Caroline Mays
@illemonati
Caroline Mays
the best storytellers understand that an essential part of their craft is knowing how to pack maximal meaning into minimal words.
The 'Atomic' Secret of the World's Greatest Writers
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
— David Foster Wallace, This is Water
— David Foster Wallace, This is Water
5-Bullet Friday — Tips from Sam Altman’s Coach, Eye Rejuvenation, Cellular Data Tricks, Tasty Coffee Dust, and More
But as pilgrims must discover if they are to complete their quest, we are led to truth by our weaknesses as well as our strengths.”— Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer
5-Bullet Friday — Tips for Human Creators in an AI World, PBS Fun, On Crafting Beautiful Endings, and More
The late biologist E.O. Wilson said that “the real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous.” Wilson said that back in 2011, long before any of us were talking about large language models or GPTs.
Debate: Will the Truth Survive Artificial Intelligence?
I suspect that writers who heavily use AI (or, indeed are AI) will never not be seen, by most people, as low status. Artists tend to shrink from the concept of the ‘brand’, but a writer’s name is their brand, and it will be of enormous value to them in our new age. The authentic human author will be seen almost as a luxury good. People want to be s... See more
Scamming Substack?
“People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.” - William Faulkner
To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.
James P. Carse • Finite and Infinite Games
The writing can be both serious and playful.
To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
William Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Ideas I want to write about and Beautiful Sentiments
Maybe introduce this idea of the mini-memoir
I find myself drawn to literature more now than in the past; not the individual works as much as the idea of literature—the heroic effort and nobility of our human desire to make beauty of our minds—which moves me to tears, and I have to brush them away, quickly, before anyone notices.