@ben@bytetower.social
@ben@bytetower.social avatar

ben

@ben@bytetower.social

Writing #fiction for fun and profit. Mainly #scifi and #adventure stories; part-time musician.

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ben, to writing
@ben@bytetower.social avatar

01 June: Introduce yourself and/or update us on your writing journey.

I'm Ben, currently trying to find my way into serial fiction.

Since last time, I started a small creativity e-zine, and wrote a post on the use of random oracles in for getfreewrite.com.

I'm currently working on the first episodes of my urban fantasy series "Fraktur", in which I'm trying something new: making most of my writing process public in a dedicated section of my website.

douginamug, to random
@douginamug@mastodon.xyz avatar

I've been using duckduckgo, and the Microsoft/bing outage caught me by surprise.

Centralization on one side, SEO * llm-spam on the other... Search in trouble!

I realise that I use NY history to search more and more. Would it make any sense to have a communal list of Good Sites that plug into your browser history?

ben,
@ben@bytetower.social avatar

@douginamug I've been feeding my history and browsing activities to my yacy search node which I self-host. I wish more people would contribute to this distributed search engine.

ben, to random
@ben@bytetower.social avatar

5/23. What gets in the way of your writing?

Social life, Netflix, cooking, painting, ...

But also: finding a process for serialised fiction (weekly releases) that works for me is taking more time than expected. I'm getting there, but I'm beginning to think that a weekly schedule wasn't a good idea in the first place. My plan was to write episodes of 1800 words, but the story is making me write episodes of 8000 words.

alexandra, to random
@alexandra@social.lol avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @alexandra

    My current top 2 would be:

    1. Slowly

    Longform digital letters penpal community. No followers, no profile picture. And the letters take a certain amount of time to arrive depending on the real world distance between you. So if I write a letter to the US, it takes 20 hours. This is a great way to emulate good old 🐌 mails.

    1. Antenna pod

    Couldn't live without my podcasts.

    ben, to writing
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    Today's a scarily productive day. It's 2pm here, and I already wrote 5004 words today!

    ben, to random
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    Calling it a day! Here is today's quick progress update:

    Wrote 3638 words today, which brings the draft to 9863 in total.

    Jeremiah, to movies
    @Jeremiah@alpaca.gold avatar

    “The Boogeyman” (2023) is monster thriller with multiple jump scares that got me and no gore. Best new scary movie I’ve seen this year.

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @Jeremiah Thanks for the recommendation! I was looking for exactly that kind of movie yesterday evening!

    ben, to writing
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    I am struggling to settle on a domain name for the web novel.

    The title has 'chronicles' at the end and I don't know if it's a stupid idea to take a domain where the TLD is part of the name. So something like something-something-chronicl.es (for Spain) vs something-something-chronicles.com...

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @rm4 right, I guess I could start with the cheaper version and see if I want to invest in a second domain.

    While staring at the domains, I had two other ideas for the title that I also like...

    Titles and names are my nemesis!

    mike, to random
    @mike@robot.rodeo avatar

    There's an creator, Sarah Lavender, whose videos I have started to watch almost daily. I don't get the "tingles" that people describe, but I do get just about the best naps I've ever had. I can barely make it through the sponsorships at the beginning.

    Does that happen to anyone else?

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @mike It's the opposite for me. ASMR gives me the creeps. It keeps me awake until I turn it off.

    ben, to writing
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    I did it! 50104 words in one month!

    I have to write the last half of the last scene tomorrow, but I am happy with where I am right now.

    is still fun!

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @hankg Thank you! I have never done this before, writing a full draft I a month. But I have focused on improving my writing process this year and the changes seem to be working for me.

    In total I have written 100k this month. So yeah, I'm a bit proud :D

    brunoph, to random
    @brunoph@breakpoint.cafe avatar

    Ok, let's see. I have set up my SmugMug site and put a bunch of photos in. I'm still on the free trial, we'll see how it goes, but so far I like this a lot. And I can easily upload right from my iPad without having to deal with Jekyll, and so it's golden. Tell me what you think!
    https://www.brunos.photos

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @brunoph It's beautiful! Love you photos!

    ben, to writing
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    OK! Time to call it a day! I reached 3000 words today. Feeling empty now....

    Draft is now at 45300 words. Should be able to beat my own personal challenge in 3 days.

    ben, to random
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    Rain! Again!

    yay...

    It other news: I enjoy Mr. midnight on Netflix more than expected.

    ben, to random
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    I bought way too many new pens and other stationary today. I fear, I have an addiction...

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @alexandra you're probably right. It's just so satisfying! My new obsession is collecting rollerball pens

    Jeremiah, to random
    @Jeremiah@alpaca.gold avatar

    There’s a joke about The NY Times reporting on “trends” long after they are established culturally. Gay men sending birthday nudes has been A Thing for 5–10 years.

    Also, no self-respecting gay man would use the depicted phone to take a selfie.

    Shout out to all my fellow “class of extremely online gay men”!

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @Jeremiah Kind of disappointed now that I've never received a birthday nude in my life. I must be doing something fundamentally wrong… :D

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @Jeremiah *dropping hints to all my extremely online gay friends.

    Do I have to make these friends first, or are all extremely online gay guys friends with each other and I just have to be extremely online myself?

    I have so many questions at the moment.

    nithou, to Steamdeck French

    deleted_by_author

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    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @nithou I went with both. But mainly because I couldn't wait and bought the EA version a year ago.

    ben, to random
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    My plan for today:

    • Finishing a blog post about different outlining strategies (because there can never be enough of those!)
    • Starting chapter three of my urban fantasy web novel (still adding them to my backlog to have a buffer before I start making them public)
    • Drafting more article ideas for inspiration.garden.

    And I am also preparing a new section where I would like to publish short stories by others in our little magazine!

    alexandra, to random
    @alexandra@social.lol avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @alexandra I would LOVE to see some rain around here!

    ben, to random
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    I made this pen holding shelf today. It got a bit annoying to search through a pile of pens next to my desk...

    I feel prepared for my next session with the . I designed some things that should also work well as a

    Let me know if you want to receive a free surprise postcard!

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    I am now the proud owner of 383849 little hexagons! Do you have an idea for them?

    ben,
    @ben@bytetower.social avatar

    @alexandra I am currently using cheap poker chips as tokens for my roleplaying sessions. I could replace these chips with my hexagons. That is a good idea! Thank you!

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