Apply For Fresh Start NOW If You Haven't Already Done So. Like Right Now. Do It Right This Very Second

vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained

go down a wikipedia research hole by clicking the first term you don’t understand

binge a crashcourse series end to end (personal recs: world history, history of science, big history, philosophy)

find free books on project gutenberg

download some western classics for free

borrow books and audiobooks from the libby app or borrowbox

start a commonplace book

take a khan academy course

browse MIT’s free online course materials

teach yourself to code

go on a google scholar essay dive

try the open access button to avoid some paywalls for academic media, or install unpaywall that does a similar thing

research the history of the place you where you live

tempt the wrath of the duolingo owl and learn a language

search for online streams of the local tv in your target language’s country and use as background noise for immersion points

print and scrapbook favourite poetry and literature quotes

improve your handwriting by doing handwriting exercises

learn philosophy with the philosophize this! podcast. actually just check out all the educational spotify podcasts there are many good ones

start a weekly club with friends to share new and interesting things you’ve learnt that week

clean and reorganise your study space, physical or digital

check out online museums

fave educational youtube channels that I adore: vsauce, crashcourse, smarter every day, kurzgesagt, school of life, tom scott, r. c. waldun, vsauce3, primer, mark rober, veritasium, asapSCIENCE, scishow, TED-ed

hopefully you’ll find something to enjoy! happy learning x

help two Gaza genocide survivors resume their education

with the help of your donations, my friend Mohammed @mohammedhaboubsblog and his twin sister Farah were able to evacuate to Egypt. but their living situation is still precarious as they need to pay university registration fees by October 14th (edit: deadline extended to October 17th). Mohammed and Farah's first year of university was cut short by the genocide, and they have endured a year of waking nightmares with the goal of resuming their studies in mind. we know that the genocidal zionist occupation specifically targets education, and in the face of that depravity, something as simple as studying becomes a powerful act of resistance. please help Mohammed and Farah reclaim their right to education by sharing and donating:

Donate here conversion rate: $5 USD = kr52 SEK vetted: 1, 2

the enrollment fees are $2120 USD per person, $4240 total; to cover them the campaign needs to reach 296,438 SEK.

October 7th: 256,067 / 296,438 SEK ($24,721 / $28,619 USD); $3898 USD to go

i see a lot of questions asking about how to write dialogue or plot points or characters, but i personally really struggle with the other parts of writing (trying to describe action, or movement from one place to another, or locations through the eyes of the character.) I've tried searching for help but it seems like it's a very niche struggle. I can do plot outlines, i can do characters, I can do dialogue, but I can't do anything else. any advice/places to look?

Struggling with Description and Action

I wouldn't say those are niche struggles. They're actually pretty common, especially among newer writers. They're just prickly terms to search.

As far as describing movement from one place to another, let me just answer that here because it's a quick one. You don't have to describe every movement your character makes, or every movement from one place to another. For example, if your character is sitting in a chair sipping a mug of tea, you don't have to tell us she picked up the mug, raised it to her lips, put her lips on the mug, tilted her head back, and took a sip. That's all unnecessary detail because everyone knows how to drink a cup of tea. If you have already established that the tea is there, all you have to tell us is, "She took a sip of the tea." If you want to illustrate that the tea is still hot, she could blow on it. If you want to illustrate that she's not a fan of tea, you could have her scrunch her nose after she sips it. Those details are telling the reader something they need to know about the character or situation, so they're okay to add.

Likewise, if the character leaves the chair to look out the window, you don't have to tell us she set down the mug, stood up, walked to the window, opened the curtain, and looked out. We've all gotten up from a chair before, and we've all looked out a window before. We know how it works. You can just say, "Lanie stood and went to the window, annoyed to see that snow had stared to fall." As for locations through the eyes of the character, once again, you don't need to go into a lot of detail when it's not important. Your goal is to give the reader a sense of place without bogging them down with a lot of unnecessary details. It's enough to say that your character stepped into the cold, vast throne room. Any details beyond that should tell us something the reader needs to know. Also, it helps a lot to look for inspiration images when you're trying to describe a place. If you need to describe a cozy den, look up pictures of cozy dens and find some you like. Again, you're not looking to describe every or even many details from the picture. You're looking for a way to boil the picture down to a few important points.

Here are some previous posts that might help, and definitely take a spin through my master list of posts (divided into subcategories like description) to look for additional helpful posts:

Adding Description to Your Writing How to Make Your Description More Vivid The 3 Fundamental Truths of Description (And 5 Tips for Cutting Back) Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Worried About Cutting Too Much From Story

I hope that helps! ♥

Sorry I'm just. Reeling. 14 THOUSAND????

Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

i can’t stop drawing liu qingge sfhds

there they are

To the person I accidentally reported because I didn't watch my fingers

I am sorry