#PennedPossibilities 315 — What smells remind your MC of their childhood? CW: Food, gross.
Two stories, two MCs, two very different answers...
Devil-girl:
She was not ever particularly copasetic with her elevation from middle class to atmospheric. When she found herself having mistreated a servant, threatening their livelihood, her autistic construction of empathy as in /I'm living in her shoes and this is fear/ kicked in. She worked hard from that moment on to /be/ with anyone humbly, and the servants kept her secret of visiting in their quarters or at the homes safe. (Actually, not entirely as the servant-mistake was one of her guardian's "lessons," but let's ignore that.) What she came to adore was a peasant bread that represented in her head getting away from all her responsibilities. Buttery, cinnamony, yeasty, with lots of honey and chopped up pumpkin. Passing by an open bakery door will often remind her of simpler times.
Wintereyes:
She doesn't remember a lot before her gift manifested at age 7. The going theory is that it broke something in her head. Farm smells, flowers, even fields of corn, elicit nothing, though she visits her birth parents' land claim regularly when the Blue Feather's pack hunting grounds shift to that part of the Fell Woods. Her mother's cooking in her kitchen, usually fresh venison or rabbit Wintereyes caught, is simply human food. How she survived going off with a wolf pack at that young age is a tale I should pursue at some point. The fact is that she did. Survive. And well. The smells of a fresh kill, laced with steaming iron scent, does make her remember becoming wild and first running free. It also reminds her of the other smells associated with recent death, some quite noisome. There's a thrill there, even if in the beginning she was barely surviving on too rich organ meat her teeth could chew, or when the alpha wasn't kind, meat Mother Wolf chewed for her. That was a special smell she remembers fondly. Her brother—a hunter that the wolves soon tolerated so long as he didn't visit often—taught her to make fire and to cook meat. The half-burned smell of meat dropped into a wood fire still makes her mouth water, even as it dredges up memories of reaching into a fire and burns, and of ashes and charcoaled fat, which ground in her teeth like soft sand. She became a much more skillful campfire cook out of necessity.
Oh, one other smell: Wet wolf (which is identical to wet dog), because while a wolf could keep themself "clean" with their tongue, the result of a human attending a kill, skin caked with ground-in dirt, sweat, and later ash, was more than the sensitive noses of her pack could stand. They often chased her into streams. She splashed them back, of course!
Genuine question for #WritersOfMastodon - with the rise of AI generated everything, is it now possible to be published by an actual publisher? I'd heard it was virtually impossible before AI but presumably they're now inundated by manuscripts that are either part or fully AI creations. I ask because I always assumed I'd write my great novel one day, but it seems vanishingly unlikely now. I have 2 brothers who's father was a successful author, although he had his foot in the door via being a reporter (who brought down Concorde and was the only person ever allowed to interview/write a book about Pablo Escobar), so was already semi-famous and had contacts. I met a published author the other week, but she's a proof-reader for Penguin books, so also has a foot in the door. I assume that if you write something you're happy with, you no longer just send it to publishers and hope they read? Interested to know if anyone has had any success with this or if everyone self-publishes now.
#PennedPossibilities 314 — Has your MC ever felt as though they were reborn in the mental / emotional sense?
In the current story, she experiences a mental breakdown when events crush her worldview completely. [Spoilers, so you'll have to take my word on this.] Her understanding of what was evil, wrong. Her understanding of the trustworthiness of people, wrong. The goals she set to fix the magic that she saw as ruining others' lives... evil.
She's doesn't quite accept the latter. However, she finds it very weird to face the people around her without a deep down feeling that they will someday betray her.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 12 — When does AI cross the line between helpful tool and problematic tech for writing and publishing? CW: Some sarcasm and cynicism.
When? That happened a few years ago. All over the web. Whether you realize it or not, writers are being supplanted in most all minor writing jobs on lots of lesser and not so minor websites. Have you noticed that some stories are circular, seem to be written by authors of questionable fluency, miss a glaring argument or get a fact wrong, and in the end really make no good points or teach you anything? They seem to regurgitate what you've seen elsewhere?
Yep. AI written.
AI's a free tool! Managers love free. Let those freelancers go; just write some good prompts. So many good articles (likely AI written) to teach you how! All we need is good clickbait headlines, anyway. Feed the search engines! Serve up those display ads nobody clicks. Get us those micro-cents per page view.
Riiiight.
Sheesh. This Rubicon... Has... Been crossed. Mostly. Some have tripped. Many have drowned.
What I'd really like is for AI enhanced software to notice little things like misusing led and lead, finding missing words, pointing out when I leave out the 'nt in wouldn't changing the meaning of everything I wrote, even capitalizing based on context when dictating... thus and such. Yeah. Too difficult.
I won't repeat what everyone else is saying. Yep. True all that. It's all wrong headed at the moment and if you don't know how to write OR you could do it yourself if you weren't soooo lazy, #AI's just going to make you into a fool.
You get to make yourself into a fool in front of a publisher only once.
#WordWeavers 2405.12 — Who is the best friend in your story?
The MC is incapable of seeing that it is her.
For most of her story arc, she's suspicious of making friends having been a prizefighter and then working in the mob. She's also somewhat autistic, but trained to deal with people. The problem is that when she's amongst people, working with them, even the baddies, she's the type that gets the job done, teaches those that need teaching how to get the job done, and will always protect her teammates and subordinates, taking responsibility. You don't get in her face, however; certainly only once, anyway. Strangely or not so strangely, those in her orbit see her as a leader and personable. (All she wants is to go home to be alone with her books, but she'd never complain.) She goes along with it when others are friendly with her, not really knowing how to say no and understanding this was what she was trained to do.
To say she's well liked is an understatement. Not many people support you as she does, or will straighten you out and make you fly right when things are bad for you. She saves one marriage by punching the husband in the nose. She's there for others. She'll enjoy a meal with you if that's what you need and listen to you vent. At least one guy has a crush on her. Others fight for her. Some will risk their life for her...
#PennedPossibilities 313 — Is your MC or SC one to confess romantic feelings early on, or to conceal them for long periods of time?
It's hard to know for sure. She has worked in a world were such attactions are a tool to control others, and she's controlled others with them. Having transitioned from being a criminal to operating in a similar capacity on the other side of the law, she ended up tailing a snobbish dandy... who went on, after various provocations, to being someone quite different than his affectations indicated. She thought to pin him in a wrestling hold to get information out of him, but he threw her off and she fought him only to a draw (not easy for anyone to do since she's a former prizefighter). When later that day she got him to drop his façade, she found him actually adorably vulnerable. Not really knowing her own reactions, she obsessively took him from dinner, to dancing, to... um... dessert in one evening.
Well, that's done. First draft of the hard chapter, the one I kept on sticking on for these last few months. Complete! 5,500 words. Wintereyes even surprise kissed him! It is a romance after all... The rest of the novella ought be much easier.
I have three new writing workshops coming up in June and July! Building on the success of Design-A-Ghost, I'd like to invite you to join me to explore some more familiar characters from #SFF and #horror by reading extracts from classic and contemporary authors together, and then using writing prompts and exercises to create your own unique monsters, aliens, and robots! 👹👽🤖
Permit me a rant? I've been trying for about 6 weeks to find a spec-fic author to speak about cli-fi & writing influenced by the climate crisis. No bites, not even from orgs dedicated to that cause. It's a paid gig & a virtual event. I'm going to have to ditch the idea because we need to go on sale.
#PennedPossibilities 311 — What is a memory that makes your SC swell with pride?
That armor. The black dragon armor, light as an autumn breeze. The last who owned it, legends say, a million died to take it away from her, but failed in the end.
She gave it to me: The ruler of the world, the most powerful thaumaturge alive. I was the one who nearly killed her, when we fought for our lives incidentally breaking the Curse of Harmony upon her.
I didn't break the curse but was the one who nearly killed her. Yet...
My friend—whose life I saved by pushing her out of the way of a plasma bolt and getting my flank burnt as a result—reminded me of the legend. Made me test the magic, which let me fly like an arrow and loop and dodge more agilely than a sparrow. She added, "She told me it's the first time anyone's got that close in a century. It's a bribe, you know, A loan. She wants you to work for her. You impressed her. "
#PennedPossibilities 312 — Is your MC or SC a leader, a follower, or something in between?
Wintereyes is not a leader, nor is she a follower. She knows her mind and will state it when needed to help someone, or protect to herself. She's human, but also a member of the Blue Feathers wolf pack—and she's bitten its leader when he's abused pack mates. She's not omega, not low status; wolves respect her knives in the hunt. She knows when to help, and when to stay back. She's a mediator, as she's demonstrated between a dragon and people. It's that she truly cares to do her best for others. Those that know her know this; they listen; they protect her.
SC2: No particular desire to lead. Happy to follow if he likes what someone is doing. Will calmly pick up and leave if he stops liking what that person is doing.
SC3: Raised in consensus decisions-making. Doesn't believe in "leaders."
#PennedPossibilities 313: Is your MC or SC one to confess romantic feelings early on, or to conceal them for long periods of time?
I have one side character who can't pretend not to have a crush when he has it. It's written all over his face. My intention is that he's so goofy and harmless about it that it comes off as cute, but I'll need women beta readers to help me make sure that's the case, I think.
They're at home, wondering how they could possibly have let their little girl die like that, even though she's very much alive, trapped, a long long way away...
#WritersCoffeeClub May 14. Do you have a sense of how much plot you need for how long a manuscript.
Yes. I mimic the number of beats and subplots and secondary cast I've experienced in books I've read. I'm a little bogged down in my MS right now, but I believe I'm gong to arrive pretty much on at the word count I set.
#WordWeavers May 1: Introduce your setting as if it’s a character in your story.
The Greater Cascadian Megalopolis was born from the need to house the population of the Pacific North West but leave the bulk of the continent free of humanity,"re-wilding." The fetal megapolopolis started as superblocks and then arcologies,multiplying until they formed an urban organism that now stretches from the middle of British Columbia all the way to the California border.
#WordWeavers May 12: Who is the best friend in your story?
They're all really good friends in different ways. One was taught friendship is nigh sacred. One really wants to be loved. One is loyal by nature. One has always had a gang of friends, so she builds a new one. Friendship isn't ranked and it isn't exclusive.
#WordWeavers May 13: Describe a place that has a special significance in your story.
My cast all see horrific hallucinations throughout the day. I have one who grew up on a farm, and the space station has a tiny little farm, exposed to the thin light of the sun all the way out at Jupiter. She still see the horrors at the farm, but she's able to ignore them, there. She volunteers there a lot.
#WordWeavers May 14: What role do other writers have in your writing life?
I have a group. They're great. A friend of mine is a pro novelist and editor, so I occasionally ask her for advice (but I try not to lean on her too much because it's a job she gets paid for).