#WritersCoffeeClub Jan 1: What are your writing related New Year Resolutions?
I don't really do resolutions, but let's try this: I'll actually send my work out more this year. Get serious and make a list of agents, and just go through the list.
I contend that if Space:1999 had writing on a par with its art direction, costuming, and casting, it would still be a going concern while Star Trek would be a quaintly amusing curiosity of its time like Lost In Space. Oy vey, that writing, though, especially that second season.
📚Les #utopiales2023 sont ouvertes, et la soirée d’inauguration commence fort avec la « Leçon du président » Roland Lehoucq. Faire tribunes pleines sur le sujet de l’antimatière dans la #sciencefiction, il n’y a qu’ici qu’on peut voir ça 😀 #utopiales#sff#sf#sfff#mesutos2023
Do you reply to your last toot, or do you reply to the initial toot of the thread? Why? (Please reply to the thread.) Please boost for a bigger sample size..
Nous y sommes! Retrouvez-moi aujourd’hui et demain au salon Imagina’Livres à Portet-sur-Garonne pour faire dédicacer vos livres ou refaire le monde littéraire avec moi! J’aurais également quelques goodies à vous distribuer grâce à la générosité des #editionsdu38 #salon#livres#sf#fantastique#occulte#occitanie#toulouse
There's so much #sf about "competent men" running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clear vision and a firm confident hand. There's very little fiction about how much being raised by a #Heinlein dad would suuuck. But it would, as @naomikritzer's Liberty's Daughter shows:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Over and over we’ve been told self-driving cars would solve our transport problems only for them not to deliver.
In 2023, Waymo and Cruise promised us their services had finally cracked the code — but a new scandal in San Francisco shows they deceived us once again. We need to stop falling for their fantasies and take real action to fix our transport system.
#WritingWonders 7.9 — What are you good at when it comes to writing?
People have complimented me on my dialogue.
Recently, I've switched from 3rd person to 1st person narrative. That's essentially the MC talking to the reader, which may explain why my writing feels so much more fluid and natural.
I read most everything I write aloud. It has to pass the speech test. Getting tongue-tied is a bad sign.
So...
My answer to this one is what I am doing now. Talking to the reader. What do you think? Does it work for you?
Looking to my #SF folks for some guidance. I know TogetherSF's lobbying arm is an astroturf group dedicated to policies that I strongly oppose.
Their nonprofit arm also sponsors events like neighborhood cleanups. My co-teacher has been thinking about having our students volunteer on one of those cleanups. As a progressive, should I steer us away from them? I will of course be open with the kids about the politics involved and let them help make the decision.
Bonjour les Mastonautes. Une nouvelle semaine commence. Un petit café en ma compagnie pour vous aider à vous lancer? ☕️☕️☕️
Comme il est tôt, je vais essayer d’écrire un peu avant d’aller bosser. #bonjour#bonnehumeur#cafe#ecriture#sf#spaceopera
So, let's see if I can use my enthusiasm for the pachyderm vs the bird to keep my #HaveRead list going this year.
Book 1: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. I loved Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel even better. Picking up the characters and places again and re-examining them just keeps making her work better.
#PennedPossibilities 85 — MC POV: Tell us a quick love story. The story must end badly. CW: Um, frank talk?
I thought he was dead. The only guy who'd ever had a crush on me. My lieutenant from my days in the mob. He'd been bleeding when I'd shoved him through the /Interstellar/ apparition a year ago. When I'd escaped through the same working ten minutes later, the street it was anchored to in Home City was abandoned—but for Praetorian guards too frantic to notice me because Director Rainy Days had roared through only half a minute before, in full battle mode, without any of her guards.
A year later, Rainy Days cornered me. To convince me to stay, she'd baited her trap with him. She'd made him a cadet in her Praetorian guard, and oh my—my—my, did he look good in that uniform. He stepped up to me, no longer blushing or stuttering, not able to say those words that he liked me. No, he stepped up to be, cupped my chin, and kissed me deeply.
My knees nearly gave out, despite my worst enemy standing less than a dozen standards away from me. My heart racing, I returned the kiss, warming up, and letting him put a hand behind my back.
Rainy Days said something like, "She should get a room."
I stepped back, a hand on my lieutenant's chest. I looked at her in complete shock, but I couldn't think of anything sufficiently sarcastic. I flashed her a hand-gesture instead, then grabbed his head and kissed him back until he moaned. I expected that evening would be sweet.
He fought alongside me against Rainy Days, the strongest thaumaturge to ever live. We nearly died.
That night, after lots of events too numerous to enumerate, and me agreeing to work with Rainy Days as her minion (long story), I had to deal with my roommate. She was the first person I'd acknowledged as a friend since childhood. I had used her in a sting operation to catch a crime boss and for various reasons—including that she had never ever gotten laid because of who her mom is—was bummed out.
I "gave" her my boyfriend to cheer her up.
They took me literally. Loudly, I might add. You'd think an ivory tower would have better sound insulation, but you'd be wrong. I left as soon as I could the morning after as they were still at it.
Ravi de cette nouvelle! Jusqu'à fin Septembre, mes titres sont en promo numérique à 2.99€/u aux #editionsdu38. L'occasion de me découvrir en tant qu'auteur ou de soutenir une vaillante petite maison d'édition à l'heure où de plus grandes chancellent ou tombent.
À noter que la suite des "Aventures occultes de Lady Bradsley" sort le 22, précipitez-vous sur le 1er tome si #fantastique et #occulte vous plaisent! https://www.editionsdu38.com/18-nos-promotions #mastolivre#promo#sf#fantastique
Want some #verisimilitude for your post-apocalyptic story? Four years after the pandemic started, 7 out of 7 examined #battery-powered candles had burst batteries. 3 out of 7 had destroyed circuitry and were irreparable. I restored four of the candles to working order with a lot of cleaning and scrubbing, but of course they required fresh #batteries.
Takeaway: Nothing battery-powered left for four years will work when found. Much of it will be destroyed.
Bonus: Gasoline has a shelf life and may be useless in 6-12 months. Sorry, no verisimilitude in Mad Max.
Technology and science wasn't magic, and Sharp Eye knew this more than ever. Five generations ago, Fleetmaster Running Talon had turned a portable cannon on his first Tyrannosaur, and ended their species rein of terror. Since that day, science and progress had ruled their world. Telescopes and the study of astronomy were unknown to her grandkin. The laws of orbital dynamics took a decade to render correctly, and her own grandmother had invented the slide math-relator that made verifying it all possible.
She lived in a world that promised her hatchlings steamships that could cross the Great Ocean between ports reliably, in days, because it need no sails. It offered /their/ hatchlings the possibility of powered flight using a lightweight heat engine. Literature discussed the not too fictional possibility of one day visiting the moon.
She ought have been happy with life and her grand future.
This wasn't the case. She turned the great telescopes with there photo capture plates toward the sky every night.
She'd found a streak.
Not a new planet. Something far smaller. Something far closer.
The rodent was very brazen outside the window. She'd been throwing the mammal bits of meat for the last month as she'd directed the telescopes, so of course he was. It chittered. With googly eyes, needle teeth, and the rotted smell of offal, the creature wiggled its pink nose and whiskers at her. It could see through a window! So smart. Its furry kind survived the freezing nights on the mountain, where despite her downy feathers, and a heavy parka, she could barely breathe the frigid night air. It burned her lungs.
She'd found a giant rock in space. A week later she confirmed it was two. The latest plate insisted she'd found a co-orbiting swarm, the biggest the size of a city or larger, the rest not that much smaller. Its mass made her think it was mostly iron-nickel. The length of the streaks on the plates grew smaller as the planet's gravity well influenced the orbit, sending it down on their heads.
Physics was physics. The ellipse calculations were irrefutable.
Between the constantly erupting volcano lands on the opposite side of the continent—which made sunset burn orange and purple, and sometimes caused snow to fall at the equator—and the dirt and dust that would be kicked out of the atmosphere by the meteor impact to rain down molten rock across the land, would it be that prolific mammal's descendants who'd inherit her decimated world?
Sharp Eye took a deep breath, inhaling the steam of her tea. The big question was: Did she announce her findings? While she had time?
Did it matter?
Who was she to break the world's ignorant bliss by announcing the inevitable? Fame didn't matter any more. How could it?
She sipped her tea and watched the soon to be victorious vermin nose through gravel, looking for roaches. She set the cup down, thinking how pleasant living only in the present was. She knew the future.
Then she thought, surely roaches would survive. Right?
Ages since I've seen a science fiction film as good as this – and it's a debut, made on a shoestring. Just fizzing with ingenuity, atmosphere, and quiet thrills