blogging at will

AO3 is so cool, and peer-to-peer posting spaces in general, because you can find stuff and share stuff that isn't professional-grade but still has its own thing going for it - if everything had to be professional-grade to be seen then we'd all be missing out on a lot, both as readers and writers!

So yes, I spent like three decades dreaming of writing professionally and never even really writing at all, partly because the terror of expectation killed all desire to learn, and do by learning, and learn by doing. To kick off that expectation and just write for the sheer love of the story and characters and readers and prose is the way to make it happen!!

I'm having these revelations now like it's, I don't know, the turn of the millennium or something. Better late than never??

tl; dr writing is currently happening and I'm so happy!

I have a thing for pairing quotes together, here are three pairs featuring the late, great Toni Morrison:

1. Parallelism

Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty—her pain, my suffering—her relief, my hope—her anger, my punishment—her regard, my reward.
—Charlotte Brontë, Villette

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved.
—Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

2. Blood

Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
—Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

The instinct of kings was always to slay the messenger, and they were right. A real messenger, a worthy one, is corrupted by the message he brings. And if he is noble then he should accept that corruption.
—Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

3. Gaze

This was a man who moved like the gods were watching; every gesture he made was upright and correct.
—Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

No one is looking at him, but he behaves as though there is. That's the way. Carry yourself the way you would if you were always under the reviewing gaze of an impressionable but casual acquaintance.
—Toni Morrison, Jazz