@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

sfwrtr

@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe

RS, pronounced /är' əs/. Professional #SF #fiction writer coming back from burn-out. Writes character-driven #SFF (science fiction #fantasy) and some #fanfiction (#MLP). #ClarionWest 98 graduate. #SFWA life member. Studied non-western culture, #folklore, and #mythology. #Feminist #Writer and #Author in the #WritingCommunity amongst the #WritersOfMastodon.

Goals: Return to paid publication. Provide interesting content for followers. Make friends; attract colleagues. See intro post for more...

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sfwrtr, to Prompt
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

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, (edited ) to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

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.]

and




writerobscura, to random
@writerobscura@writing.exchange avatar

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,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@writerobscura

I ain't trying rewrite someone else's story (fanfiction doesn't count, that's transformative)

Thank you for stating that.

sfwrtr, to ai
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

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, to design
@SergKoren@writing.exchange avatar

Pixelated does not mean or imply old.

#design #failure #marketing

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@SergKoren

Pixelated does not mean or imply old.

Shoot. I guess I'll just have to say I feel very 4-bit color today.

amberage, to random
@amberage@eldritch.cafe avatar

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...

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@amberage

I would love to write stuff set in a modern world, but I don't want to write [...]
anything set there would put off my readers within ten pages by being grossly inaccurate.

This is a big issue for me, too. As a shy person, my experience with the real world of the less neurodivergent is observational not participatory. I get around the verisimilitude issue by writing fantasy that exists in a made-up though thoroughly modern world. I've written SF this way, but far future. Full control of what's real is a good thing!

donni, to random
@donni@mastodon.social avatar

I miss my old naive belief that most people are reasonable

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@donni

...naïve belief that most people are reasonable.

They are. What reasonable people aren't is newsworthy or clickbait, so the majority voice is drowned out and our view of reality becomes skewed.

sfwrtr, to apple
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

#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, to apple
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

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, (edited ) to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

#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.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
#RSdiscussion

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@skribe
Lucy Sussex - I updated the original post with her name.

sfwrtr, to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

#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.

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

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
#RSdiscussion

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@DonDeBon Yep. Ray Bradbury. I think both him and Asimov told how they wrote a story DAILY for a few years (and submitting) before making that key first sale.

It was impossible to write 52 bad short stories in a row. One of them had to be good.

Best advice and !

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@amberage
https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/

sfwrtr, to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

#WordWeavers 2405.22 — Is your antagonist more a dragon or a dragon rider? CW: Innuendo

This question has me rolling on the floor laughing, but then you'd have to know the context of the story Fire Brand is in. The antagonist's type of human is called a... You guessed it. The MC has described his "attributes" cough intimately, having let herself be captured by him... And, well... "riding" is a euphemism she's well acquainted with. So, will she become a dragon rider...? 😊

I wrote about the dynamic between these two characters in the tootfic Ms George and the Dragon
https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110603595653290409. Please read it, if you haven't already. It should amuse you in this context...

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

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

ShaulaEvans, to random
@ShaulaEvans@zirk.us avatar

If you are an informed, intelligent, compassionate, in-any-way-science-literate person, how are you coping with living through these times? What's helping?

No snark, please. I'm interested in sincere, practical answers.

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@ShaulaEvans

[coping with anti-intellectualism of our time?]

I keep in mind the magnifier-effect of the popular and social media as to how we perceive the world. They ARE NOT showing us what's important or educational, it's what sells advertisements. Let's call it a tendency toward clickbait, to turn us into pennies, which makes it seem like everybody is stupid, cruel, or outraged. A few are, of course, but everybody? No. I look around at the people I know, and the information I can search for myself, the world I find when I go out of my house. It's not that what floods the media (aka News-Porn). It's... pretty average. Heck, I remember growing up decades [and decades] ago as a similar but different anti-intellectualism. There were the anti-intellectual jocks and the hippies, and the anti-elite neo-communists and hippies. What I'm saying is that we need to keep perspective. That's what I do, anyway.

NathanBurgoine, to writing
@NathanBurgoine@romancelandia.club avatar

Oops.

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@NathanBurgoine

27K of 25K [and ms not complete]

The novella is saying, "I wanna b a novel." Don't fight it....

sfwrtr, (edited ) to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

Ch 9 Nbr 21 — Do you format as you write or do that at the end?

I am writing a manuscript for a fiction book or short story. Since I use a computer and now use , the question is, what formatting? If you mean do I /italicize/ words? Yes. If you mean to I occasionally indent for stylistic meaning?

Yes.

I do.

It's ard to show on Mastodon.

Centered chapter breaks? I use a style.

Beyond that? What formatting? Scrivener blats out a manuscript when I'm done. If I want a book, I'll likely find someone to edit and design for me, if a conventional publisher doesn't buy it first.

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

and


sfwrtr, to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

2405.21 — Do you consider how your MC’s appearance may contribute to stereotypes?

Yes. Which is why I leave most details vague. Since I write fantasy or SF that's generally in the far future, I discuss issues like racism and inequality from different angles. For example, my devil-girl (her term for herself) in her internal dialogue might call a day angel a featherbrain, but if one of them should call her a /devil/ (it's not the "official" term for her kind), them's fighting words...

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

and



sfwrtr, (edited ) to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

321 — Did your SC once admire their parents? Who else did they admire growing up? What about today?

Caramello admired his mother. He felt loved growing up despite a difficult situation with hostile step siblings and a status as the youngest child of the chieftain that kept children his age away. The chieftain took her as a second wife because he needed help ruling Crab Island; his first wife, though she gave him many children, had him on disaster patrol keeping her from ruining things. The business marriage required a child, Caramello. His mother did everything to protect him while she worked, saw he had a good life and a real childhood, ensured trades folk trained him in fishing and sailing (he admired them, too), and the mainland traders schooled him in letters and numbers. She saw him safely away on the mainland when it looked like a succession bloodbath might start between his siblings. Today, he misses her a lot, and fears the next letter he might receive via ship.

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

and



gruber, (edited ) to random
@gruber@mastodon.social avatar

My Apple Card is expiring this summer, and the replacement physical card arrived in the mail today. Activating was super-duper easy—just bring it in close proximity to your iPhone and tap a button or two on screen. Done.

But what do I do with the old card? It's titanium so it's not easily destroyed.

I've had metal Amex cards since 2010 or so. When Amex sends a replacement card, they include a return envelope custom made for mailing them your expired card for recycling.

[See thread for update]

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@gruber
Isn't it an Apple-branded Goldman Sach's card? Not saying that Apple shouldn't have crossed the Ts and dotted the Is, however...

sfwrtr, to transgender
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

I love living in California. Basically, are you alive? Yep. You're good.

sfwrtr, to photography
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

View toward Morro Rock.

imtheq, to writing
@imtheq@realsocial.life avatar

5.20.24 Blog - on not trying to be famous

https://www.amandaquraishi.com/blog-5-20-24/

sfwrtr,
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

@imtheq Fabulous advice and very true. I recommend all authors read this, especially aspiring ones.

sfwrtr, (edited ) to 13thFloor
@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe avatar

2405.20 — How did you settle on your antagonist's appearance?

Antagonists almost always are regular people with different agendas than the MC's. Rarely, they have a skewed sense of right and wrong or how reality works, which could describe a few MCs. In any case, I very much wish to prevent latching on to a stereotype as it will paint a divergent picture of what I want to represent and, far worse, comes with a subtext that I have no control over. Like the MC POV, I keep appearances vague so the reader can use their imagination, only less so because antagonists are seen and features important to the story must be eluded to. The MC will also make uncensored comments in her internal dialogue, aka 1st person narration.

In one case, the antagonist got her own side story as the POV. Note in the following from Fledge, she has woken up with bodily changes (and amnesia). She self-labels herself as a chimera, a monster that's a combination of creatures but in her case parts of other people. She never states facial features, needs never say anything about hair color, or what we relate to as race. She does mention an in-story kind of human. However, the following feature is important to her "appearance" as it relates to the question, as well as the plot. She's squatting on a tree limb two dozen stories high...

He [her rescuer] pointed at the useless things on my back. "You remembered enough to shield your fall [...] using them. You're learning."

Below my normal right shoulder blade, a red-feathered monstrosity twitched. Adjusting my hips carefully, I glared left to see iridescent blue and purple feathers and down lit by the setting sun, better suited for a pigeon's breast. The day angel wing poked out, balancing, splaying breeze-rustled feathers to instinctively steady me. My blue "add-on" was larger than the red. Both went thwack to my back, acting as if they'd noticed I'd noticed my alien, unasked for, new limbs playing—behind my back—and hid. I had to steady myself with a hand.

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

and




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