gibbondemon

@gibbondemon@wandering.shop

Freelance writer. SF+F author. Occasional comics scribe. Rearranging words for a living since 2013.
he/him

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gibbondemon, to fantasy

Fantasy writing folks, what are the common tropes, structures, & story templates that crop up for quests? The good, the bad, the ones with dodgy implications baked into them? The classic examples, good or bad?

#AmWriting #Fantasy

gibbondemon, to random

Today's writing is mostly WW2 stuff. I feel like I've slipped into the most cliched obsessions of history nerds, but at least this is one topic with no shortage of books for research.

#AmWriting

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Enshittification intensifies:

gibbondemon,

@cstross because combining intimate relationships with the workplace never goes wrong.

gibbondemon, to random

I’ve got a new comic out about a guy who’s a complete wank stain of a human being. In theory, living inside the head of someone with all the moral restraint of a hungry piranha shouldn’t be a nice time, but I really enjoyed it. Which raises the question, why would any of us enjoy writing an unsympathetic character?
I’m curious about your answers, & putting mine below…

#AmWriting #Comic

https://andrewknighton.com/out-now-cadman-up-up-and-away/

gibbondemon, to scifi

The new special issue of Shoreline of Infinity is out now, themed around climate change & featuring my story Shelter from the Storm. Migrating through the detritus of a fallen Britain, nomads grow temporary homes from spiderwebs & fungus. But what happens when sickness enters their fragile ecosystem?

#SciFi #SFF #ShortStory #ClimateChange

https://www.shorelineofinfinity.com/product/shoreline-of-infinity-36/

nocontextb5, to Babylon5
@nocontextb5@mastodon.social avatar

gibbondemon,

@nocontextb5 such a lovely moment, it's one of the B5 scenes that lives in my heart forever.

sandralindsey, to random
@sandralindsey@toot.wales avatar

Do I know anyone going to #FantasyCon the weekend after next?

Bought my ticket ages ago but now not sure about going...

gibbondemon,

@sandralindsey I'm going, and even talking on some panels, so if you make it do say hello. I always enjoy the friendly, relaxed atmosphere at Fantasycon.

gibbondemon, to fantasy

This month's flash story is a fantasy piece about the fear of finding yourself. Within minutes of posting this one, a reader told me she loved my writing style but was disappointed I'd furthered a woke agenda by including a trans character, so I'm calling that a double win.

https://andrewknighton.com/dancing-to-the-tune-of-truth-a-fantasy-short-story/

gibbondemon, to random

I haven't been to the theatre in approximately 57 squillion years, & tonight we're off to see The Mousetrap. Very excited. Haven't seen it before, have deliberately tried not to find out about the story, but I'm guessing that the big red boot did it.

gibbondemon,

@sandralindsey he got bored and moved on 😸

gibbondemon, to Cats

On the one hand, I need to get up and write. On the other hand...

#Catstodon #Cats

sandralindsey, to random
@sandralindsey@toot.wales avatar

Woke up this morning feeling like I'd had a pretty good sleep for once.

Half an hour later I only just stopped myself from putting tea bags in the coffee maker.

How's your day going?

gibbondemon,

@sandralindsey before I could get up, the cat climbed into my lap, so my day's going great and I'm never leaving the bed.

gibbondemon, to random

I should have known, the moment I put a dog into this outline, that he would turn into a recurring character. He's clearly a good boy who deserves a name of his own and exciting adventures.

#AmWriting

gibbondemon, to random

Today's writing features military action across three different eras. Got to be careful not to mix up any details, because there is no reader more diligent about details than a military history fan.

#AmWriting

gibbondemon, to environment

"The fishing boats crowded the jetty, nets overflowing with dead things from across the cosmos." The Fishery by Cécile Cristofari, over at, @InterzoneMag , is a fantastic & haunting story about the dangers of extractive economics & the people living through it. Really recommended.

#sff #Environment

https://interzone.digital/the-fishery/

AlasdairStuart, to random
@AlasdairStuart@wandering.shop avatar

It has been a staggeringly professionally frustrating afternoon. Nothing like an EASY APPLY job application taking an hour and then the final SUBMIT button borking the whole thing.

I have spent the last hour washing a Bond villain's plane in PowerWash Simulator. It helped.

gibbondemon,

@AlasdairStuart You've just brightened my day through the simple knowledge that a game called Powerwash Simulator exists. As always, your feed is a pop culture delight.

kissane, to random
@kissane@mas.to avatar

Ran into the roots of one of the PNW’s ancient ghost spruce forests last week. These particular trees either went under in a big subsidence during a Cascadia fault slip or by slow encroachment—there are dozens of ghost forests with different characteristics, and the whole phenomenon is pretty dramatically under-studied. Big storms in the 90s revealed a bunch of them, including this one. They’re pretty spooky.

gibbondemon,

@kissane I love the idea that there are ghost forests waiting to haunt us below the waves.

gibbondemon, to random

Today's writing is all about feedback - providing feedback on someone else's chapter, then reviewing an editor's feedback on my novel. I am putting on my most thoughtful face for this. The wild, word-splurging face of a first draft will not do.

#AmWriting

sandralindsey, to random
@sandralindsey@toot.wales avatar

Strongly tempted this morning to message my colleague "Sorry, can't come in today, I have a cat on me."

gibbondemon,

@sandralindsey I delayed getting out of bed because the cat was on me. No regrets.

stancarey, (edited ) to ireland

Creepy little gargoyle on Lynch's Castle in #Galway

#gargoyles #sculpture #critters #Ireland

gibbondemon,

@stancarey I'm trying to work out if he's eating that frog or kissing it. Maybe both.

gibbondemon,

@stancarey haven't we all felt that way at some time?

gibbondemon, to random

As a ghostwriter (not for celebrities) I have Opinions on this. They largely boil down to the fact that this story is important, but it's being explored from the wrong angle. Let me explain...

First up, let's look at the good. Producing books is a collaborative effort, because of not just ghostwriters but editors, proofreaders, assistants, all the people who make a book work. Anything that undermines the delusion of the lone artist is good.🧵

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/19/does-it-really-matter-who-wrote-it-the-rise-of-ghostwritten-celebrity-fiction

gibbondemon,

And there's more ghostwriting out there than you think, so drawing attention to it is good, especially for professionals like me - more on that later.

But the real issue here is the other half of the headline - celebrity books & what they represent.

As the Society of Authors has shown, book writing is broken right now. An average author earns just over half the amount for their books that they did in 2006, & it wasn't enough to make a living even then.

https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2022/12/06/a-profession-struggling-to-sustain-itself/

gibbondemon,

Data from the Alliance of Independent Authors shows that things might be better in self-publishing, but self-publishers are as much business people as writers, & even there, it's not enough to pay the bills.

(The self-pub economy is hype-driven, in a way that makes me a little more dubious about what that data represents, but Alli are putting in good work here, & if it's not a living wage at a hyped level, it's certainly not enough without.)

https://selfpublishingadvice.org/income-survey-2023-media-links/

gibbondemon,

The problem behind a lot of this is Amazon, which squeezed publishers, & through them authors, to push prices down & gain market dominance, then started squeezing advertisers & self-pubs too.

Just this week, a client told me that their Amazon revenues are shrinking, as the tech giant tries to squeeze out more profit at less cost - that cost being payments to the people making the books.

For more on this, see anything by @pluralistic on enshittification.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/

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