Advice
The Fourth Wall
I blame modernism and postmodernism for the plague of literary rooms that are essentially open plazas or terraces. For me, there’s a problem with assuming that the room can survive without the fourth wall. Writers like Shakespeare, Bronte, Vonnegut, and Salinger successfully break the fourth wall, which means it exists. You can’t break a wall that isn’t there.
By Harper Lewis13 days ago in Writers
To My Beloved Grandson
Grandson: I’m writing this to you now, even though you are so young you’re unable to read or comprehend it, because I feel we are at the edge of a great precipice morally and idealistically and practically. I publish this letter in its entirety in the present, the year 2026, when you are but a scant few months old. A copy will reside with your parents to hold in trust for you, that you may have a physical reminder of me and my thoughts and my love for you even after I’m gone. I recognize it as a quaint old custom, the passing along of an old fashioned letter written on paper, by hand, in a form of script that you may look at and never actually comprehend. To you, when you are finally presented this artifact, it may be as alien a form of communication as I found Sumerian cuneiform, or Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Incan knot language. I’m hoping your mother and father school you a bit in the art of what is known as cursive writing in the here and now, even if the educational system abandons the practice. I believe it is important to be able to write and especially to read cursive, and the most important founding documents of our nation were written in that script. I believe it is vitally necessary to be able to read those primary sources in their original form, rather than rely on an unknown human or machine mind’s translation.
By David Muñoz13 days ago in Writers
The Benefits Of Reviving Your Old Stories On Vocal
Introduction This is just a short piece about the benefits of reviving old stories (if you consider five years old in my case). I do treasure most of my Vocal writing and am disappointed when the Vocal Story fails to load. While I have the original text, I can't always remember the videos, pictures, links and other ephemera that I included. Also, I don't want to recreate the stories in case Vocal do get their act together and restore the failing stories.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 14 days ago in Writers
When USCIS Requests More Evidence in an Immigration Case
When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issues a Request for Evidence, applicants often feel uncertain about what the notice means for their case. An RFE does not mean a petition will automatically be denied. It simply indicates that the agency needs additional information before reaching a final decision. When the requested documentation is provided clearly and accurately, many cases move forward successfully.
By Sheila Danzig15 days ago in Writers
The Benefits of Writing Porn. Content Warning.
I’m here today to talk about how writing porn (erotica, romance, whatever you call writing that readers derive sexual pleasure from) enhances and improves other writing. It does this in multiple ways, if you have the ovaries or cajones to really go for it. I can hear the Pollyannas clutching their pearls from here, see the shocked, judgmental looks aimed like lasers at me for daring to put romance as a parenthetical of porn (which is where it belongs).
By Harper Lewis15 days ago in Writers
