@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

Well, there are certainly _some_ wrong things about MFAs and publishing. (From personal experience, I can tell you quite a few...) But, no, it's not wrong to take that path. And it's not wrong to take another path.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

I always just think about how I want both ways. I want it all ways. And there is room for all of the ways! I want books written by people coming from all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives. There's not one way to do it and that's a very good thing.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

That was a jerk move of me to offer the unsolicited and uninformed bit about your gender swap. I apologize.

But yes to formalizing your awareness of tropes so you have more skill to fuck with them. I don't think it's _necessary_ exactly. Meaning you can absolutely screw with tropes without studying them first. But it's a very useful tool.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

Well, I'm not always sure a gender swap does much in terms of pattern avoidance. But yeah. I know what you mean. But there's a difference for me in knowing things and swimming in them. I am very happy to have been made aware of certain thing and to have studied them in my past. And I know I have to go back to it periodically. But I don't want to live in those books anymore.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

Yes to all of this. But seeing a pattern in texts is not always easy to turn off and not always conducive to writing your own. I mean, of course I'm replicating many of those patters without or without realizing it--and of course I'll deal with that in revision--but it's not fun to be overly conscious of that when you're trying create something new.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos

And I don't know. I've always had a strange relationship with theory and theory-adjacent stuff as a creative writer. I've been in academia enough to be exposed to the famous stuff, but I haven't necessarily dug down very deep. But also, while I often appreciate what I've encountered--I'm not sure it's good for my work to go very deep. It puts me too much in my head, somehow.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

That one, probably not. It came out a little later, I think, than I was reading that stuff.

But of course we live in the world, we take in the ideas floating there. Not having read something doesn't mean it didn't influence you.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

So many people ask me. And I think I must have a long time ago, but I don't 100% remember. But, yeah. I think? Anyway, I know what it's about generally and it's incredibly relevant and related to what I write about.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

The distinction, to me, means choice. And consent. And the beautiful, painful, and perpetual struggle we are in to own and control our own bodies and identities and selves.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

We're cyborgs after all.

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

Oh, I know. I think about this all the time.

And the squiggles on the screen translate to _something_ in a stranger's brain--that's absolutely magic.

But then, even trippier, the ideas can even physically wire into that brain and changes its little pathways. I mean, physically.

@ninahatfield

Oh, thank you!

@orionkidder @ajswritesthings @nebulos @sarahijackson

Words make anything possible. You just say it and in someone's imagination, it is.

@ninahatfield

Well, I think a lot of stories do play with this! Metafictional stories, call-and-response stories, interactive stories.

And the way we read books to kids and encourage them to talk to us about what is happening, or say parts of it, or predict.

We do that to connect and also because it's fun.

But it's also a more physical manifestation of the way we collaborate with the text when we read in our heads.