Powiedz lepiej, dlaczego nazywają cię „gospodarzem” — rzuciła niespodziewanie. — Bo pieniądze się ciebie nie trzymają? Bo za co się weźmiesz, to spaprasz? Czy coś innego? Głowę sobie nad tym łamię i nie wiem, naprawdę nie wiem.
— Coś innego. Zwierzyłem się kiedyś chłopakom z marzenia. Niepotrzebnie. Nieważne.
— Ależ mów, chętnie posłucham.
Zawahał się, uciekając spojrzeniem w bok. Czekała cierpliwie. Wreszcie skapitulował.
— Chciałbym… Chciałbym wrócić do Kortazeny, do Werdels, do mojego Kociegomłyna. Kupić kawał ziemi, postawić na niej dom. Zamieszkać tam z piękną żoną, zresztą, niech nawet nie będzie bardzo piękna. Chciałbym uczynić ją szczęśliwą. Chciałbym mieć gromadkę dzieci, wszystkie zdrowe. Założyć rodzinę, którą sąsiedzi by szanowali: mnie, moją żonę, moje dzieci. I żyć spokojnie, dostatnio, nikogo już nie krzywdząc, i żeby moje dzieci, i dzieci ich dzieci, także żyły w spokoju i dostatku, szanowane przez sąsiadów, kochane przez małżonków. Śmiejesz się?
— Nie. To bardzo… Bardzo niezwykłe marzenie. Jak na najemnika. Ach, a ta żona… Rozumiem, że w tej roli chciałeś obsadzić mnie?
— Tak — odrzekł spokojnie.
"Sztandary Imperium" wspólnie z Witoldem Dworakowskim już w czerwcu!
#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 working on it and I know it's going to help. Mastodon: ☑️
The witches secretly watched from the shadow of the moon.
In the marsh below, the king wheezed as he jogged past the Old Stump for the third time, wearing boots, breeches and muddy leaves. He waved a scepter in his left hand, and clutched a barely sedated badger in his right.
"Last month the Leaves foretold that his next child would be a son. Why did you tell him this was the only way--?"
"Because he was rude; I'm making him work for it!"
#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.
#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...
#WritersCoffeeClub 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 #scrivener, 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.
#WordWeavers 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...
#PennedPossibilities 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.
The knight struggled out of his armor then strode toward the dragon, "I need to be crushed immediately."
The dragon shifted his massive body, waiting for the knight to lay flat in his nest of furs and fabrics. Then he gently rolled some of his mass onto the knight's, worriedly asking, "Rough day?"
"Rough week," sighed the knight.
"It's Monday!"
There was no response, the knight had already dozed off under his favorite weighted-blanket.
Dionysus in Wisconsin won third place at the New England Romance Writers Readers' Choice awards in the fantasy/paranormal category. I am definitely going to be cool about this and not use it as an excuse to call myself an AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR at every turn because that would be obnoxious.