Toby

Toby

@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Writer📓 Beachcomber 🏖️ Fountain Pen Enthusiast 🖋️

53 followers90 following94 posts

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Same. If I manage to write one, that is 😅

Tom Cox@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social

I don't write books to tell people what I think about stuff. I write books to find out what I think about stuff.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I’ve been reading and working through a popular book on the craft of fiction (not going to name names). I just kept getting angrier and angrier as I followed along, admittedly building a good launchpad for a novel. 1/?

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Part of why I write stories is to present my own artistic values. To illustrate what I think writing is and is for. Part of why I write is to explore what writing can be. And it can be so much more than this book claimed.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Anyway, I’ll stop vagueposting after one last thought: Sometimes craft books ARE really helpful - just in the exact opposite way the author meant them to be.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I’ve been reading and working through a popular book on the craft of fiction (not going to name names). I just kept getting angrier and angrier as I followed along, admittedly building a good launchpad for a novel. 1/?

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

This book was very insistent on the completeness and accuracy it it’s view of what fiction is - what storytelling is. Part of this insistence involved dismissing certain common aspects of fiction as being illusions. (There’s never really more than one Main Character, e.g.)

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I decided to be charitable and just keep working through the book. But all my excitement about my idea was vanishing. I was developing a solid, probably sellable book that I could t stand the idea of writing. Then it hit me

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Getting my MFA is in the top three best decisions in my life. The only thing stopping me from doing it a second time with another concentration is the fact that I don’t think they’ll let me. Hottest MFA forever! (That’s the UCR Palm Desert low-residency MFA for anyone who’s curious.)

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Things I researched today for my screenplay: Leeches Leech-borne illnesses Pulmonary edema Styles of house foundations Mesmerism Cold reading Gum disease It’s gonna be an absolute banger.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Can confirm. I love all my writer friends, mentors, and everyone I’ve ever read and enjoyed.

Chaucer Doth Tweet@levostregc.bsky.social

Do not messe wyth writers. Thei are the kyndeste and meanest and weirdest folk on Earthe. Thei kan create a person yn a second, or make a partye be rememberid for two thousande years. Thei kan stitch and unstitch worldes. Thei give names to emociouns we do not yet understande. Odd people, mightye.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Finally, the science to back up what I’ve always been saying

The Onion@theonion.com

Study Finds There Aren’t Enough Occasions Where You Get To Eat Rolls https://theonion.com/study-finds-there-arent-enough-occasions-where-you-get-to-eat-rolls/

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Story time: So I started watching The X Files, which was on when I was in middle school and very much the kind of thing I was NOT allowed to watch. Obviously I had a friend record an episode and let me borrow the tape. One episode, that I watched over and over at 5 in the morning—

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

And then we see Mulder’s apartment: gorgeous old wood trim, huge windows, but tiny and full of interesting mess. The kind of places I’m constantly drawn to. And that seals it: I realize I have been trying to become Fox Mulder since I was something like 11 years old.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

(Not saying that i’m just like him, obviously, and not saying that it would be good. Just saying I got smacked in the face with an influence/ role model I had no idea I even had. And that it sure is nice when an old bit of TV still ‘holds up’.)

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Story time: So I started watching The X Files, which was on when I was in middle school and very much the kind of thing I was NOT allowed to watch. Obviously I had a friend record an episode and let me borrow the tape. One episode, that I watched over and over at 5 in the morning—

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

What a ride! Some of the visuals were immediately familiar. It was warmer-lit than I’d have guessed, but honestly that was the only thing off. And it was FUN. And it has whiffs of pathos. I loved it! But reader, it held a mirror up to me and made me confront myself in a completely unexpected way

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Let me state here that I couldn’t remember any dialogue from the episode anymore. Hadn’t for years. I would’ve bet the episode ended at the haunted house. But when Mulder got READ by the one ghost I heard myself described with hair-raising accuracy.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Story time: So I started watching The X Files, which was on when I was in middle school and very much the kind of thing I was NOT allowed to watch. Obviously I had a friend record an episode and let me borrow the tape. One episode, that I watched over and over at 5 in the morning—

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

so that I wouldn’t get caught. It was a Christmas episode, from season 6: some ghosts trick Mulder and Scully into thinking they shot each other. Something about it just HELD me. I have no idea how many times I watched that episode. Then last night, I arrived at it in my series watchthrough

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

For a second I was delighted, but then I slammed my laptop shut. What if it was BAD?! What if past me was revealed to have been a completely tasteless, ignorant serf? I thought about it today though, and I just got done watching it.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Name your too 15 tv shows, gut instincts only: Sesame Street Wishbone Ghostwriter Star Trek Voyager Gilmore Girls Poirot Bob’s Burgers The Good Place Endeavor The Crown Slow Horses Interview with the Vampire The Great British Bake Off Hannibal Psych

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I didn’t get sent to the counselor but the book about aliens and Area 51 that I checked out a bunch of times from my school library did disappear. They let me keep checking out the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe though.

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

The Onion is one of the top things - maybe the top thing - that sometimes make me proud to be from Wisconsin.

Culture Crave 🍿@culturecrave.co

The Onion has reached a deal to acquire Infowars • It will be turned into a parody site of itself • Has the support of the Sandy Hook families “A lot of people gave up on doing the right thing over the last two years. Despite an insane amount of threats & bullshit, we persevered" (via Variety)

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I grabbed The House of Skin by Karina Lickorish Quinn! Super excited to read it!

Stanchion@stanchion.bsky.social

Haven't done this in ages: Everyone go get a free PDF of anything I've ever published, magazine issue or book. Use code FREEPDF to zero out your bill @ checkout. Choose any PDF at StanchionZine.com/shop (scroll waaaay down to see all the PDFs. I'm so curious what you'll pick.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I wonder if people wouldn’t be so tempted to rely on A I for advice or “help” if so many of us hadn’t been taught to be ashamed of not knowing things.

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Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

It becomes shameful to ask questions. So yeah, people are going to ask a bot that can’t or won’t judge them for asking rather than risk the shame of asking another human.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Our vulnerability to A I doesn’t come out of nowhere. Not saying there’s a broad evil conspiracy, but the right conditions were great for A I to be broadly embraced. We aren’t going to be able to plan further responses to it without understanding where the initial responses are, in part, coming from

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

I wonder if people wouldn’t be so tempted to rely on A I for advice or “help” if so many of us hadn’t been taught to be ashamed of not knowing things.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

When you’re constantly taking tests in school and the people in power (adults) reward high-scorers over kids who really are curious but haven’t memorized enough, you learn to keep your confusion to yourself.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Today having the atmosphere it does, here’s what I’ve been up to: Walked the dog Read a story Took my vitamins Prepped notes for teaching a class on short stories Tried writing a poem for the first time Paid attention to everything around me, and marveled at how wonderful our world really is

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

And I need to reread my sources and notes over and over, because sometimes it’s on the third, fourth, fifth pass that a particular line jumps out at me and the dots that have been swirling in my head coalesce into a beautiful whole.

Michael Schulman@michaelschulman.bsky.social

I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

Patience + Persistence 🏔️

Adam Lance Garcia@adamlancegarcia.bsky.social

I’ve been writing professionally since 2008, but it wasn’t until 2023 that I wrote a Star War, 2024 that I got an agent, and 2025 that I was writing multiple projects, including my first original novel. Being creative takes patience and time. Never give up on yourself.

Toby
@queerhobbit.bsky.social

gotta go with pen 2 - no matter how much I love my fountain pens I will always be happy writing with one of those Pilots

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Toby reposted

Joanne Harris
@joannechocolat.bsky.social

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 8643: Writing a synopsis is one of the hardest things to do. That's because in long form, it's easy to overlook things that don't make sense, or are not properly explained or developed. A detailed synopsis lays these things bare, which is why it's worth persevering.