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Entry tags:

resources,
tutorial

Some new(?) tutorial links

Hello, everyone! Long time no post! Well, for me, at least 😅

It may still be a little while before I've got all my ducks in a row to make a proper tutorial again, but in the mean time, I finally remembered I already wrote and posted another one-ish on Tumblr 😅 I'm planning to properly organize and re-post it over here at some point, but in the mean time, if you want to know more about uploading and posting images to Dreamwidth, you can check the following links:

Short tutorial without images

Short tutorial with images (I don't think I have to say this, but please don't be rude to OP in this one!)

Bonus: Tutorial by dreamwidth-help on Tumblr for uploading images via email

Speaking of tutorials not by me! Someone in the notes of one of my Tumblr posts mentioned having resources on the Dreamwidth Roleplay scene, and graciously shared them with me.

A Guide to DWRP for Tumblr Users (Google doc)

rp_help

dwrpmasterlist

A dislcaimer from my source: "idk if the google doc is up to date but rp_help is from earlier this year and dwrpmasterlist crowdsources updates monthly."

So it sounds like the communities are definitely solid resources, and a look over the Google doc probably won't hurt, either. Best of luck, future DW RPers!

Entry tags:

Musings on beautiful writing

It won't be a surprise to you that I love beautiful writing. Writing that breathes, writing that twists, that flows like a river over smooth, unblemished stone; writing that evokes aroma, sound, imagery, that flexes the reader's imagination in new, unexpected ways; writing that makes us believe, for a moment, that we are really there for the events unfolding in front of us, no matter how extraordinary or strange they might be. Writing, in other words, that takes you on a journey.

In 2025, beautiful writing* is not in vogue. In my experience, the prose of most bestsellers today runs the gamut from "irritating" to "occasionally evocative." I've certainly read a number of contemporary works in the past two years where the story was well-executed and easy to read. In these books, the writing is in service of the story, not elevating it.

I sometimes watch videos about writing. While I would like to say my YouTube history is perfect and unbiased, I'm sorry to say it isn't. I'm vulnerable to clickbait like "why no one writes beautifully anymore" or "people don't know how to write." And recently, I happened to click on one of these videos.

What followed was roughly an hour of conservative dogwhistles, interspersed with the seeds of good ideas. I felt very mixed about the whole thing, as the literary crisis in the United States is real, and again—I rarely pick up books these days that stick with me because of their writing. To make matters worse, I visited the creator's Substack, only to find even more conservative ideas like objective morality (based on Western ideals, of course) and facts over feelings, while the creator cherry-picks sources of questionable credibility to support her claims. Eurgh.

So let's have a bit of fun. Let's discuss that video against two other videos I've watched about writing and see how it holds up. At the end of my analysis, I'll even try to offer some ideas (purely subjective) of my own on the question of beautiful writing. We'll begin with the video I took issue with.

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( Read more... )

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* NB: within traditionally published work in English in the United States

Database maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!