters don't necessarily grow or change; they’re just tortured over and over again.” ngl, Neal, this pmo real bad. tell me you don’t read spec w/o telling me.

“The narrator claims to be on a horse with no name. This is worrisome to the listener: The man can be searching without destination, just going with the flow, but there is no rideable horse without a name in earth. … Trust me, the horse had a name. The metaphor comes off as contrived, and therefore meaningless.” ma’am respectfully what are you talking about. how do you miss the point of Horse With No Name.

it's also always a weird experience every time I'm reminded that not everyone knows what 'petrichor' means because of Doctor Who gifsets

Anne Lamott is so funny in a charming self-effacing way but some of us do actually like learning new words, and acting like no fictional narrator/narrative voice should use a more complex, latinate-flavored vocabulary for fear of alienating readers who don't like feeling dumb is... not something I agree with

"Spiky, unruly hair lay greased flat against its back in a tangled mess" is it spiky or is it greasy and flat oh my god. is the editor in the room with us

“So far, logic pointed to someone who knew enough Hawaiian to work its magic.” oh good I’m glad we’re almost halfway through a book about solving a murder committed via Hawaiian spell and gathered enough evidence to narrow down the possible culprits to anyone who speaks an indeterminate amount of Hawaiian

this gala scene is giving 2000s Not Like Other Girls nonsense

this romance is so stupiddddd it's starting to pmo. this concept is so good and interesting and relatively fresh but we're going to ruin it with thee stalest and most unimaginative of romance/romantasy cliches?? okay whatever it's your book to ruin

pg. 65: “She blinked and looked at me in the face for the first time,….”
pg. 67: “She met my eyes for the first time, her voice thin but clear.”

is it too much to ask that editors do their dadgum jobs once in a while

“Before modern medicine began to develop in the eighteenth century, death was mysterious, ordained by the gods, a force that resided outside the human body. In those times, you felt pain, and it got worse and worse until you died, never knowing the cause. With modern medicine, death relocated to inside our bodies.” seems like a massive over-generalization but what do i know

Afsoneh: hey, Ruz
Firuz: Parviz used to call me that...
Afsoneh: because it's your f'ing name

this is all pretty half-baked worldbuilding so far but I still like the concept a lot, so... crossed fingers some of these threads come together soon.

“Although I don't consider my pain sacred, the stillness it engenders may be. Pain made me realize I was less a creature with a reliable inner identity than a penetrable ecosystem.”

ough

anyway there's not a lot of horror to be had in a story where it feels like you can still see the author's notes on the margins reading THE REAL HORROR IS CAPITALISM AND MISOGYNY !!!!!! which, yeah, in real life, no arguments there, but it really sucks the life out of any actual supernatural horror element when not done with a deft hand, and the hand is not deft here.

it's petty and a matter of taste but the omniscient third POV is grating, too. it's not a matter of multiple POVs, it's that the narration draws attention to its own omniscience ("While Ana was wondering why the past couldn't rest, her former landlord also tossed and turned...."), in a way that feels too twee and quirky for what is ostensibly a horror novel.

I continue to be amazed at the times when authors choose to use overview/summary mode during moments when they should be fully dialed into a close POV. a character starting to tell a dramatic story and the narrative cutting to a wordless, distant-POV flashback can work in movies/TV but it so rarely works in books; the two media speak different languages of sense impressions.

this is very much a The Author Is Very Invested In The Characters' Status As New Yorkers kind of book so far and it's grating me . i don't care about New Yorkers' Main Character Syndrome oh my goddd.

I looooove when a book’s method of communicating romantic chemistry between characters is just one of those characters saying that there was romantic chemistry. Love that. Who needs actual chemistry when you can just read that it’s there. That’s efficient writing.

me, barely halfway through a very short book on ferns: if i don't build a fern garden somewhere right this exact second i'm going to scream and explode and die

"[The safe room]'s a damn Waffle House from Alabama." EYYYYYYY this is the first time I've felt the thrill of victory from this book. I want the Waffle House from Alabama to win this dungeon crawl.

the fact that I don't like this book at all is the greatest reading disappointment of this year so far.

the head archivist's name is APOLLONIUS ROLAND??