youseeatortoise

youseeatortoise, 3 days ago to random

#PennedPossibilities 323 - What's a piece of advice for writers that you listened to and are glad for?

A first draft just needs to exist.

youseeatortoise, 3 days ago to random

#writersCoffeeClub 23 May: What gets in the way of your writing?

Chronic illness and pain. Work. My own brain, often. The duty to constantly be marketing.

youseeatortoise, 12 days ago to random

#WordWeavers 14May- What role do other writers have in your writing life?

A huge one. Brainstorming and crowdsourcing, beta reading, commiseration, cross-marketing, advice, etc. With more established writers, they've blurbed me and given me a leg up, which was invaluable.

youseeatortoise, 12 days ago to random

#PennedPossibilities 314 — Has your MC ever felt as though they were reborn in the mental / emotional sense?

Maya has, twice, and not in a good way. Once when she came into her magical powers at 17, and once when she buried her real name and became Maya.

youseeatortoise, 16 days ago to random

#pennedpossibilities 310 — MC or SC POV: What was your favourite day or holiday when you were a child?

Jonah absolutely loved Christmas. Not the ones celebrated by his foster family—those were inevitably a disappointment. But the ones on TV, full of rich crimson and gold, thick blankets of snow, sparkling white lights, and the smell of pine. He dreamed of giving is daughter that experience, but it never quite shook out that way.

youseeatortoise, 25 days ago to random

#WordWeavers May 1 - Introduce your setting as if it's a character in your story.

Her slate-grey expanse has been transformed; through the pavement, shoots of unruly, screaming hair burst from her skin. She adorns herself in dead animals; dead men, too. She's restless, churning. She is dying, and she knows it, but she still cups her hands to create shelter where she can. She sucks the last gasps of oxygen through the broken teeth of her skyline.

youseeatortoise, 28 days ago to random

#pennedPossibilities 298: Do any of your characters have a disability?

Ian, most visibly—his hands were broken in prison and never healed properly. Losing magic for him counts as an even greater disability.

Blythe almost certainly has PTSD (well, so does everyone, but most obviously Blythe) but psychiatrists are in short supply.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to writing

https://www.tiktok.com/

A very important Sad Bastard update. @martennorr @zillanovikov #writing #cookbook #books

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#WordWeavers Apr 20
Do you plan out your themes or allow them to develop as you write?

Bold of you to suggest I plan anything.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to photography

This was pretty incredible. #eclipse #photography

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#WordWeavers Apr 1. MC POV: Write a Mastodon introduction post.

Jesus fuck on a pogo stick, not another one of them social media sites. I gots a real job, ya know? The world is ending and no one else is doin' anything about it, and you expect me to waste some time on a Twitter, tweeting.

Oh, it's run by anarchists you say. Well, that'll work out even better.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#Writerscoffeeclub Apr 1: What's your favourite easter egg in your own work and/or another work of fiction?

One of my favourite scenes in Cascade is Ian, Jonah, Sujay, and Eric debating the plot of the latest Night Beats episode—which included some very crude stereotypes and cliché plots. There's a reference in there to the awesome podcast Métis In Space that I hope, if they ever read it, they enjoy.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#wordweavers Mar 31: For a giveaway, what swag would you love to offer with your book?

I've made a bunch of swag as promo. There are resin fish with hearts in them, postcards from various locations in the book, stickers, and a bunch of election pins. I have some pickle charms and postcards for the cookbook as well. By the way if anyone wants any Cascade swag, I'll mail them to you in exchange for reviews or other hype.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/8: Do you prefer to write protagonist-driven stories or ensembles? Why?

Ensembles (at least in novels), because I'm constantly pushing back against the Great Man Theory of history and the Hero's Journey model of literature. Nothing significant is ever accomplished by individuals alone; I am more interested in the women who keep the supply lines moving than the generals who command the armies.

youseeatortoise, 1 month ago to random

#PennedPossibilities 266 — What are your favorite blogs or websites for writers? Share them for others to see.

I'll focus on one: Slacktivist's Left Behind analysis. I have learned more about literary analysis and craft from reading these than from any number of classes: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/11/05/left-behind-index-the-whole-thing/

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to writing

Y'ALL!

We're back in print, baby!

https://www.amazon.ca/Sad-Bastard-Cookbook-Food-Make/dp/3949666303

#writing #books #cookbooks

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub Mar 3
Are there any books which should be banned, or is book banning always wrong?

No book written by a human should be banned. (Which doesn't mean a right to be published, sold, or stocked in libraries.) Responsible publishers should add historical context or commentary to evil but significant works.

Something like the AI-written foraging for mushrooms or diabetes cookbook should be purged off platforms though.

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to random

#WordWeavers Mar 18 - Does your MC have a food they associate with home? What?

Fish. He hates it, and home.

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to random

#PennedPossibilities 256 — Do you have any other writers in your family?

The most famous one is Mordecai Richler, who's my fifth or sixth cousin or something like that. LOL. All Montreal Jews are related. My mum writes for a local paper and writes creative nonfiction on occasion, and an aunt writes memoirs and newspaper articles.

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 13 / #Pennedpossibilities : Do the writing hashtags inspire you?

Yes! And they put me into a routine of thinking about my writing daily instead of procrastinating.

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub
5. Where do you see the future of publishing in ten years' time?

The AI bubble bursts, taking most of the creative industries with it. Besides the Big Three, which will gobble up much of the remaining market, there will be some space for micro and small presses to put out books that the rest of us want to read. Indie will dominate but only a handful of authors in a sea of dreck. Most books will be free and not worth that price.

youseeatortoise, 2 months ago to writing

Do you have a book or short story out that you'd like to promote? My writing collective, Night Beats, interviews authors every Tuesday. It's easy to participate. Just follow the directions on our site. https://nightbeatseu.ca/author-interviews/ #writing #WordWeavers #PennedPossibilities #WritersCoffeeClub

youseeatortoise, 3 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub Feb 25 - How do you feel about Amazon's influence on books and publishing?

When I was growing up, we had to read dystopian fiction in high school about ubiquitous surveillance and government censorship so that we'd know how terrible Communism was and how lucky we were to live under capitalism. None of these dystopias went nearly as far as to have neo-Nazis policing warehouses while 80-year-old workers living in RVs had to pee in a bottle.

youseeatortoise, 3 months ago to random

#WordWeavers 2/22 - Does reading your own words bring you joy?

Yes, but only long after I've written them. We're talking months. Oh, turns out I wrote a good turn of phrase there! I don't remember doing it.

youseeatortoise, 3 months ago to random

#WordWeavers 17: What's the most embarrassing thing your MC has done?

One time, Ian was walking to Parliament through a far-right protest with Gaby when one of the protesters shouted racial slurs at her. He threw a Brown Note and made them all shit their pants, and of course a few dozen people were filming it at the time. The hashtag "AltRightFullOfShit" was trending for weeks. (Prompt didn't specify that it had to be embarrassing for him.)