I make stuff: chaos, cake, poems, stitches, love, history, gorilla suits. Then I write about it. And I lie. Especially about gorilla suits.
Dec 24, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Listen my darlings: #fanfic is great, #plagiarism sucks. A writer's voice and invention is like their fingerprint - everyone has fingerprints, no two alike. Don't be a copy, be yourself. Find and build your own voice and invention. I want to read you, not your copy of X or Y.
I wish every writer the grace and passion to own and develop your own style, skills, themes and strengths. It doesn't matter how long it takes. I was 30 before I started selling articles and 40 before my first book was published. I got many rejections - still do. Trust yourself.
Fatima’s working in cyber
she’s learned how to snoop and to hack
she’s talented, driven, and passionate
her revenge a cold feast, not a snack
Rishi’s bank account there on a spreadsheet
a few clicks of the keys, and… goodbye
Hancock’s now being sought on charges of fraud
Gove for intent to supply
Michelangelo learned masonry in his youth. So if the whole monumental sculpture, painting, Latin poetry, design polymath thing hadn't worked out, he had a trade and a nice ordinary artisan life to fall back on. Would that have been so terrible?
Actually, yes. When humans have big, raging, urgent dreams and are blocked by authoritarian class and financial systems from pursuing them, the resulting mental and social health problems impact everyone around them.
Aug 12, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
When most people in the UK or America talk about "hugely popular anime" they ignore a vast chunk of the market that never gets localised for our consumption.
I was chatting on a podcast about classics and took the chance to point out that the most watched #anime in #Japan is actually Sazae-san, a soap opera that's been running since the 60s. It's a social institution.
May 3, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
On 3 May 1374 BCE a solar eclipse was observed and recorded at Ugarit by Mesopotamian astronomers. "On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance." Humour me - unpack that staggering assertion.
We know for a fact that a solar eclipse took place on this day 3,394 years ago. How? Because #science can verify #history and its records, when the records survive.
