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I would like to submit to you a simple structure to every argument, as talked about by Aristotle in Rhetoric. There are two parts to an argument: the premise, and the conclusion. (1) By premise , I mean a preliminary point (an assumption if you will) that is taken as granted, or taken as true (example to follow). By conclusion , I mean the logical derivation or logical follow-up of one or more premises (example to follow). I shall use the Aristotlean syllogism (a certain kind of argument in which there are two premises and a conclusion drawn from them) to demonstrate the reason behind the many, ideological or otherwise, arguments that people tend to have. (2) The famous example for syllogism used by Aristotle is: 1.         All men are mortal. (PREMISE 1) 2.        Socrates is a man. (PREMISE 2) 3.         Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (CONCLUSION) In this, the first two are premises , taken as granted. ...

So, I want to start off by explaining why I crack jokes to all of yous here. You see, I had a thing when I was a child when my mother and father would tell me to crack jokes to lighten up the mood. I always thought jokes were the full-stops to decent conversations, and then everyone went home. So, when I didn’t know what to say, and wanted to go home, I’d crack a joke. But then they’d ask me to crack another one, and I’d try to come up with another. There’d be a strange pause, which would make me so uncomfortable I’d want to take my skin off and rinse it, you know what I mean? I don’t enjoy silences. So, I’d joke. I’d joke about hating silences, and people would laugh. No more silences. Jokes came to me easy because of my fear of the lack of them. I grew to hate, and even fear conversation. Soon as someone would say something real, I’d crack a joke. They told me to do stand-up, but I wasn’t too sure, because I thought, hey, that’s not a conversation. That’s just a person sta...

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTAL HEALTH, HEAVY TOPICS, SUICIDE DISCUSSED Man, oh man, how are you man? OK. K. Kinda not cool. Okay. OK. We use man a lot, don’t we. Yes we do. Well we shouldn’t. Why? We oughtn’t. Haven’t heard that word in a while. Yeah. Yeah. But then, thoughts of a suicidal human doesn’t have the crunch to it. What crunch? The crunch of a nodding crumbling patriarchy, (and I hope it dies a slow death, kill it with fire, and every oily fucker supporting it too). You’re being weird again. Again? Again. I’m K, it’s short for Kthanksbye. And this is suicidals anonymous. Except it isn’t. Suicidals don’t come together in a group. Unless you’re Manson’s people. But then you’re not suicidal. I’m on a train, I’ll explain later, but by later I won’t be there anymore, I’ll either be in my empty flat, or, hopefully, not. Floyd is playing Goodbye Cruel World right now. Good good. I don’t want to, and won’t need to, take too much of your novel...

In my opinion, there’s three steps to good writing (in no particular order): 1.        Learning theory- the knowledge of how to write. 2.        Practicing- the actual writing. 3.        Analysis- the shouting at oneself about how one is a bad writer and (this is the important part) then learning from one’s mistakes. 1.        Theory: Two people decide to be writers- The first decides to start writing right away. They come up with a character, a setting and they are off. They reach chapter two, chapter three, and keep going, but they falter. What to do now? They don’t know where the story is going? Ah, okay, we’ll come up with a random new direction, let’s go. Keep going, and the end result is a meandering mess. The other person goes to Google and types ‘How to Write Better’, and gets an awesome article that explains the Three Act Structure, and the ...

Wake up. It’s itching again. Scratch it. It’s swollen up already. Breathe slower. Your hair is wet, slick with sweat. Breathe slower. Keep your heart rate down. Do not panic. Scratch it. It’s just an itch. Just an itch. It’s stayed with you for a few months now: red with scratch marks, swollen now, bruised. But it’s still just an itch. You took it to a doctor, I believe? I don’t think you even remember. I was with you then. I’ve been with you for a few months now. But you don’t look at me. You just keep looking at that goddamn itch all the time, scratching. Scratch. Scratch. Claw it out, come on. Rid yourself of that goddamn itch, so you can finally look at me. The doctor said it was a mosquito bite. The doctor talked loudly, and sharply. You didn’t go back again. What if you went back, and he looked inside your brain and found out about us? About me? No. You began worrying that the truth was printed on the back of your iris, and if someone was to look too closely into you...

Ever since Ber and Dor were born, they had been pretty much inseparable, much like their families, which lived next door to each other. Their two houses were merely fifty feet apart, separated by twenty feet of garden on each side, and a ten-foot pathway, which was where Ber and Dor had played for as long as they could remember. The pathway was dotted on each side with flowers, which the gentlemen of the family tended to every once in a few days. The ladies looked after the garden once a week, usually on Sundays. They made it a family affair too, and would do so together, swapping stories of the week, and drinking home-made lemonade. Ber and Dor were cousins; their mothers were sisters. But you wouldn’t know if you looked at them. They looked different from each other, apart from their habit of cocking their heads to the side when they thought their name was being called. Each had an exquisite collection of toys; their parents spared them no expense, as they were each the lo...

They lived in a two-room flat with peeling walls, where it rained inside all day. It rained in the other room, thankfully, so they could sleep in a drier place. The roof leaked so much they referred to that room as the rainforest. The two couldn’t be more different from each other if they tried. They stuck together because they couldn’t afford the rent alone, and no one else wanted them. They had to stick together. But they were very different: the second was rather short, with almost elfish, pointed ears, a smile that bordered on a smirk, twinkling eyes, deep brown eyes, and hair that were cut the right length. He was what one would call a charmer. He could talk the shoes off of a horse. The first, however, was much quieter. He moved slower, and blinked his eyes a lot. He had trouble sleeping too, for his mind was always thinking, though he barely ever spoke. He had always been told by everyone except his mother that he had rather large ears, but his mother had told him to igno...