#PennedPossibilities 328 — If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
I'm way too #shy to meet them, even the kind and beautiful one... a white wolf with a gold collar that reads HUMAN follows her around. These people live a life on a different level from someone like me. I'd need someone to introduce me, and then I'd probably lock up.
Then I'd try to escape because I know they all would kill me for all the things I've made them endure. The only possible exception could be the Old Hag, but I'm not sure she would say something in my defense. I took her beautiful and beloved lake and put "a damn city over it" =-|
—I WOULD NOT DEFEND YOU, EITHER. YOU TURNED ME INTO A SIMPLE AVATAR, YOU DAMN BASTARD…
If AI tech bros are going to steal content for their generative AI, perhaps poisoning the well with mislabeled images, incorrect responses, and injecting instructions in content is well within our rights to fight back.
#wordweavers 28 Did your MCs have comfort objects they carried as a child?
For Freya's sixth birthday, her brother Lazarus wrote her a story about climbing the highest tree in the world and plucking a few stars from the sky while he was up there. He told her he stuck some of those stars in a peach pit so they could have a nap and gave it to her.
"If you're really quiet, you can hear the little star snore."
She believed him, and on a bad day, she can still hear it snore.
Safeguard the digital sovereignty of your writing.
When using cloud storage, do not rely on companies based in countries you do not trust or know the laws of. These laws might obligate them to break the privacy of your data.
Make a conscious and informed decision on how to handle your data. You put your heart and soul into your writing, so please don't just click accept. 💜
Rain blessing all things equally
The kiss of drenched night air
Light filtered through curtains
Provides momentary glimpses
Wet leaves waving in the dark
No sign of Woodchuck
Safe in his burrow
Birds seek shelter
In the branches and leaf litter
Forgotten over the hill
From last season
The poet
Sits wrapped in a quilt
By the window
Notebooks, pens and books
Strewn across her bed
Eyes closed
She is one with it all
And the night is her time
WWWOOOOWWW! Wohoo! Just discovered that control+Option right or left arrow will scroll my Mastodon advanced UI right or left on the iPad I am airplaying to a monitor and keyboard. Game changer!
#PennedPossibilities 327 — How much does your MC value other people? Do they wish to have many friends, lovers, and / or associates? Are they an easy person to love?
Both my MC's have difficulties with how they value people.
Wintereyes views people and beasts through the same nonjudgemental prism. She understands beasts' natures' intuitively. Where her gift allows her to live amongst the beasts she's befriended, she is prohibited from using her gift on humans. A decade of living with wolves, thriving, has rewired her social understanding of her species with no magical map to ease her way. It's unfortunate how people are attracted to her—and that she doesn't understand them or her body's reactions to them. She has met a boyfriend who she thinks will make her experiences in the human world better.
The devil-girl is autistic, but was raised with this being one of her best features. She isn't wired for dealing with people; it's a learned skill that her tutors drilled into her until using it became natural. Well, natural with a few glitches, if you were looking from the outside. She can be stiff. She can be undiplomatic. She really will only give you one chance. She finds too much glee in fighting (though her target needs to give permission to fight them, but implicit is good enough). The reader knows her struggle. Dealing with people is exhausting but a challenge; it's often a self-dare. Were she given her druthers, she'd say she'd rather be reading a book. Deep in a university library stacks. Alone. Helping people is a culmination of her skill, and part of her very much adores seeing people safe and happy. In part, this may be an achieved reduction of drama, but it may be her human heart. Now that she's discovered the concept of lovers—and that her brain is delightfully wired for it—and is learning the give and take that requires to make that work fabulously, her world is shifting toward really understanding those around her on their terms.
I wrote a book and now I have to wrap it up. In that effort, I have many! facts to check. I think I can plow through the bulk of it at ~60 facts per/day for ~30 days (spread across ~10 sources). My new hobby, I guess?
This type of tedious, detailed work is not my favorite thing. I have the source material, but I need to go back and scrutinize what I wrote in detail to make sure it's correct.
On one hand, it may have been easier if past Nicole did a better job at documenting details along the way. On the other hand, it was really unclear what would make it through the final filter and documenting every little thing would have been even more tedious (and would have disrupted the process of connecting it all together).
Any tips for how to make this new hobby of mine easier or more pleasant?
You'll notice people only ever uncover one significant microcode vulnerability in their lifetime. after that they purchase a new car. get into photography. love hiking. baking sourdough. talk to you forever about anything except the lies in the dies. every final security architecture review team has a member named Troy. Stephanie is stroking my head like I'm a rescue. talking to me like I'm five. suppose you make chips, suppose those chips are going into modems or maybe printers, then a man from the government comes to you and says hey do you wanna be able to sell these products to the government because before we can let such hardware be plugged in on a secure facility like a military base or the house of military personnel we need to examine the blueprints for vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities that only we know about, vulnerabilities we can't even tell you about, and if we find your design is potentially susceptible to such vulnerabilities we may need to take steps to secure this hardware by making certain changes that we can't even tell you about. and so the chip maker says sure and the government takes the plans away and the chip maker gets back a chip that looks exactly like the chip he designed which does all the things he expects it to do, the only thing that's happened as far as they know is that the chip design has been security hardened by government experts for free and all they have to do in return is not mention this ever happened.
#WritersCoffeeClub 27 April Have you ever written a section and subconsciously plagiarised another work?
Not a whole section, just an idea. Do you recognise this?
‘Are you happy?’
It’s the only question she asks these days. I have never lied to my mother.
‘In our own way.’
She reaches out a thin hand. ‘You can’t be happy in your own way, only unhappy. I want to know about you.’
‘I am happy.’
It’s the first time I have ever lied to her. She smiles her disbelieving smile.
#WritersCoffeeClub#Writing 27 What's the ideal story length? Use any definition of length you like, not just word count.
Depends on the reader. A single concept short story, they will consume in one sitting, so over 3k might be too long. Books vary by genre, so for example, romance readers might be happy with as little as 50k. For thrillers, they want need at least 70 to get a good plot. Historical fiction needs more, say 90, to explain the period. Fantasy world builders will want a lot more.