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About this blog

Writing and life, mostly. I'm very opinionated and I do get political. Be warned. Also, I swear a lot.

Entries in this blog

Danger: Inclusive Messaging Ahead

Consider the title your warning. This is my blog. I write what I want. Deal with it.    I think it's a shame that we can't have philosophical discussions on ways to potentially expand and improve our writing horizons without someone taking it personally and ruining the party. This is supposed to be a website for authors and their stories. You'd think that discussing writing techniques and tools would be integral to that. When it comes to writing tools, techniques, and advice, you'
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

42

Fox in the Snow

I heard its calls first. They were faint and I wasn't sure what I was hearing. Those calls sound a bit like a person in pain, someone screaming, and chills went down my spine. But I was curious, so I went to the window and opened it a bit to hear better. I recognised the sound then. Never heard it in the wild before, I think, but I have heard recordings, and it was fairly clear. Looking outside, I realised there were paw prints in the snow outside in the street. I stayed there, listening, f
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

3

Sexual and Gender Identities: A glossary

Our community is so much bigger and more diverse than many of us believe. With a lot of new-ish terms and labels out there detailing identities some may not be aware of, I figured a brief list of definitions might be helpful for someone somewhere. I shall begin with the four letters everyone knows. If you're here, you already know what these mean, but I'm including them anyway.   L: lesbian - a woman who is exclusively attracted to other women G: gay - a person who is exclusi
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

15

Unsolicited Grammar Lesson of the Day: lie vs. lay - transitive and intransitive verbs

The confusion when it comes to these two words is understandable. A lot of people write 'lay' when they should write 'lie' (as in lying down) and, however more rarely, vice versa. So here's a quick guide to how they are different and how they work. 'To lie' is an intransitive verb. That means that it's something you do, but not to something; it's an action without a direct object. You lie down. 'To lie' is conjugated: lie, lies, lying, lay, has/have lain. As you see, the past tense of 'l
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

0

Quick Guide to Archaic 2nd Person Singular

I posted this to Twitter earlier, so I thought I might as well share it here too. I've seen some folks trying to use this older form of the second person singular pronoun in stories, poetry, song lyrics and so on, but getting it all kinds of wrong, so I made a handy little guide. thou - subject (see: 1st person 'I') thee - object (see: 1st person 'me') thy - dependent possessive (see: 1st person 'my') thine - independent possessive (see: 1st person 'mine') Examples from Shakespea
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

6

Self-Publishing, Self-Marketing, and the Self

There is this overwhelmingly popular opinion that self-publishing, to some degree, isn't valid. It's what we do here on GA, of course, and putting out your work for free on the Internet for people to see seems to be acceptable and sometimes commended, but as soon as an author tries to make money from self-publishing their work—either by setting up a Patreon and asking for donations, or by publishing their work using services like Lulu and Amazon KDP and thus circumventing the traditional publish
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

29

No-Win Scenario

I'm in a situation where I feel like if I engage, I lose. No matter how I engage, the outcome will be the same. I feel like I'm being wilfully misunderstood. Like assumptions have been made about who and what I am, what I'm like, and no matter what I say or do, the people in question won't change their minds about me. And it makes me question everything. What if they're right? What if I'm the asshole here? I've tried dialogue, but feel like I'm met by a brick wall, utterly unyielding. I've
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

7

Your Existence Is Political

I've been censoring myself. We all do, here on GA, those are the rules. No political discussion outside The Pit. But what's political? When someone complains about a public figure bringing politics into what they're doing (like Wil Weaton's fans losing their shit when he posted a picture on Instagram of his hand giving Trump Tower the finger), what they're really complaining about is them bringing the wrong kind of politics into it. There's no such thing as apolitical. Everything's political. Wh
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

26

What's wrong with my body?

WARNING: Getting mildly graphic about my symptoms here, so don't read if that bothers you...   I've not been around as much lately because I've been ill and I'm starting to worry. I've been almost constantly sick since before Christmas. I really thought I was finally better and then this throat infection took hold, the day after my birthday, no less. (Happy Birthday, Thorn! Here, have some more pain!) I'm tired. I don't sleep well. I wake up way before my alarm, feeling sick and misera
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

17

In my brain right now

My brain's doing that thing, where it's just running away and I can't keep up and I feel anxious and sad and also kind of elated and excited about stuff. So I thought I'd try to just try and write a stream-of-consciousness thing. So, this is my brain on whatever the hell is wrong with me. Sorry about the wall of text.   I'm super excited cause I've been reading comic books and I love the Young Avengers and why aren't Wiccan and Hulkling in the MCU? Almost out of comics, gonna have to f
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

5

Conversation With My Mother 2

'They're doing a premium short story collection at GA,' I said, 'for Pride. Coming out stories. Thought I might submit something, got a couple of ideas. I'd get paid, even.' 'That's nice,' she said vaguely. 'I think you should try to write some more . . . accessible stories, though. You know, stories you could sell.' Did you not hear that I may in fact get paid? I sighed. 'I can only write the stories that come to me.' She pursed her lips. 'Of course. But you could write something
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

4

Trans Day of Visibility

I wanted to write something for trans day of visibility. Couldn’t quite figure out what to write. Maybe cause I can’t quite figure out what I am. I keep going back and forth between this joy at being able to be myself and this fear that this isn’t me at all. That I’m making it up. Hardcore impostor syndrome. I don’t have that story. I wasn’t a tomboy growing up. I was a girly girl who liked playing with dolls and dressing up like a princess. I don’t have body dysmorphia. I didn’t always feel lik
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

14

My Mental Illness Is Not Your Punchline

Mental illness and disability carry a lot of stigma, and a lot of people don’t understand it. Assumptions are made about various mental illnesses and the people who have them. And the way that we use terms related to mental illness in everyday language to describe completely different things can do a lot more harm than you think it might.   This isn’t about getting offended, by the way. This is about enforcing harmful stereotypes that actually hurt people who suffer from mental illness
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

6

Patreon: What It Is, and What It Isn't

Patreon is a service that I think a lot of people don't quite understand. Some people find it disingenuous, for instance, to ask people for money for a product that they will later be giving away for free, as many do. Others see it as akin to begging. That second one I find particularly odd... If anything, it's like busking.    Some history first: Back in the olden days, it was common for talented artists to acquire patrons. A patron might provide the artist with food, a place to live,
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

3

Deconstructing Gender Culture

To preface: This is my blog, I have posted about politics and philosophy on it before, and I will continue to do so. I welcome discussion in the comments, but I ask that you keep it civil. Misogyny and transphobia will be reported, even if it means that this blog post is taken down. If you put words in my mouth, you will be summarily ignored. This is a personal and important subject to me. Please respect that.    Today is International Women's Day. I've always considered myself a
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

12

The Unfortunate Side-Effect

I think there's an unfortunate side-effect to mental illness that many experience. It's not one that's easy to understand or admit to, even to yourself, but I do think it's fairly common. At least I have observed it in both myself and many people I know (and I have a lot of friends irl with mental illness; it's like we're drawn together somehow, us weirdos who suck at fitting in because our brains don't function very well at times). As an example, I have a friend with ADHD and PTSD who often has
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

0

Anxiety

It takes many different forms in different people, really. It took me a long time to recognise my anxiety for what it was, because it wasn't like what I saw in the movies, or what friends with anxiety told me it was like. My anxiety generally manifests in one of two ways.   The first is anger. This was especially true when I was younger. My panic attacks manifested as temper tantrums. Instead of panicking, I would scream, shout, throw things. Nobody ever recognised this as anxiety. I b
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

7

Dear Lacey

It's tempting when writing a letter, to begin it with, 'I hope you're well.' Can't say that in this one, so I'll just go with, I miss you. There are people here who knew you much longer than I did, who probably knew you better, too. But we were talking a lot, around Christmas and into January. You told me about your life, about your family, about your illness. I told you about my life. And we talked about movies and music. We talked about hospitals. And we talked about death.  You were
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

11

Sex Education

So, I finished watching season one of Sex Education on Netflix. I loved it so much. It’s about a teenaged boy whose mother is a sex therapist. While he himself is utterly inexperienced, by some fluke it turns out that he shares his mother’s talent for therapy and sex advice, and he ends up running a ‘sex clinic’ where he helps students at school in return for a modest fee. Hilarity ensues, along with a lot of interesting drama. The show deals with bullying, sex (duh), prejudice, first loves, an
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

1

Erasure

This came from an article about the 2005 book Born Gay, and was shared in a thread in the Tech and Science Geeks club a few days ago. In attempting to prove that being gay is genetic, the authors found it necessary to suggest that bisexuality does not exist. I can understand that. If people are genetically either gay or straight, phenomenons like bisexuality become hard to explain. Easier to just pretend they don’t exist and omit them from the equation so you can more easily prove what you’re tr
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

20

"Adults don't understand the Internet." What??

Warning: Just in case you haven't read my blog before, I swear. Deal with it. Also, this rant is a mess. Deal with that, too.     A little while ago I came across a post on Facebook in which some Gen Z kid or another was saying how great it was to be under 21, because people older than that don't understand memes. (There was other stuff, too, but that was my takeaway.) And, I just, what? Who do these kids think they are?   First of all, the word meme was coined by Richard Daw
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

8

"Wearing men's clothes doesn't make you a boy."

No. You're right. It doesn't. I'm not trans masculine because I wear men's clothes. I wear men's clothes because I'm trans masculine. It's not because they're more comfortable (though they are), it's not because I don't like women's clothes (I do), it's because if people are going to recognise me as not a girl, I need to have a masculine gender expression, which starts with clothes. I wear men's clothes for the same reason most cis guys do.    Whenever they talk about kids who are tran
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

11

Conversation With My Mother

'I don't understand why you want to hide your curves like that,' she said, while I adjusted my binder. 'You look wonderful just as you are.' And I thought, That's kind of hilarious, really, because you're always bugging me about losing weight. I told her, 'It's not about how I look. It's about how I feel.' 'No, I know. I understand.' No you don't. 'But wouldn't it be better if people were just happy with the bodies they have?' I sighed. 'Would be nice, yeah. But we don't live in t
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

3

Identity Crisis?

I'm sat here shivering. It's cold out, but I feel like it's not just that. I just feel really anxious.   I went to my mum's today, to celebrate Finland's Independence Day. We had food and champagne and watched the broadcast from the gala at the presidential palace in Helsinki. It was nice. I had planned to talk to her about my gender. About the non-binary thing. About trans-masculinity. About how I feel about myself and my body and my brain right now. And I couldn't. It just didn't ...
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

9

Comings out

Yesterday I was in the studio at school to record a jazz trio. Piano, drums and accordion, it was pretty weird and wonderful (I still have one of those songs stuck in my head...). I am the only one in my class who's not a cis man. Probably the only one who's queer. So hanging out with and working with these guys can feel kind of lonely, I guess. But after recording, my studio partner and I were packing down the equipment. Third guy had a concert he was mixing, so it was just the two of us, and v
Thorn Wilde

Thorn Wilde

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