QuokkaMocha

floofpaldi, 5 months ago to random

I'm putting together a Christmas list for my family. It's that time of year again. So... Send me some reading recommendations! Give me links to YOUR books, guys. I'm going to bookmark this and save it for later, so I can purchase stuff throughout the year as well. I want to support everyone.

I hope everyone will check out the comments, too. Let's all support and love one another and help each other when and where we can.

#PennedPossibilities #WordWeavers #WritersCoffeeClub #WritingCommunity

thisismyglasgow, 19 days ago to glasgow

This access cover in Kelvingrove Park has long been a bit of a puzzle for me. Situated near the Park Drive entrance, you can just make out that it's a Fire Point (FP) cover made by Thomas Leadbetter and Co. Based on Gordon Street, with a works on Garnkirk Street, this Glasgow company was a plumbers, lead merchant and brass foundry, which, amongst other things made brass values for fire points (what we'd now call a fire hydrant) in the 1860s.

Cont./

#glasgow #ironwork #kelvingrovepark

QuokkaMocha, 6 months ago to writing

#writingcommunity #writersofmastodon Does anyone else have problems pushing through to the end of a WIP?

I'm a serial abandoner. I've been trying to force my way through projects, trying different approaches to see if it helps, and I still find myself today thinking I will never finish anything.

Sometimes, I get afraid this means I'm just a dilettante. But I've managed to finish short stories and even longer fan fictions. Just not bigger projects. So what am I doing wrong? #writing

QuokkaMocha, 6 months ago to writing

Gone through 36 pages of the WIP, doing some editing today. Once I got the right document as apparently One Drive went wonky at some point and I've ended up with two versions. Very strange WIP. I usually have a good idea whether I like the writing or not (whether anyone else likes it is another issue, I may be totally at odds with what other people consider "good", but I usually know if I think it's good) but I don't with this WIP.

#writing #writingcommunity #writinglife #editing

thisismyglasgow, 1 month ago to glasgow

Looking up at an electricity pylon towering above the tow path of the Forth and Clyde Canal by Speirs Wharf in Glasgow.

#glasgow #forthandclydecanal #speirswharf #pylon #electricitypylon #patterns

QuokkaMocha, 4 months ago to random

@thisismyglasgow Finally remembered to take a picture of the tiles in our close!

A tenement close with stairs leading upwards, green and white tiles on the walls and a deep red paint on the bannister.
Green and white wall tiles

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to animals

5:30 on the dot, Frankenstein always comes in for his cuddle. No idea how this tradition started but it seems to now be the law. #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #Cat

QuokkaMocha, 8 months ago to Cats

For context, that corner of the couch and cushion are where I always sit when I’m waiting for the microwave or toaster or getting ready to go out, or on the occasions I can’t avoid talking to Sam. Rassilon has decided this is now his seat. If he starts calling it a mojo-dojo-casa-house I’ll know I shouldn’t have let him and Frankenstein watch Barbie with me this evening. #Cats #CatsOfMastodon #CatsAreJerks #Cat

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to fanfiction

My new pills are making me exhausted and AO3 is being weird with my formatting all of a sudden but I have managed to post a chapter at least, which gives an excuse to finally post the little cover I made. Nardole is AWOL with the TARDIS, leaving Bill and the Doctor stranded in revolutionary France, and the Doctor is enjoying himself just a little too much. https://archiveofourown.org/works/42928764/chapters/132437347 #fanfic #fanfiction #DoctorWho #DoctorWhoFanFiction

QuokkaMocha, 10 months ago to fanfiction

Fanfic time - I'm doing a collection of spooky stories featuring each Doctor, and part 1 of the Fourth Doctor's adventure is now up - https://archiveofourown.org/works/34258843/chapters/122128354

Harry is missing, and Sarah and the Doctor are trapped in a deserted 1930s weather station on Svalbard, that might not be so deserted after all.

#fanfiction #fanfic #doctorwho #DoctorWhoFanFiction

QuokkaMocha, 8 months ago to writing

Only managed maybe 2000 words in all today. Mental health is not great today. It's one of those "I want to delete everything I've ever created" days, plus the cat's been in my face all day, so I've not had peace to write.

I tell myself that 44 is not too old to still achieve things but it's hard when everyone around me says the opposite. I'm deluded into thinking I could produce art. It's some silly phase I'm going through. Tired of it all.

#writing #writingcommunity

QuokkaMocha, 4 months ago to random

So… this is my new (old) house. Going down tomorrow to see what needs doing or buying to get it habitable, but it won’t take much. Should be able to move in before the end of the month.

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to random

First day back in the "real world". On the plus side, back with the cats. On the minus - everything else.

QuokkaMocha, 2 months ago to random

Thought this lady deserved a post to herself. I believe this is my great aunt Ellen, my maternal grandfather’s sister. She was a district nurse, and was killed in a head-on collision with a police car travelling on the wrong side of the road. Her husband tried to throw himself in front of her to save her before the impact, but by horrible fate, he survived. Turned out a senior officer was late for a function and told his driver to overtake another vehicle. There is a street named after her now.

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to random

#PennedPossibilities What part of your WIP was the most fun to write?

Panelák, probably the really creepy stuff. I enjoy trying to get that hairs standing up on your neck feeling into prose. No idea if I actually achieve this or not, but hey.

Hatter - mimicking the two styles, Carroll's mid 1800s and Nathanial's early 1800s with a Scots lilt to it.

Tbh though, I'm not having much fun with either WIP right now. thinking of taking a break and writing a bit of fantasy purely for fun.

QuokkaMocha, 3 months ago to random

We are home! The cats moved in today. Rassilon has decided the whole house is his and has been exploring all day. Frankenstein is hiding under a chair because mummy put him in a nasty bag today for a while as he traveled (he does not appreciate the new pet carrier apparently). I was going to cook stovies but then remembered I don’t have a potato peeler or sharp knife so have ordered supplies for tomorrow, and tonight’s dinner is courtesy of the local chippy!

QuokkaMocha, 20 days ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub Does your work include pictures, maps or graphics?

All my fantasy projects have maps. Blame it on being introduced to the genre by Tolkien. One short story, Wee Ginger, which will be in my upcoming Scottish spec fic anthology, has a newspaper-style comic strip at the beginning, because it's about a character from a Sunday paper. I copied the Sunday Post's style and was actually quite proud of the result!

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to random

#WordWeavers Review/message/compliment

I've never had a comment on my published work (in magazines), except from the editor at Ellery Queen, who said she'd really enjoyed it and that it reminded her of The Old Man in the Corner by Orczy.

My couple of readers on AO3 keep me going with their comments. It's things like, the other day, being told I'd got the voice of a character spot on, or someone noticing an Easter egg. Those are the ones I love!

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to random

#WordWeavers Any scenes inspired by personal experience?

Loads. I mean, I write horror, and right now I actually live in a horror novel, so I might as well use these bloody experiences! Get some good out of them. But more so than actual events, I tend to use the emotion I remember behind those events. My first ever job in theatre was on Fame the Musical and so I always get "Think Like Meryl Streep" in my head when I think about this, though.

QuokkaMocha, 4 months ago to random

#WordWeavers this year's writing plans

Once I'm finished moving house (end of Jan) - Finish the edit on the existing draft of Panelák.

Finish the last 3 or so chapters needed for Dex

Finish the first draft of Rachis

Hopefully do a first edit on Rachis

Finish Demo Dat Quod Non Habet and get onto the next story in the series.

Finish as much of the DW stuff as possible.

Come up with an amazing idea that will rock the world?

QuokkaMocha, 5 months ago to random

#PennedPossibilities Music, art or reading?

Malásek - reading, mainly, though he's interested in art and architecture. Not so much music, as he likes silence more than anything.

Nat Chapel - art, probably, because he's interested in design, although he likes reading and favours philosophical texts and poetry most of all.

Varyenukha - music. He was a prodigy as a child and composer to the royal court as a young man. He still listens to music when he can now, despite his circumstances.

QuokkaMocha, 25 days ago to random

#PennedPossibilities Do any of your characters have a disability?

Malásek has mobility issues after a knife attack throughout the book. He's also a bit autistic, (in his era, it wouldn't be diagnosed very readily).

"Dex", my nearly finished fantasy book, has an MC suffering the effects of a serious head injury throughout the story.

I suppose most of the disabilities I include are sort of post-trauma or post-surgery because that's what I have and so I can be accurate in my portrayals.

QuokkaMocha, 25 days ago to random

#WordWeavers Do you have an irrepressibly good-humoured character?

Yes, in Rachis. Merry very rarely loses his good humour, although it is a bit of a front and it slips now and then. It's how he copes, trying to look for a bright side all the time. Needless to say it gets on the MC's nerves, but he puts up with it because he knows Merry is a genuinely kind and caring person.

Pretty much everyone in Panelák is miserable.

QuokkaMocha, 25 days ago to discworld

Happy birthday, Terry Pratchett, born 28th April 1948. I was in a B&B in Leverburgh, Harris, when the news broke of his death, and had to explain to the landlord why I was so affected, but Terry's books were some of my earliest influences. My very first "book" was pretty much an attempt at a Discworld-style universe. "Mort" is still one of my all time favourite books. #TerryPrachett #discworld #TerryPratchettDay

QuokkaMocha, 2 months ago to random

Found a cache of photos in a cupboard I was clearing out. The piper is my great uncle Billy, my maternal grandfather’s brother who, by all accounts, was a bit of a spiv and was a regimental piper. The man in the flat cap is my great grandfather, my maternal grandmother’s father. I’m not sure if that’s gran he’s with or one of her sisters. No idea who the couple in Edwardian dress are but the woman is definitely related to my granddad. The other photo, no idea, but it’s dated 1928.

Man in full highland dress with a set of bagpipes under one arm.
A silver haired , middle aged man in suit and flat cap beside a young girl in a uniform of some sort. Looks WWII in period
1920s sepia photograph of a lady in Edwardian dress, a dark jacket and skirt, possibly, posing behind a chair back with elaborate carving. In a battered silver coloured frame that looks in keeping with the period.