Writer. Trying to pass for human. Currently based on planet Earth.
London
Joined April 2009
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Maria Hummer retweeted
The phrases: ‘shut up’, ‘dirt cheap’, ‘dog tired’, ‘dinner-party’, and ‘brace yourself’ were all first recorded in the works of Jane Austen.
I keep giggling to myself every time the English/Welsh coded fantasy characters in this book use the word 'pants'
Maria Hummer retweeted
Nothing ever really ends. That’s the horrible part of being in the short-story business—you have to be a real expert on ends. Nothing in real life ends. ‘Millicent at last understands.’ Nobody ever understands. KURT VONNEGUT
Never completely understood the Snapdragon passage from Through the Looking Glass until now!
Victorians played Snapdragon at Christmas time.
Consisting of filling a shallow bowl with raisins. Then they’d drown the raisins in brandy and set them alight, and take it in turns to reach into the flames, grab a flaming raisin, and eat it before it would burn fingers or tongue.
🎨 “Snapdragon” (1889) by Gabriel Nicolet 1889
Maria Hummer retweeted
❛You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else... But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Doris Lessing, born #OTD in 1919.
The movie Slumberland made me cry. It is beyond baffling to me how a film so obviously made with love, care, and heart-rending attention to detail seems not just to have been quickly forgotten, but not much talked about at all. I beg you to watch it
It's also obviously written by someone who cares very deeply about dreams. It's the dream world I wanted (and was denied) from Inception. It's worthy of Pixar and Studio Ghibli. Should not have been condemned to the cinematic mausoleum that is Netflix
I read the word 'sillage' before I ever heard it pronounced, and now unfortunately in my head it will always rhyme with porridge
Has anyone else noticed the prayer-like language people are using on Threads to petition the algorithm like it's the patron saint of social circles? (which it kind of is)
Maria Hummer retweeted
Some 15th-century rainbow-coloured beasts to brighten your Monday: buff.ly/2trZRus
Sometimes I accidentally type 'I love in London' instead of 'I live in London' and I always think to myself, what a beautiful way to phrase it. Yes I do love in London. I live and I love in London
Maria Hummer retweeted
We like the smell of old books because they release vanillin, the chemical which gives vanilla its fragrance.
I think sometimes of the first time I visited England in 2007 and someone (British) offered to make me a cup of tea and when they asked if I took milk or sugar I said, "Black is fine," and they looked at me like I was insane. Which I was.
I'm up to 6 now baby! And YES I'm counting the play I wrote; it's not a short story but it's a STORY and it took LONGERRRR to write than any short story would, so yeah. Counting it.
