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Nick Arvin

@nickarvin.bsky.social

1.3K followers 560 following 1.3K posts

Writer & engineer. Author of MAD BOY from Europa Editions + 3 other books of fiction. Writing in the NYer, NYT, WSJ, Ploughshares. Technical and consulting work in green energy. Colorado based.

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Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · Aug 19

Please, I’m just an organism responding to stimuli. Don’t expect too much.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 9h

It was in fact a particularly dulcet chirp.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 12h

Dreamed last night that I was going to write a book of flash fiction with @duchessgoldblatt.bsky.social, after @elizmccrack.bsky.social suggested it. Then I lost my bicycle. I was still looking for my bicycle when the carbon monoxide detector began chirping because of low battery and woke me up.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

It always makes me think of the Zaphod Beeblebrox character in Hitchhikers Guide.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

The toddler years are fabulous, and you don't want to miss it. But it also did no one any good if I neglected my own sense of identity and mental health, which for me writing is an essential component.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

Sometimes it would come down to stealing a few minutes in a parking lot or right before bed. Almost always it would end up being more than a single sentence, but if not that was okay. The important thing for me was to keep it in my mind and maintain a smidge of day to day momentum.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

"Inessential" is pretty flexible. Certainly some amount of social life and relationship maintenance is essential; how much depends on the situation. Regardless, I think it's possible to keep chipping away at the writing. I tried to maintain a "just write at least one sentence a day" rule.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

☹️

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

I wrote through that period while working and splitting parenting duties. In my experience, it's possible, but I had to accept a slower pace of progress, and almost everything else that was inessential fell away. Zero TV time, for example.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 3d

Teachers would smack my mom's hand with a ruler if she used her left.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 4d

Same happened to my mother!

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 4d

An amazing graph, what happens when you destigmatize a behavior.

Graph, titled "The history of left-handedness," shows the rate of left-handedness among Americans by year of birth. The graph illustrates a significant increase in the percentage of left-handed people from the early 1900s to the 1960s, after which the rate stabilized.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 4d

I'm loving the Florida-Texas game too.

Reposted by Nick Arvin

Europa Editions @europaeditions.bsky.social · 7d

“A jaunty mix of high and low: of affecting devotion and rough high-jinks, sometimes tender and sometimes raunchy.”

Alida Becker in @nytimes.com on THE BOOK OF I by David Greig, out now.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/b...

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 7d

And the novel is very fluid and inventive, but it's not exactly clear from this book why Hua is considered a giant in contemporary Chinese literature. I'll probably try one of his earlier novels.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 8d

Yu Hua's CITY OF FICTION -- just finished this novel & I'd say the NYT review by @chrispower.bsky.social is quite fair although I maybe liked it more than he did. I found much of the first third & last third quite beautiful. The banditry in the middle is pretty silly.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/b...

A Tale of Bloodshed and Lost Love in China’s Turbulent Past

www.nytimes.com

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 10d

Congrats, Joy!!!

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 10d

Apparently a praying mantis doesn't have proper eye pupils, but they have 'pseudopupils," which sounds like some of my friends in college.

Anyway, this one was on our smoke bush.

Praying mantis on a purple leaf

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 11d

My understanding is that Spanish peanuts are a type of peanut, whereas roasted and cocktail are ways of cooking the peanuts, but regardless I totally agree that they are garbage.

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 11d

roasted peanuts > cocktail peanuts

Reposted by Nick Arvin

Robert Swartwood @robertswartwood.bsky.social · 12d

In case you missed it last night, here's my chat with @jonathanjanz.bsky.social, who I have determined is the Paul Rudd of the horror community

Author Jonathan Janz Discusses His Newest Novel VEIL, His Writing, And More

YouTube video by Robert Swartwood

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 12d

Today's view from Green Mountain.

Foreground partial wooden fence, middle distance golden grasses sloping downward away, far distance ridge of shaded mountains

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 15d

Made it to Golden Gate Canyon yesterday.

Scene of scattered trees in a meadow with a hilltop in the background and a big jagged boulder sitting by itself at middle distance

Reposted by Nick Arvin

Joshua Jones Lofflin @jjlofflin.bsky.social · 17d

I’ll now think of this every time I hear the Thompson Twins sing Doctor Doctor

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 17d

The*given name* of the doctor who attended to President Garfield (and botched it) was "Doctor."

Like: Dr. Doctor Bliss

Doctor Willard Bliss (August 18, 1825 - February 21, 1889; his given name was Doctor|1]|2|[3|[4)) was an American physician and pseudo-expert in ballistic trauma, who treated President of the United States James A. Garfield after his shooting in July 1881 until

his death two and a half months later. [5]

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 17d

The*given name* of the doctor who attended to President Garfield (and botched it) was "Doctor."

Like: Dr. Doctor Bliss

Doctor Willard Bliss (August 18, 1825 - February 21, 1889; his given name was Doctor|1]|2|[3|[4)) was an American physician and pseudo-expert in ballistic trauma, who treated President of the United States James A. Garfield after his shooting in July 1881 until

his death two and a half months later. [5]

Nick Arvin @nickarvin.bsky.social · 17d

Amazing piece of flash memoir.

meliss-AAAH! @mel.bzky.team · 18d

good morning everyone

4chan post that reads i used to have 50,000 posts on a fucking really weird, small, Futurama forum. There were only about 50 posters on the entire board.

For some reason i literally roleplayed as Kif (the frog who was a slave to Zapp Brannigan) in every single fucking post. i remember that the other posters would say things like ‘post your penis again for me Kif with a picture of Zapp and i would do it (after using photoshop to make my dick green). i was basically a fucking sex slave for 50,000 posts. i remember on one occasion a girl came onto the board and i really liked her, but instead of talking to her like a normal human i tried to pick her up by writing an extensive, 1200 word post describing the backrub i gave to Zapp Brannigan. i hate that part of my life almost as bad as this current one.