@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

pretensesoup

@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club

Writer of queer historical urban fantasy romance and scifi dystopian prose poetry, pansexual, podcaster/producer (#AskAMedievalist), psychopomp, and so much more. Possibly.

I speak a bunch of languages badly. I don't sleep enough. Sometimes I go out and run long distances for fun.

She/they, it's all okay.

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pretensesoup, to books
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

I meant to post about this yesterday, but then one of the kids gave me a norovirus, so I did that instead. Dionysus in Wisconsin has been shortlisted for a Lammy in gay romance. I'm very excited to be up there with so many greats!

You can check out the whole shortlist here: https://lambdaliterary.org/awards/current-finalists/

If you're interested in DIW, you can find it on various websites here: https://books2read.com/u/49dN1p

Special extra thanks to @eliotedits, editor par excellence.

@bookstodon

HeliaXyana, to writing
@HeliaXyana@mastodon.nl avatar

I wonder what tense you've all chosen to write in and why.

I know past tense is likely the most common, but I have experimented with both and decided that present tense offers more direct immersion for my purposes.
This also ties into who the narrator is. In my WIP, it is a person in the room invisibly tagging along with the MC.

How did you decide, and is it reflected in the identity of the narrator?

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@HeliaXyana I mean, all fiction is like that. There is a certain suspension of disbelief. It would be very postmodern to somehow set a whole novel in the present forever, because your words are necessarily pinned down once you've written them.

Personally I tend to prefer 3rd limited past tense unless there's a really good reason not to. Too many first person POVs can feel indistinct and present tense feels like fanfiction. And 2nd person means something Literary is happening.

@Firlefanz

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@HeliaXyana @Firlefanz

I'm sure there are those on here with more familiarity than I, but what I've read seems to be largely present tense. I realize I sounded a little derogatory in my prev post. Lots of fanfic is very good!

I think writers think much more about tense than readers do, tbh. Some people profess strong preferences, but I don't pay much attention as long as the book is well written.

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/18: Do you ever use parentheses/brackets in your writing?

Sometimes. Usually they get removed or replaced with em dashes in the final draft.

Oddly, both my mom and my thesis advisor (who I think was a bit younger than her, maybe ten years) HATED em dashes. Saw them as intellectual laziness.

But of the few problems with the books she's mentioned, the presence of em dashes hasn't been one, so perhaps Mom's stance has mellowed.

Here's an unpublished example of parentheses.

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/8: Do you have a favorite opening line of a book?

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

I find it comforting to know that the best opening line has already been written. Takes the pressure off.

There are lots of others I could cite that are very, very iconic. But A Hundred Years of Solitude wins, in my opinion.

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

Hilariously, I asked my husband for his favorite, and he cited this line as "hard to beat." Although he also likes the first line of HHG2G:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

pretensesoup, to books
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

Forgot to post about this, but my books are 50% off at the Smashwords book sale this week!

Magic, romance, the 60s, talking to libraries, gods, demons, what more could you want? Check out Dionysus in Wisconsin and its sequel, Old Time Religion, for 50% off.

Book 1 is here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1496349

#ebookWeek24 #books

juliancday, to random
@juliancday@writing.exchange avatar

Got an email this morning that at first glance felt like a form email from a lit mag, but was slightly personal, so I was confused, but then there was an unsubscribe button at the bottom? So I unsubscribed, but only after I viewed the website (which seems legit!) and found it full of Alegria art, which always gets my hackles up.

Just weird.

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@juliancday waaaait I think I got that email too. 😳 Was it Only Poems?

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/29: A question

Throwing this out to everyone...

I'm curious about your planning process. Do you think of your books as having a particular length? Do you have a sense of how much plot you need for how long a manuscript? Do you revise and add more plot if you come up short?

I personally don't outline, but I usually seem to come up around 75k for a first draft and 80k for a final, so I guess I know about how much plot I need for that.

pretensesoup, to books
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

Normally, today would be the last day to get both novels as buy one, get one free, but because of leap year you have until tomorrow.

Urban fantasy + gay romance + mythology + the '60s. A grad student and a librarian fight a god.

Book 1: https://books2read.com/u/49dN1p
Book 2: https://books2read.com/u/4jB8jl

@romancelandia @lgbtqbookstodon

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#pennedPossibilities 237—How would you describe your WIP’s ideal reader?

Probably a Millennial or older.

Did you grow up in a family where people compete to make the best multilingual pun?

Did you major in English or philosophy, or are you a Shakespeare nerd?

Gifted kid to later-in-life ADHD diagnosis AND/OR manic pixie dream girl to middle-aged androgynous human?

Enjoy books with dry humor but want more kissing?

Magic? Mythology?

What if, like, mandalas, man?

anderlandbooks, (edited ) to random German
@anderlandbooks@bookstodon.com avatar

I need help, dear #writingcommunity, fellow followers of #writerscoffeeclub, #wordweavers, #TimeTravelAuthors, #pennedpossibilities.
It's been some time since I was a teenager. Things have changed. I need a place for my kids in #JulesNVera to hang out in a small town. I chose this place to be a mall. I haven't specified the country in which my story takes place for numerous reasons, but is this still something kids do these days? Or is it completely out of date?

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@anderlandbooks When I was a teenager in a mid-sized midwestern town, we hung out at Perkins, because it was open 24 hours (we tried the truck stop and the Steak n Shake, but Perkins had better pie I think).

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/25: How do you feel about Amazon's influence on books and publishing?

They're a mixed bag. They pay a better rate on paperbacks than either Draft2Digital or Ingram Spark. Rates on ebooks are comparable to other places, and Kindle seems to be the most popular ebook platform. They do fuck all to promote anyone who isn't paying them. They don't have great systems in place for removing copyright violations and if they could replace me with a box of linear algebra they would.

pretensesoup, to books
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

I just finished Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente. It's like if David Bowie and Douglas Adams had a baby, and the baby was a seven-foot tall ultramarine space flamingo. Also, the audiobook narrator got to do a ton of really fun voices.

@bookstodon
#books

herhandsmyhands, to romancelandia
@herhandsmyhands@romancelandia.club avatar

@romancelandia

In the "better late than never" category, here's my entry for this month's #TBRChallenge: I reviewed Ambrielle Kirk's Wolf's Honor

Spoiler: it really didn't work for me.

https://herhandsmyhands.wordpress.com/2024/02/23/wolfs-honor-by-ambrielle-kirk/

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@herhandsmyhands

Key quote: I truly expected that most of the challenge participants would go for pets rather than shapeshifters, and honestly, having been around romancelandia for this long, I really should have known better.

Bwa ha ha ha.

@romancelandia

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

There's a bell curve of how much I post on Mastodon compared to how tired I am. There's one level of sleep deprivation at which I'm really funny and unable to focus on anything. Above or below that and it drops off.

cstross, (edited ) to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Bemused to see that the Romance Writers of America have intervened to take the heat off the WSFS trademark committee (aka "the worldcon folks have done WHAT now!?") ...

(Text of announcement in alt-text on images)

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@cstross Looks like she's written at least three book on using AI in writing. Ugh.

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/20: What's the secret to writing a good blurb?

1/ Drink a lot of coffee and then try to tell someone the 30- or 60-sec version of what the novel is about. Take note of what plot points you skip over.

2/ Write 3 paragraphs. One is where we are at the beginning, one is the complication, and one is the stakes.

3/ Make it sound good.

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@cstross Maybe I should say, try to pitch the novel to someone? I just find when people explain their novels in a really excited way, that the sizzle thing is what they actually say. This is why all the instructions on writing a synopsis are like YOU HAVE TO GIVE THE ENDING: No one wants to give the ending.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Without looking it up, tell me anything you know about Lithuania or Lithuanians.

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@RickiTarr My mother's side of the family comes from Lithuania, although they left in the late 19th/early 20th century when it was still part of Russia. They lived near Mariampol.

Also, a friend who crossed the border while traveling had to speak to a guard in Russian (the only language they had in common). He was very apologetic about it.

anderlandbooks, to random German
@anderlandbooks@bookstodon.com avatar

#writerscoffeeclub Feb 15. What's your field of expertise? What are you most skilled at?

I have an MD and a specialization in Ob/Gyn. That does come in handy when writing.

I offer free advice for birth scenes, too. I've read way too many dramatic (unrealistic) birth scenes not to do so.

pretensesoup,
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

@anderlandbooks My mom is an endocrinologist and she used to stand behind the sofa when we tried to watch medical drama shows (like ER) and critique the accuracy. But even regular films were not safe--I remember watching Star Trek V, which has a birth scene at the beginning, and she walked past and just said, "No one screams like that when giving birth."

pretensesoup, to books
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

This made my day.

Perhaps the books will make yours?

Book 1: https://books2read.com/u/49dN1p

Book 2: https://books2read.com/u/4jB8jl

Both ebooks are buy one, get one free on Kobo this month, but they're both widely available.

#urbanFantasy #books #historicalFicton #romance #mmRomance @bookstodon @lgbtqbookstodon @romancelandia

Two book covers with arrows pointing to them. On the left, "book 1" and an arrow pointing to the cover of Dionysus in Wisconsin. The cover is black figure art of two men, one seated and dressed as Dionysus, one standing, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. On the right, "book 2" and an arrow pointing to the cover of Old Time Religion. The cover is red figure art of two men, one in jeans and one dressed as Dionysus. The man in jeans is being supported by Dionysus. In the upper right-hand corner, "Series" and an arrow pointing to the words "Wisconsin Gothic." Both books are by E. H. Lupton.

pretensesoup, to Parenting
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

6yo:
ABCD EFG
Gummy bears are chasing me.
One is red, one is blue,
One is even on my shoe.
And now I'm running for my life
'Cause the red one has a knife.
Now I'm running even faster
Because the blue one has a blaster...

...He says he got this at school?

I have nothing to add. I just wanted to collect this for posterity.

#parenting

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/11 Are some genres taken more seriously than others? How does it make you feel?

Yeah. Although what counts as a genre varies wildly, e.g. in the poetry world, it's all just "fiction" and "creative nonfiction." Also, how people perceive a genre differs: I think I write romance novels with magic in them, while my husband (who reads them) thinks they're urban fantasy novels that happen to have dudes kissing in them.

In other words, categories are inherently deconstructable.😁

pretensesoup, to random
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/7 I write because...

I have a deep and compulsive need to tell stories. Also, it provides some much needed escapism.

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