July 23 - dash | #WIPSnips #M&F This one is packed with umami! (from Chapter 2, Meddy & Frank)

22 | Writing process: Like a William Carlos Williams poem, an image usually starts my process. A firetruck blowing past me in the rain. The Great Figure 5. Even if it never makes the page, nothing moves until I work out what must be done. #SummerOfStories #WriteSky #M&F #WritingPrompt

Standing on Jericho Beach, looking across the water at a skyline that is far from Paris, far from New York. Which is as good a place to start a story. #AmWriting #ShortRead #JerichoTapes 🧵

We have a sofa. Bought it when we got engaged. Shabby Chic on Ventura near Cahuenga. Small. Perfect for two. We've reupholstered it twice. It is the most comfortable piece of furniture I have ever owned. #ShortRead #MarriageOfLongDuration 🧵

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" - Howl, Allen Ginsberg A machine always has a basement. And those built to be processed usually know where the service entrances are. #BerkeleyTapes #BookSky #ShortRead 🧵

I had been right all along. Thirty years ago, a younger version of me had stopped at exactly this spot, drawn a circle, and moved on. I just needed to find him again. (10/22) #BerkeleyTapes

"How does it happen that some Grow up among faces not cruel not destroying" - Faces, Josephine Miles Some silences have weight and direction. They tell you which way to move before you've decided to move. #BerkeleyTapes #BookSky #ShortRead 🧵

We Are Not the Horse. #BerkelyTapes #BookSky #ShortRead 🧵

"So began, for Oedipa, the languid, sinister blooming of The Tristero." - Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 A door that shouldn't be open. A room that was waiting. #BerkeleyTapes #BookSky #AmWriting 🧵

Finished this on a plane last weekend. Still haven't landed. A thread. 🧵 #BookSky #ShortRead ⚠️Spoiler alert for Exhortation from Tenth of December ahead.

"The center was not holding... People were missing. Children were missing. Parents were missing. Those left behind filed desultory missing-persons reports, then moved on themselves." - Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem Some people don't come back. #BerkeleyTapes #BookSky #AmWriting 🧵

In the second aisle of the covered lot at PCC flea market, there’s a stall. Last month I walked past a Foul Play poster (Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, 1978) and kept walking. Told myself: don't be ridiculous. Where would you even hang it? (1/10) 🧵 #ShortRead #MovieSky

“Orthodoxy is my Doxy, Heterodoxy is the other fellow’s Doxy.” - Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. Level C. Fifty-eight degrees. An archivist. A fifty-three-year-old tape. A voice that has been waiting. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #BookSky 🧵

I grew up with stories like these, given to me deliberately. I Never Saw Another Butterfly, the drawings and poems children made in Terezín, the instruction to never forget. Instilled trauma, like an MMR booster. I carried it whether I wanted to or not. (2/12)

“Many events plant seeds, imperceptible at the time, that bear fruit long afterward.” - A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit Today we talk about what happens when the State plants that seed. #BerkeleyTapes #ShortReads #BookSky 🧵

Just finished binging season 1 of The Pitt. It has me thinking about three characters across three very different stories all running from and toward the same thing. #BerkeleyTapes 🧵

"The trouble you're expecting never happens; it's always something that sneaks up the other way" - George R. Stewart, Earth Abides Four people in a creek bed. One SD card. What Chloe knew and didn't say. #BerkeleyTapes #SFF #BookSky 🧵

“We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords… ” ― Jack London, The Iron Heel As the gas fills Ridge House, the students don't leave through the front door. They go up. #BerkeleyTapes #SFF #WriterSky🧵

“Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.” ― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly Chapter 3 continues. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #BookSky🧵

From the Writer’s Desk: One of the risks (and joys) of writing live is that sometimes, the characters overrule the outline. In the last drop, Chloe revealed footage of the abduction immediately. But when I sat down to write the scene, I realized: She wouldn't. (1/3) #BerkeleyTapes #WriterSky 🧵

We think of these places as past. Black&white photos of brick walls and barbed wire. But the Umschlagplatz is still here, just with permit and parking lot. Today, it looks like the Federal Center in DTLA. Or the Whipple Building in Minneapolis. Or a warehouse in Broadview, IL. (2/5) #BerkeleyTapes

From the Writer's Desk: There is a German word: Umschlagplatz. Literally, it means "collection point" or "transshipment place." In 1the Warsaw Ghetto, it was the railway siding where Jews were gathered, counted, and sorted before being loaded into cattle cars for Treblinka. 🧵(1/5) #BerkeleyTapes

Several weeks ago, I photographed this note hanging from the Wishing Tree in Arlington Garden, a gift to the park from Yoko Ono. I thought it was the most beautifully illegible handwriting I'd ever seen. I assumed it was English, impossible to read but magical to look at. (1/8)🧵

"There was a wall. It did not look important..." — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed. Chapter 3 begins. #BerkeleyTapes #SFF #WriterSky 🧵

From the Writer's Desk: Before we dive into Chapter 3, I want to share a map. This is Level D of the Gardner Stacks. Those rows marked PR and PS? That was my haunt. If you know, you know. #BerkeleyTapes #WriterSky #AmWriting 🧵

Damir Volic knows you can't stop the monsters. But you can build thicker walls. Tonight, he constructs two sanctuaries: one made of plastic bricks for his son, and one made of stone for history itself. Chapter 2 concludes. #BerkeleyTapes #SFF #WriterSky 🧵 Rosa 'Peace' (Yellow flushed with pink).

Damir Volic doesn't play tennis for points. He plays to silence the noise in his head. But tonight, his body won't let him serve. It won't let him be open. It won't let him be seen. #BerkeleyTapes #SFF #WriterSky 🧵 The Iceberg Rose. Stark, brilliant white.

For Damir Volic, time is a single, jagged line drawn through 1995. There is the Before. And there is the After. Today, someone crosses it for him. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #WriterSky 🧵 Rosa 'Windermere' (1932 variety).

Happy Turkey Day. While the ovens warm, I am serving up the start of Chapter 2. Meet Damir Volic. He knows that safety is just a story we tell ourselves. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #WriterSky 🦃🧵 The 'Apricot Nectar' Rose. Sweet, but deceptively hardy.

Dedicated Benches, Chapter 1, Final Scene. The view from above is clear, recording the final moments of the protest in high definition. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #BookSky🧵