What Advice Would You Give To Young Or Beginning Writers?

What advice would you give to young or beginning writers?

Read everything. Read the stuff you like and read the stuff you don't think you'll like. Read the things that people think it's good for you to read and read the things they seem worried about you reading. Read prose and poetry and fiction and non-fiction. Get off your phone and read books without interruption. Read the classics and read the cutting edge. Read everything you can get your hands on.

– @neil-gaiman

I am consuming a media and you are going to hear about it

Kaz Isn't Actually Motivated By Greed

Or at least, not primarily. Don't get me wrong, his stated primary driving factor is getting the money he was promised from Van Eck, but his reasoning isn't actually greed-based. Kaz's desire for money is goal-oriented and his fixation on it during the duology is fairness-based. He initially wants his share of the money because it will allow him to split from Per Haskell and start his revenge scheme over Pekka. He then pursues getting it with such zeal because Van Eck broke their deal and Kaz (rightly) feels cheated; Van Eck contracted him for a job, which he successfully completed, and then refused to pay him for it.

He fixates on destroying Van Eck because like Pekka Rollins, he broke his deal with Kaz and scammed him out of his money. It's the scamming and deal-breaking (and his inability to figure it out beforehand) that hit Kaz's pride and motivate him. If it were really just about the money, he could have gotten it any number of ways. But despite talking a big game about worshipping money and it being his primary motivating factor, he throws away an awful lot of opportunities to get and keep it during the duology:

He doesn't take the Ice Court job until he's shown the effects of parem and promised 30 million kruge (enough that when split he could realize his dreams of splitting from Haskell and taking out Rollins)

He gives up his shares in the Crow Club and Fifth Harbor to Pekka in order to rescue Inej and kickstart the Sugar Silo scheme

He doesn't abandon Inej after she's taken by Van Eck to sell Kuwei to the highest bidder, even though that would have been the most logical and lucrative option (as both Inej and Matthias think about)

He liquidates all of his existing financial assets to free Inej AND tells her where his emergency stash is so she and the rest of the Crows can get out of the city safely

He gives Rotty and Specht Per Haskell's share of the Ice Court Heist money (recognizing their loyalty and help) and Nina Matthias's share (to somewhat compensate her for her grief and fund her new cause) instead of keeping it for himself

He buys Inej a ship with HIS part of the money

And while several of the things he abandons money for are for Inej, to keep her safe and free and happy, the rest of the Crows and the Dregs at large benefit too. So do people he's probably never met. Pre-canon!Kaz fixed up the Slat with his own money so it's a safe-ish place for the Dregs to live, for example, and in Crooked Kingdom he totally goes along with Nina's plan to get all of Ketterdam's Grisha onto the boat to Ravka after a mostly token protest even though it massively complicates his plans.

It's pretty clear that no matter what he says, at the end of the day Kaz values loyalty, fairness, and keeping his promises more than he values money. The money is just a means to an end for him: he wants it because it will a) allow him to have an amount of safety and security for himself and the people he cares about (and those who have pledged their loyalty to him), b) let him keep his deals with and promises to said people, and c) give him the ability to one-up Pekka and destroy his empire.

Just watched Spider-Man across the spider verse and my life has honestly been changed I sat there for half the moving wondering what it must feel like to work in a project like this. People had to sit there and write rewrite and edit every word every sentence every interaction animate every scene in that particular way choose to colour every shot with those specific colours rvery song every soundtrack choice the way the music overwhelmed the audience then switched to being almost outside the scene was insane. All of it was intentional. I want to sit and analyse everything and write essays upon essays on it all. The costumes the way each character was animated in a different style. Was there a significance to Hobie’s varying between colorful and black and white? What the reason behind the scene between Gwen and her dad altering colors like that? Everything about this movie was madness to me and it feels like it’s going to change so much. The emphasis on the canons on Spider-Man’s story that paralleled the Hero’s Journey and Miles’ questioning and criticism of it!!! The idea of having to let things be because they have to go that way and so they must be accepted because sacrifices must be made and the refusal to accept that in the movie’s storyline which is a reflection of society’s current attempt to break the mold on so many traditional narratives. I have so many thoughts. This movie is truly inexplicable to me.

Characters that have “no grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her” vibes >>> anything else