female awesome meme: [8/20 females in a film] ➝ Velma Kelly
I come back, open the door, and there’s Veronica and Charlie doing number 17: the spread eagle. Well, I was in such a state of shock that I completely blacked out; I can’t remember a thing. It wasn’t until later, when I was washing the blood of my hands, I even knew they were dead.
“Remember, the real lady is what’s under the mask.” -Miss Kitty
Fievel Goes West was every bit as much about Tanya as it was Fievel, and don’t you ever forget it.
An American Tail (1986)
A romantic portrayal of America and the life found there, warm hues.
Directed by Alan Parker | IMDb
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.
And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be. (via oliviacirce)
When I lose hope in the world, I remember this poem.
(via bookoisseur)
I’m really glad I read that.
(via selfesteampunk)
Hey guys –– Tessa here. Over the past couple of weeks I decided to compile some helpful websites for aspiring authors and writers like myself. Hopefully some of these help you, too… and feel free to add onto the list!
1. Noisli
This one might seem kind of obvious, but this website is basically a noise generator that plays background music to help you stay focused. You can choose a variety of noises –– rain, campfire, thunderstorms, crashing waves, coffee shops, fan noises, etc. – and if you create a free account you can save the mixes you like yourself, so when you come back to writing you’ll already have your favorite noises ready to play.
I’ve seen a ton of fantasy generators floating around the internet, and while some of them are helpful, this one has to be my favorite. The interface is super cool and allows you to pick between four different options –– a fantasy generator, which is a general generator used for creativity, a beast generator, which helps you come up with names for all your goblins and creatures, a spell forge, which gives you examples of spell names and their possible uses, and a land forge (my favorite!) which helps you determine a name for your magical, mythical place. There’s a ton of customizable options (such as keeping certain words and disposing others, etc.) to make it your own.
This one has been talked about in great length here on Tumblr, but I figured I’d reiterate to showcase it’s awesomeness. Basically, you paste (or type) whatever you’re working on and the application reads through your writing and lets you know if there are any difficult to read sentences, uses of the passive voice, how many adverbs you have, and what the reading level is for the specific passage. Of course, take all these edits with a grain of salt –– sometimes the editor doesn’t understand your writing style and will mark a sentence as “hard to read” when it really isn’t, but it’s a great editor for catching small mistakes and giving you useful stats on your piece, such as word count, paragraph length, etc.
This is a very long survey, but it’s 100% worth it once you have your protagonist (or set of protagonists) laid out for your story. It’s even helpful for fan fiction and RPG, so don’t dismiss it entirely if you don’t write anything original. Basically, it’s an assessment to see if your character is a “Mary Sue” (there’s a detailed explanation of what that is on the website as well). Honestly, it’s a long survey, but depending on what type of fiction you’re working with (fanfiction, original fiction, even RPG) it won’t take you very long and it’ll give you an interesting perspective on your character. I highly recommend you take this test especially if you’re an original fiction writer. Having a strong protagonist is as central as an engaging plot!
5 & 6. Behind the Name Generator and Baby Name Voyager
I’ve lumped these two together because they serve the same purpose –– naming a character. The “Behind the Name” Generator presents you with a ton of options to check off and it’ll present you with names that fit those specific criteria, so it’s really helpful if you’re looking for a specific type of name for your character. Similarly, the Baby Name Voyager will show you an interactive chart with popular names from the decade, and if you type a name into the search bar, it’ll tell you when it was most popular (such as the ‘90s) and what names were giving to siblings, which is extremely helpful if you want to make sure your characters’ names are cohesive to the timeline of the story. There’s also a detailed-search option like the Behind the Name generator.
Not so much a website as it is a helpful reference, but this site shows the twelve common human archetypes which is helpful when creating characters and attempting to figure out their external vs. internal motivation. This plays a lot on psychology, but fear not –– if you don’t think your character fits into a certain archetype or prefer not to use these, then don’t!
In addition, here are some awesome writing blogs who have stellar advice. Feel free to message me or any of these wonderful people if you have questions about character development, plot questions, or anything else related to writing!
@authors-haven / @simplewritingtips / @thoughtsfromthewritersdesk / @theticklishpear / @the-writers-nest
Happy writing! ♡
For future reference!
