John Bull Profile picture
21 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Oh for a muse of fire.
To ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
A kingdom for a stage!
Princes to act!
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Think when we talk of horses that you see them, printing their proud hooves in the receding earth.
For, t'is your thoughts that now must deck our kings.
Carry them from here to there,
jumping o'er time.
Turning the accomplishments of an age into an hourglass.
For the which supply admit me, chorus to this history, to prologue-like your humble patience pray:

Gently to hear.

Kindly to judge.

Our play.

<Shakespeare's Theatre Completed. All unhappy citizens in the city are made content.>

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More from @garius

21 Oct
Spare some love for Collingwood. Legit brilliant commander in his own right. First into battle on Royal Sovereign. Took charge after Nelson got sniped by the French lad using bot hax.

Hated flogging. Loved by his men. Walked his dog and planted acorns for fun. #TrafalgarDay2021 Cuthbert Collingwood in full uniform looking contemplative.
It was 100% Nelson's plan behind Trafalgar, but he couldn't have pulled it off without Collingwood.

His plan was to break with existing strategy and attack in TWO columns, splitting the enemy line.

In gaming terms, that meant he needed TWO tanks out front. Not one.
TWO ships would have to draw all the fire from the enemy ships around them on the way in.

TWO commanders were going to have hold their nerve, lead those lines and punch through:

Nelson led the first in Victory.

He trusted Collingwood with the other in Royal Sovereign. Battle diagram for trafalgar showing two columns smashing in
Read 31 tweets
21 Oct
God no.

Sometimes I think: "I'd have written that differently" but that's not the same thing.

More often I think: "Really like the way they've done that" and then try and deconstruct it, so I can add it to my own options in future.
Example: I've been on a MASSIVE Becky Chambers binge lately, because I think the way she makes you see characters in your head WITHOUT EVER REALLY DESCRIBING THEM is brilliant.

You think she's described them. She mostly hasn't. She implies and let's you build your own version.
Once I spotted that's what she does, I realised how fucking brilliant it is. It totally hands over the power to the reader to see the characters mostly how they'd like them to be, but still leaves them feeling like they're on a narrative journey she's created.

it's amazing.
Read 4 tweets
21 Oct
"We advise people to turn off their lights" Winston Churchill said. "I'm asking people to take personal responsibility for stopping the Luftwaffe"

He added that he might make the blackout mandatory in certain situations in future, but that it wasn't the right time to do it now.
Meanwhile, in an article in the Times, Iain Duncan Smith warned against making the blackout mandatory.

"Our parents didn't need a blackout in the Boer War" He said. "They just got on with things."

"We just need to learn to live with Hitler." He continued. "For the Economy."
The PM's request for people to maybe turn their lights off to make the Luftwaffe's job a bit harder went down badly on his backbenches.

"I know everyone in this house." Said Steve Baker. "None of them would help the Luftwaffe. My light stays on."

"Except Rees-Mogg." He admitted
Read 11 tweets
20 Oct
I kind of agree with this, but think it modifying rather than removing.

Truth is, we live in a parliamentary democracy with political parties. Therefore, MPs are often required to vote with the party line.

The output needs modifying to show when your issue is with the PARTY.
Yes, yes, I know any MP COULD vote against the whip, theoretically, but there is always a lot of nuance in play with that. Let's not pretend there isn't. It's not how life works.

A big issue these days is removing nuance and oversimplification of politics.
Yes, I know that there's a tiny bit of grey writing on the full voting record page that gives some vague indication of whether they toed the party line, but that's really not clear enough.

Because in most instances, it's the BIGGEST driver of how they voted.
Read 8 tweets
18 Oct
Hi. You're late. And drunk.

You should give me snacks.
I've never been preyed on so much as this cat is trying to prey on me now.
I'm trying to cook a curry and this is the situation.
Read 7 tweets
18 Oct
Literally anything.

I've written stories that sprung from a smell, or the sting in a piece of music, or just a throwaway line someone said on a bus.

I've basically never been able to stop my imagination going off on one once triggered.

Turned out that was a feature, not a bug.
I've also found this is why I rarely write in a linear fashion. I tend to have a very rough timeline of events, and then over time scenes within that just get written as the right emotional mood hits me, or a smell triggers me etc. etc.

Then BOSH. 2000 more words done.
Also means I'm hugely wasteful as a writer. I end up throwing away a LOT when the full story starts to emerge and suddenly 'scenes' don't fit.

Which is agonising enough in the short story format. I'm discovering it's utterly traumatising (but necessary) in the novel process.
Read 6 tweets

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