Jonas David's Blog, page 23

We’re having a print run!: The Dramatic Benefits of Mentoring, Friendships and Funding (Ymlaen Week 6) — Jannat Ahmed

Ymlaen Placement Week 6 Short update: WE ARE OPEN FOR PREORDERS. I REPEAT, WE ARE NOW OPEN FOR PREORDERS. These are words I never thought I’d type. I’m a month and a half into my six month Ymlaen placement at Rabble Studio and by some extraordinary turn of events (mainly advice, encouragement and a little […]

via We’re having a print run!: The Dramatic Benefits of Mentoring, Friendships and Funding (Ymlaen Week 6) — Jannat Ahmed

So it goes

20 minutes after I posted yesterday I got one rejection, then this morning another.

That’s life for you

Increasing excitement… oops, I jinxed it

I have three stories out at various magazines waiting for a response, and two of them are past the time I normally should have been rejected by. It’s getting me very excited and I keep checking my email, it’s been years since I sold a short story…

Of course, now that I’ve blogged about it I’ll probably get all three rejection letters in the next ten minutes…

The planets: a collection

I’ve written a story inspired by the moon, for possible use at Lucent Dreaming, and am going to continue that route and write 6 more stories, inspired by the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I’m not sure where these will all end up, but if they all turn out good there may be a collection in the works!

Story Number Three

I’ve finished a draft of my story for Lucent Dreaming, placeholder title: The Moon. Already half way done with my goal for short stories for the year… I might have to up that number!

In other news, we are aiming to have a print version of Lucent Dreaming available! If you’ve ever wanted to have your name in actual print on a real, paper page, send us your stories! Or… if you want to take a short cut,  you can donate!

Some trees and sky

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Verify that you’re not insane

I got some feedback on my novella, The Observer, yesterday, and it was encouraging to hear that it was not a completely boring, confusing, self-indulgent mess as I sometimes feel it is in my spirals of confidence.

Getting your writing out into the real world in front of real eyes (not those excessively cruel/worshipfully sycophantic ones of your imagination) is quite helpful, and I highly recommend you find a group of trustworthy people to tell you what’s what about your writing.

Thanks writing friends, for all your help!

Cultural evolution produces hot garbage

Evolution is not a ladder. Even the tree metaphor is flawed because it gives the faulty impression of ‘progress’ upward. Evolution is only change in whatever direction leads to the most reproduction.

Cultural evolution is the idea that our ideas and way of life evolves generation to generation much the way an organism does, based on how easy the ideas/traditions/etc are to imprint on the next generation.

In much the way that you could sit down and design a self replicating organism that is way better at existing than a lot of life on earth, you can also come up with ideas and art that are way better than whatever music/art/entertainment gets passed on and on and on.

If evolution produces junk so often, maybe it’s time we start trying to influence it. Biologically, we can do this by editing our own genes. We are well on the way to doing this already.

But culturally, how do we do it? How can we change what is popular so that it’s something beautiful and meaningful that is gets created, instead of Transformers 8, season 10 of Jersey Shore, or a billion copies of 50 Shades of Gray?

The answer is probably education, as it seems to be with almost every problem in society. Someone who’s read history’s greats, and seen the most elegant art and been taught enough about the world to appreciate it’s most amazing creations, is going to have a lot less interest in the basic, surface level schlock that floods the market every day.

 

Knowledge is power–that’s why it’s so expensive

In America, you have to pay lots and lots of money to get an education. So much so these days, that if you aren’t born well off, it’s pretty prohibitive. The steadily rising costs of education could be seen as the natural end result of a capitalist society–a product in demand will rise in price. Or if you are the sort to see conspiracies, it could be something else.

Those in power naturally want to stay in power. And if knowledge is power, the best way to keep it from getting into the hands of others, is to prevent the average person from being able to get an education.

The rich stay rich, and their kids stay rich and pay for a nice education, and so on. The poor stay poor and their kids can’t afford an education, and so on.

After all, if everyone was well educated, who would the rich have to exploit?

Money, the root of all pains

If only we could live without it. I never have had fantasies of being rich and powerful, just of being free to follow my interests and not have my energy monopolized by merely surviving.

Why, with all our technology and resources, are we still having the majority of people in our society wasting their lives away doing drudge work?

Not a future I hope to live in…