@wendypalmer@mastodon.au
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

wendypalmer

@wendypalmer@mastodon.au

I write fantasy ebooks & family-friendly puzzle walk trails while enjoying farm life with goats, alpacas & bees in the South West Boojarah region of Western Australia.

I follow & boost writing, reading, books, knitting, science, history, linguistics, environment, art & Stoicism.

She/her. Avatar AltText: silhouette of a woman in profile, with glasses & bobbed hair; header is my book covers (alt texts on website).

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golgaloth, to writing
@golgaloth@writing.exchange avatar

Have you ever felt the need to tone down your story for publication?

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@golgaloth I have, because it was a YA story and got a little too dark (this was before the advent of the current crop of spicy YA).

lilithsaintcrow, to random
@lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com avatar

Have reached the stage of going sentence-by-sentence, changing many three times before deciding to leave them as they originally stood and muttering curses at Past Me for the sheer number of notes in brackets I left for the revision pass.

In other words, progress, but argh.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@lilithsaintcrow I have been known to exclaim out loud “what the fuck, Past Me” at some of the things she’s left me to do on revision.

wendypalmer, to fantasy
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

May the Fourth is also my latest book's birthday 🎉

Domesticated Magic is a romantic fantasy towards the cosy end of the spectrum, with The Feels, and a grumpy-sunshine-type m/m pairing.

Mateo and his family fled when their people turned to sorcery. Mateo’s own magic is tame but it’s still banned in their new home...yet they use it every day. But the sorcery seems to have followed them. They already lost their world once. Mateo can’t let them lose again.

Read more plus find buy links here (also on #KoboPlus and Everand):
https://wendypalmer.au/books/#domestic

#fantasy #romance #NewRelease #bookstodon #books #SelfPromo #indie @lgbtqbookstodon

Animated version of the cover of Domesticated Magic. The cover, blue border (half Greek-style tiles, half Viking-style runes), title and author name are split in two by a black lightning bolt. On one side is the outline of a bull's face made of curly floral-like lines. It glides in from the left, wearing a rather insouciant expression as it stares at the viewer. A green butterfly perches on one horn, gently pulses. It stands out against the cream background, black lines, and blue border and text. On the other side of the cataclysmic split is the helm of awe, a snake-like dragon biting its own tail to form a circle around magic runes. The dragon rolls in from the right to stare at the bull, and does not look impressed.

willaful, to bookstodon
@willaful@romancelandia.club avatar

? I haven't been posting about books much, been kind of in a meh mood. Still slowly reading Demon Copperhead, which is amazing but a LOT. Listened to Carrie Soto is Back, which was a bit of a hard sell because of the unlikable narrator but very enjoyable in the end. And just finished The Prisoner's Throne which I enjoyed but kind of forgot about as soon as I'd finished it.

@bookstodon

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@willaful @bookstodon I should finish City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky today…I don’t normally read very long books with ensemble casts but he won me over with the set-up and his sense of humour.

I am looking forward to finally finishing though, and this weekend will be Connie Willis’s The Road to Roswell — longtime fan, looking forward to it

anderlandbooks, to random German
@anderlandbooks@bookstodon.com avatar

Apr 29: Author's Choice

I'm nowhere near to publishing, but I'm thinking about using this as a cover. Thoughts?


wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@anderlandbooks I like it overall, I find it quite striking, but the title font is a little hard to read

golgaloth, (edited ) to books
@golgaloth@writing.exchange avatar

This ain't no render! The book is a reality, or at least the first proof from @ingramsparkbooks is a reality. You'll have to wait about a month to get your hands on your own copy. I'll post the sales link once I have the Kickstarter fulfilled.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@golgaloth just topped you up to a nice round number 😊

Am I mistaken or is the cover blue on the Kickstarter page but red in your video?

wendypalmer, to books
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

(10 authors you’ve read at least 5 books by)

Connie Willis
Natasha Pulley
KJ Charles
Martha Wells
Sarah Rees Brennan
Jane Austen
Seanan McGuire
AJ Demas
T Kingfisher
Dorothy L Sayers

@bookstodon

meshell, to bookstodon
@meshell@mastodon.social avatar

I finished Olivia Atwater’s The Witchwood Knot this evening and it was just very delightful to be back within her magical human faerie world again. I’m pleased there will be more books in this series.

I’ve been enjoying a lot of faerie / fae / fair folk books lately - another one was heather fawcett’s emily wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries.

I wonder if anyone has any other recommendations in that zone @bookstodon

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@meshell @bookstodon I enjoyed both those books, and also enjoyed High Times in the Low Parliament, a novella. It does dump you straight into a fairy-ruled woman-only London without explanation but it’s fun if you just roll with it.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@meshell @bookstodon it does have the lowest rating I’ve ever seen on GoodReads so is obviously not to everyone’s tastes 😊

Have you ever come across Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series, starting with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making?

Or Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series? Or maybe Alix E Harrow. Or Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown…

They’re all sort of adjacent to the books you mentioned — I’m sure I’ve read others that fit them closer but I just can’t think of any right now! (There’s one right on the tip of my tongue, it’s driving me nuts 😊)

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@meshell @bookstodon 🤦‍♀️ Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell of course, but you’ve probably read that one

wendypalmer, to writing
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

Having a problem with my Calibre-created ebook where its chapters are listed properly in the table of contents, and the pages are counted correctly, in every device including the Kobo app on my iPad…except on my Kobo Clara ereader, where it says 1 of 22 for 3 pages in a row, then 2 of 22 for three pages etc (basically the pages aren’t reflowing with the change of screen and font size).

And I found a reddit thread where someone has the same/similar problem, and asks for a solution, and the only answer is someone informing them that pages are an obsolete concept in Ebooks, and it’s like…have you ever used any ereading device, which will tell you how many pages you have left in a chapter and recalculate that for you if you happen to change screen/font size?

And I’m so annoyed on the question-asker’s behalf. Sorry they didn’t type “pages” in quote marks to prove they know they’re not real in ebooks, or type “number of taps until I reach the end of the chapter” or whatever phrase they needed to use to not trigger a completely irrelevant lecture.

(Maybe it was that technique where you ask a question and log on as a different user to answer it very wrongly to enrage people into giving the correct answer 😂)

wendypalmer, to fanfiction
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

I just read a romance and I kept thinking it felt a little like fan fiction (no shade, I enjoy) but I couldn’t pick the fandom — until I checked GoodReads and ohhhh, it’s Roy Kent.

He’s here! He's there! He's every-f*cking-where!

(I even thought one of the side characters (not a coach) was a bit like Ted Lasso and still didn’t pick the grumpy hairy ex-footballer lead as Roy Kent!)

@romancelandia

fraying, to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

One of my least favorite reply guys on social media is the “you’re just noticing this NOW?!” guy.

Yeah, man! We notice things when we notice them. If you agree, welcome me to the fucking club.

Are you the punch-clock of timely awareness or a builder of solidarity? You want a prize for noticing it first, or do you want to actually change it?

Pointing out that someone is late to the party is not what good hosts do, and just makes people less likely to try and help in the future.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@fraying @jwz oh god the Meh guy 🤦‍♀️

wendypalmer, to random
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

oh look, I won myself

wendypalmer, to random
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

Latest book all uploaded to the various ebook vendors, just in time to beat the preorder deadline 🎉

And that's it for being in that world... Bye-bye, boys! Bye Mateo, you grouchy sweetheart. Bye Jonas, you presumptuous charmer. But I'll miss Anika and her cosy teahouse most of all 🍵

jonobie, (edited ) to random
@jonobie@social.coop avatar

Being sick has meant a lot of reading. Just finished “Everyone in my family has killed someone,” by Benjamin Stevenson. I’m not a huge reader of murder mysteries, but this was a delight. The conceit is that an author who writes about the golden rules for murder mysteries finds himself … in a murder mystery. So he follows his own rules in telling it. The voice is hilarious and the mystery complex enough to be interesting but not ridiculously convoluted.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@paulinaashland @jonobie I really enjoyed it too — after I read it, I listened to it with my teen, and then we both enjoyed the sequel as an audiobook together too (family murder time 😊)

suswatibasu, (edited ) to NoStupidQuestions
@suswatibasu@mstdn.social avatar

Quick of the day.

Do you read books that you know you're going to hate, or think you're going to hate? Feel free to add comments below on why - will add a few of these to an article. Also, if you could please share, that would be most helpful.

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@suswatibasu I just voted no…and then I realised I have done so — I despised the main character but loved a side character so much that I continued with the second book (thank god it was only a duology).

But I wouldn’t set out to do so, I have too many books I think I’m going to love to bother with books I think I’ll hate.

wendypalmer, to random
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

What could possibly have happened to cause a big one-day spike in sales of one of my books?

(It’s always the Victorian-era fantasy romance. Sometimes I picture Kit and Alex being very smug at my couples from settings inspired by less-popular historical eras… though when my VIKING-era book comes out next year, Feilan and Remy are going to give you a run for your money, boys… 😂 )

wendypalmer, to random
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

This article via @humanities about “sad girl” novels — “If things described as “girl” are cuter, smaller, sillier, then what does that mean a “girl novel” is? A novel, but not as important?“ — taps into my dislike of “boss babes” and “girl bosses” type phrasing too.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/11/sad-girl-novels-the-dubious-branding-of-womens-emotive-fiction

fkamiah17, to folklore
@fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

Anyway, here's a postage stamp with a 17th century woodcut of a witch on it. Cool huh?
h/t Folk Horror Consortium on the dark side

wendypalmer,
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

@fkamiah17 “drastically unterrifying” 😂

wendypalmer, to books
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

Red, White & Royal Blue is on sale on Kobo Au for $2.99 and it gave me enough pleasure when I read it via my library that I would absolutely buy a copy…except it has the movie cover. Can’t do it. Same reason I couldn’t get Boy Swallows Universe when it was on sale last month either.

But All Our Shimmering Skies and The Adventures of Al-Sirafi are also on sale, with normal nice covers 👍

(Of course, I’m pretty sure they can just swoop in and change the cover even after you’ve bought a copy anyway; I just really wish you got to choose your favourite)

@bookstodon

wendypalmer, to books
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

One of the review pull quotes in the blurb for Natasha Pulley’s new book (The Mars House) reads ‘A spiritual heir to Terry Pratchett'.

While I’m sure the quote must come from a longer review which justifies the sentiment, on the face of it, it’s mind-boggling.

I mean, I love both these authors, but I cannot make that connection work AT ALL.

@bookstodon

wendypalmer, to bookstodon
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

For some reason, ’s recommendation algorithm is phenomenally accurate for me compared to the commercial options…this is six for six, the downside being I’ve read every one of them already 😂

@bookstodon

wendypalmer, to linguistics
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

Speaking of favourite words, look what language change has done to "nonplussed".

I think it was probably 20 years ago when I first saw it used in the second sense in a print book, which meant a whole chain of people agreed on its meaning...I was quite nonplussed at the time...

These days I avoid using it in my books because I'm guessing anyone over 40-ish uses it in the first sense, and anyone under 40-ish uses it in the second sense, and the meanings are so very opposite that it's just going to lead to interpretation problems!

wendypalmer, to random
@wendypalmer@mastodon.au avatar

Apropos of today’s question, my kid came across me working today and asked to play a game where he’d see how many tries it took to find randomly chosen words in my MS (using the search function, not manually scanning through 124,000 words 😊 )

Turns out I don’t mention the colours pink, purple or orange a single time…

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