sfwrtr

sfwrtr, 14 days ago to 13thFloor

#PennedPossibilities 326 — Do any of your characters have a favorite place that they've ever visited?

I'm sure they all have somewhere, but I've never asked.

For the devil-girl, it's doubtlessly any library she's visited. She'd sleep in the stacks were she allowed. It could also be Silver's Gym where she trained for and became a champion mixed magical martial arts prizefighter—and achieved her first K.O. Brings back fond memories. Despite the athletic funk and the muscle nerds overflowing with testosterone and attitude.

Wintereyes loves her Fell Woods and running with the wolves, However, this happened in the last chapter and it feels like her recalling a favorite place?

Recessed radiance light lit [a ceiling with] a painted dusk sky full of fluffy clouds lit by a recently set sun. The cloud shadows and the orange, pink, and purples felt as if the painter had somehow captured an instant of time and transported it above me.

I'd stopped so abruptly, Caramello had to dodge, nudging my left shoulder. I caught him reflexively, grabbing his shirt to keep my balance, saying, "I've lain in the meadows at Streams End, staring up at skies like this. I like."

"This is my bedroom."

"Sorry!" His shirt slipped past my thumb...

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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sfwrtr, 14 days ago to science

A flu vaccine has a side effect... no, not what antivaxxers think... a reduced chance of Alzheimer's? Interesting. Studies, only, but still...

#science not fiction

https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/scientists-found-a-significant-link-between-vaccinations-and-alzheimer-s-disease

sfwrtr, 14 days ago to 13thFloor

#WordWeavers 2405.25 — How often do your characters think of death?

The reader and author are privy only to the MC's thoughts. "Often" is a vague word. Generally the MC doesn't think of death as you and I would experience time. However, in story time, she thinks of it rather often. She experiences PTSD episodes from when she saw someone die horrifically during a gang war, then realized her actions (or rather her inactions) resulted in dozens of others dying. Being responsible but powerless to stop it rattles her to the core. Her death? Not so much. Having been a bodyguard for a mob boss, and to an extent being a prizefighter where an errant strike could be lethal before that, she's never expected herself to live to old age. Twice someone has tried to murder her; only quick thinking and skill saved her. Twice she actually died, only extraordinary attempts at resuscitation bringing her back from the brink. She's not yet 20 years old. Each time she learned something or achieved something, the very last time saving not only the life of her lover but the life of his assassin because actually murdering the assassin was worse to her than dying herself. Not becoming a murderer is a possible tipping point in her life story because she is was conceived as a evil character, and if something doesn't get in the way she will be responsible for the destroying the world...

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R..S.]

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sfwrtr, 15 days ago to 13thFloor

#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 25 — Do you use a cover artist or design your own covers? Share your cover art.

I design my own covers, but I often pay a cover artist to draw them. I provide detailed stage directions (text) and supply excerpts, approve thumbnails then sketches, then negotiate color corrections to get them on one pass. I've also created abstract covers myself, or bought stock art. I've never used my photography in a cover. Yet. Once I colorized a sketch (digital watercolors) when a sketch was all the artist could provide when a family issue caused the artist to bow out.

I do the titles myself (and plan with the artist in the composition phase where I plan to put my titles). I've offered to do titles for others, but no takers, yet.

Um. Not sharing artwork. It's all for my other alias, which I feel uncomfortable revealing.

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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SmudgeTheInsultCat, 15 days ago to random

sfwrtr, 15 days ago to 13thFloor

#PennedPossibilities 325 — SC POV: If you could relive one day of your life and change its course of events, which day would you choose?

[Adds to my response for the SC in 324. —R.S.]

Let's see. Relive a day and change it? Hmmm.

The day I told my parents that I wanted to haul furniture and machinery as a living? Basically, become a mover? The day they reacted badly, grounded me, starting nagging me about school, wouldn't let me fly anything for my friends that weighed more than a few books—or airtaxi anyone—started telling me I was weak in the head? The day I ruined my childhood?

Yeah, I'd keep my enthusiasms and dreams to myself, could I rewrite history.

Or maybe it would be that day that I threw a brick through the Moving Guild's window. Wouldn't let any company hire a woman. Okay, I turned over all the parked moving vans. For the record, only one rolled down a hill. Hmmm...

On second thought, not that one.

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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sfwrtr, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago) to 13thFloor

#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 24 — Is there any work of fiction you could have written better? Don't be shy.

There are plenty of TV or episodic dramas I could have written better. Doing so would have been procrastinating for me, though I have written my share of fan fiction and retconned really egregious plot advancement by stupidity...

Almost anything I've written, even a few years ago, could qualify as fiction I could have written better. I recently "rewrote" an earlier novella, changing and fixing a few details to retcon a prequel (including typos and grammar faults), then used that as an excuse to tack on the rest of a novel by changing the last couple of paragraphs.

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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sfwrtr, 15 days ago (edited 12 days ago) to random

While and whilst. Not looking the usage up and I know the latter is archaic, but...

I use while to state something happened within the same time span. I use whilst to introduce a time span or something asserted (usually as true) followed by another clause that what happened in the time span or something important about what happened because of the assert.

Boost for a larger sample size, please.

An #excerpt using the word because I'm an #author as well as a #writer.

Whilst Feliz would easily pass as a Kenyan woman cosplaying an elf with cyan-dyed skin—she bled copper—her flying saucer pilot was a whole different can of worms. The dragon-humanoid groused, arms crossed. "I hate wearing clothes."

I appreciated he did anyway. A lot. At the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval we were going to, they'd likely appreciate if he didn't. A lot.

#writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon #poll

flux, 15 days ago to random

moth in the kitchen

sfwrtr, 15 days ago to 13thFloor

#WordWeavers 2405.24 — While drafting, do you avoid or binge watch similar material?

I binge watch all the time. K-dramas and anime. I avoid watching or reading similar material to what I'm writing while I'm composing, so I'm not influenced. I want it to be me writing; I want the voice to be mine.

I avoid reading Dickens. I think his is my default writing style and I need to avoid it at all costs.

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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sfwrtr, 15 days ago to random

Rather happy with the new sticker on my Composition Book (Kindle cover).

sfwrtr, 15 days ago to Prompt

If you are #writer or #author out there, this is a #prompt to #write something, now.

#WritersOfMastodon #WritingCommunity #Fiction https://www.uniladtech.com/science/space/nasa/nasa-mars-helicopter-finds-wrekacge-662901-20240524

sfwrtr, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago) to 13thFloor

#PennedPossibilities 324 — SC POV: If you could relive one day of your life without changing anything that happened, which day would you choose? Tootfic: Reframing the Experience

[When my SC says armor, it's really a weightless magical exoskeleton that melds with her body. It looks like blackened bones, because it is. —R.S.]

Oh, there's plenty of days I'd relive unchanged. Like the day I fledged, when I first flew on my own. Or the day learned the thrill of hauling things through the sky. Both good events in a rather dull and awful childhood that turned to cinders when my parents disapproved of the way I wanted to live my life. Said I aimed for the dirt not the sky. Maybe they weren't so dumb—I ended up badly, flying messages for a crime boss over a dozen years. But, then, there was that day last week...

I've told you a few times how I ended up with the armor and a new job training as a pretorian, you know, having faced down the greatest thaumaturge who ever lived, having nearly killed her. Impressed her.

I thought.

Well, my drill instructor was training me that dawn. I wore the armor. The thaumaturge dove at me, full speed. She's a monster flier, taller, more massive, immortal. I jumped into the sky. Fled.

She followed.

Though the armor let me fly like a sparrow, change direction in a heartbeat, and take a thumping only slightly changing my course, it had been her armor once. She kept appearing before me, striking at my face or heart, sending me into spins toward the ground, stalling me out, almost panicking me into flying into trees or buildings. For all her mass and the inertia that implies, I barely avoided her, half the time with her cackling at my barrel rolls or dives that sent down feathers flying. She had muscle; I tired despite the armor until I thought my heart would burst from my chest, at which point a flyby pitched me into the ground.

I skid across the running track on my belly right up to my instructor. I don't know how I didn't break a wing or my neck. Ok, I do: The Armor.

She landed beside me with a loud thump. She wasn't even winded! She told him, "She lacks stamina. Train her harder."

She leaned down until her face was in my face. I smelled maple syrup on her breath. She said, "You need to use the magic in the armor. There's a class at first bell in the Ivory building, room B7. Shower and be there ON TIME."

I have wings.

I don't do magic.

I showered though, once my legs stopped shaking. I slunk into the class still half-frightened out of my wits. My new friend was there, the curse breaker, a former prizefighter, the one I'd fought beside against Her, that ended up with me getting the armor. It was some sort of advanced special Ed class for mages. I suddenly felt totally inadequate and I cried. Me. At the age of 27, I cried telling her my story, pointing to my purpling bruises, complaining that had She gotten in a good strike She would have caved in my rib cage.

My friend was having none of it. She said, "You're a day angel who just went ten minutes fighting Her. Somehow, you're still alive."

I hadn't thought about it that way. I later learned the word, "Reframing."

The instructor came in with a truckload of tomes and grimoires. She had prepared him for me. He gave me a magic primer. I knew it was a primer because it had PICTURES of youngsters playing. Despite the stares of the other students, I read the book.

Half hour later, I got the armor to glow dull red, like iron out of a forge. Truly. Awesome. Didn't know what it did except look intimidating, but still...

Awesome.

I felt my heart grow large in my chest, and it struck me. Someone (okay, the ruler of the nation) wanted me for who I was and who I could become, and because I was capable. She wanted me to aim for the sky. My new friend supported me and pushed me forward. I liked this, who I was, what I was finding I could be, could become.

And.

Oddly.

I realized, for what it was worth, my parents would approve. (And flap them if they didn't!)

Best. Day. Ever.

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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writerobscura, 15 days ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub May 24 Is there any work of fiction you could have written better? Don't be shy.

I'm assuming we're talking about my own body of work - because I ain't trying rewrite someone else's story (fanfiction doesn't count, that's transformative).

My answer is - pretty much any prose I wrote between 1981 and 1998 + a few after that, give or take.

sfwrtr, 15 days ago to ai

#ai #generativeAI #humor #criticalthinking #funny

The earliest instance of a generative AI image from the 15th century. Note only the four fingers and the exaggerated index finger. Obviously no understanding of human anatomy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicule#/media/File:Manicule_hand_drawn_from_15th_century.png

SergKoren, 15 days ago to design

Pixelated does not mean or imply old.

#design #failure #marketing

amberage, 15 days ago to random

Another problem with writing is that I would love to write stuff set in a modern world, but I don't want to write about Germany (boring, shitty country, too close to home, German names are ugly) but don't have enough knowledge to write about America or the UK.

Writing anything set there would put off my readers within ten pages by being grossly inaccurate.

Writing anything set here would put off my readers within ten pages by being grossly German.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't...

#AmWriting #AmNotWriting

donni, 16 days ago to random

I miss my old naive belief that most people are reasonable

sfwrtr, 16 days ago to apple

#Apple #iPhone #Feedback #bug #bugreport

I ask: "Hey Siri, Turn on Silence Unknown Callers."

Siri: "I'm sorry, I can't do that."

Me: "Why?"

sfwrtr, 16 days ago to apple

#Apple #Safari #Feedback #BugReport #Bug #Submitted

No little scroll bar shows up to the left in Safari web page card view when scrolling through the webpage images that you can press and scroll faster. When you have hundreds, like I do, it makes it harder that this feature was left out. I believe this is an oversight bug.

sfwrtr, 17 days ago (edited 16 days ago) to 13thFloor

#PennedPossibilities 323 — What's a piece of advice for writers that you listened to and are glad for?

An Australian author, Lucy Sussex, told us at Clarion West 1998 to be shameless in promoting ourselves. Being a shy person, networking and promotion has been a heavy lift, but I'm working on it and I know it's going to help. Mastodon: ☑️

[Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]

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sfwrtr, 18 days ago to 13thFloor

#PennedPossibilities 322 — What piece of advice, as an author, did you once receive but hadn’t followed? Looking back on it now, you might wish that you had.

Advice: Don't only write novels. Write lots of shorter pieces.

When I started I saw that you could only make a living if you sold novels, so I wrote novels. That completely discounted the fabulous practice you get completing lots of smaller stories. Completing a novel takes lots of time and there's a mounting anxiety that in the end the plot will fail or no publisher will be interested. Yeah, true with short fiction, but the investment is far lower (or should be if you're doing it right). There used to be lots of magazines you could sell short fiction to... for pennies a word, but it was something, and it offered a chance to build a brand name and a following. Such notoriety could help you sell novels, too.

Today, I'm writing lots of short fiction.

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