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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.10 — What kind of photography do you most enjoy? (Taking, viewing, or both.)

As a photographer who's done weddings, events, and fine art #photography, I can be more fine-grained in my answer instead of simply stating: Both.

I find taking photos far more interesting than viewing them, and I spend much more time shooting than viewing. What I really enjoy viewing is street photography (think Henri Cartier-Bresson), and were I not a shy person, I would engage in it more often. Working a wedding or a child's party, I take candids, not posed pictures. I endeavor to be invisible and capture the special fleeting moments of who people are rather than what they want us to think they are. Kind of like street photography, huh?

I am currently writing a novella where the main character's street photography leads to her finding friends and overcoming adversity. For me, it might be aspirational.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers #ttmd 2025.08.03 @JulieLiddellWhitehead Author Talk to Me Day

Sometimes I get the opportunity to research and sometimes I don't, like today (I'm currently unwell). I hope I'm asking a fair question here; beyond that, that it's not something I should have seen in a bio if I'd looked.

Your book collection of short stories appears to be about characters living through hard times and dealing with hard decisions made or needful. It feels like something an author would write in part to work through their own demons or to make sense of a nonsensical world. Is this the case for you? If not, what drives you and your writing? What do you wish the reader to feel they have learned when they finish the reading the last page of your story?

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.01 — Alt: Word.

This word comes from Mars Needed Women, which is in beta. The Decath Crown, as it is referred to, is one of a number of antagonistic organizations the book's MC ends up dealing with, but it is also the most insidious. I don't expect anyone to read about this out-of-context, but I will admit that I invented the religion for a fascist state instead of using a real one to diffuse my fear of needlessly picking on one religion and likely upsetting part of my potential audience. After the fact, it feels a bit like I am picking on all religions, only kind of passive-aggressively. I'm okay with that. Everybody needs their nose tweaked now and again. What follows is a slightly [annotated] excerpt from the glossary in the book.

Decath - A religious organization which was a successor to the various Christian nationalist faiths that created NADS [North American Decath States] from its predecessor state [the United States], consolidated into a theocratic state-supported ministry. The religion is now world-wide, except where banned in five catholic countries. Adherents say it is not a successor to Catholicism, but a rejection of it. It comes from Dissenting Catholicism, and teaches that the liberal interpretations promulgated by the various orthodox and protestant churches regarding Christ's word was unfounded, and furthermore misrepresented God's will based on improper readings of both the new and old testaments. Their catholicism is a new orthodoxy that properly interprets an apostolic church structure while supporting a protestant ideal of a priesthood of believers that is guided by ministers. It is accurately spelled De-cath not Dis-cath. This because the members of the initial Synod of Alabama—which drew together the leaders or designates of various nationalistic churches, their largest corporate sponsors, and hundreds of US congressmen and sixty-nine senators—thought having the word sound like decaf would sell better amongst the disparate flocks they shepherded.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.31 — Alt: Yellow?

Citron is a cute gangly teenage guy who is both seriously dangerous and seriously loyal. His hair has been described a being like lemon meringue pie, that is, various shades of yellow swirled with very light blond. It's a stand-out feature.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.31 — How did it go? Any changes you want to make next month?

My biggest July project was attending BayCon / WesterCon and talking with the guests of honor, writers, and publishers without turning into a shrinking violet. I wrote about that in another post.

It went arguably well. I talked to pretty much everyone, the writers who are M. A. Carrick, and a small press publisher. The latter went pretty well, since I got an invite to submit before submissions open in February. Now if my beta readers were only a bit faster. Having that I was a shy person on my badge helped; some noticed, but I had it as a backup that I never really needed.

This month doesn't involve conventions, so I'm safe!

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.29 — Why do you like your genre(s)/style(s)?

Scribe

Frankly, I love writing in the science fiction and fantasy genre because I control the horizontal and I control the vertical†, essentially, I can control all aspects of how society works. My knowledge of our current reality, and how people operate it is too incomplete to write mainstream. I might, otherwise. What you get from me is a (hopefully literate) mixture of adventure, wonder, and slice of life. I am increasingly good at the latter. You can judge for yourself with the excerpt in this reply to Writers Coffee Club today: eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/11493907

Maker

My photographic style is not the compromise that Scribes presented above. My primary style is contrasts, especially color contrasts. This may be due to two things. The first was taking a class in drawing (charcoal and pen & ink) and in color (pastel and colored pencil). What I learned was how to portray volume in 2D images, and that's through contrast. The second was that I really got into the Carlos Castaneda books.There I encountered the concept of seeing shadows instead of the object, and learned to do that. (I also learned to lucid dream, but that's another topic.) It's called Negative Space in art speak. It thrills me when I capture an image that pops brightly out of the background because the background is dark or a contrasting color. The following copyrighted image is from the Glass Koi series (under another pseudonym). The fish colors render in sRGB as bright red, but when properly printer profiled they render as a burnished bronzy orange. It nevertheless demonstrates color contrast.

=-=-=-=-=-=
† This is a Twilight Zone reference.

[Author and artist retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.18 — Show us the cover to yesterday's book, and tell us what you don't like about the cover.

The cover art features a woman with a knife and what looks like a wookiee. Whilst dressed nominally (and correctly) as a man, she looks like an anglo white Vogue model that would convince nobody she's a guy; she's supposed to be ethnically Japanese. There's a vast difference between a sheep dog and a wookiee. I dislike covers that are wrong in great detail, but the publisher sold through a big printing, without any advertising, using it, so I forgive them. Since there were virtually no returns, I suppose even the duped Star Wars fans loved the story.

I am not showing the cover as I did not publish it under my current nom de plume. Sorry.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.17 — Tell us about a book you like despite its cover (don't show the cover yet.)

The elevator pitch is "Yentl in the future." Google Yentl. My novel†. An SF YA. Published years ago before I took the R.S. nom de plume.

=-=-=-=-=-=
† I edited the post to be clear, Yentl is not my novel; I am simply not stating the title. Aren't the vagaries of English wonderful?

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.14 — Self-promotion day. Show us what you're proud of. Let's boost away.

What I'm proud of today, I'm going to title Savory Soup. It features both my writing and cooking skills, is 502 words, and provides a good insight into the character of one of my women MCs—from what may yet turn out to be a cozy (yet spicy) romance fantasy (it has dragons) novella. Best of all, the excerpt is posted here on Mastodon. It ought bring you a smile, so please give it a read.

Savory Soup: eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/11481439

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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Eldritch CaféRS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)> #WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.07.07 — Show off a bit of text describing a meal. This excerpt is from *Inklings*. It's a magical fantasy in my Wands universe in first draft. The POV has a gift for befriending beasts that comes with a cost. She was raised in part by wolves and doesn't understand human beasts very well. > "Sit back and take some deep breaths. I think you will feel better after I heat you up some soup." He clunked a pot on the stove and rummaged in the icebox for a container filled with a liquidy stew. > I padded over to the Dragonfyre [stove] and knelt before it. With my practice of Dragon Speak firmly in my mind from before, I said, "Furor!" and focused the bulb of the heated dragon word over the metal mesh usually reserved for fire spells. My new [vibrissae] sense on my cheeks of distant shapes and textures, let me "touch" the the edges of the box-like area and feel the wires and metal tubes. It allowed me to center my aim. > "Hey! You need to rest. Don't bother doing that!" > Saying the dragon word a few times, turned the sponge bright red as the heat made the skin on my face tighten. He thumped the container on the granite sideboard; his arms went under mine, hefting me up. > "Excuse my touching, but really! I'm beginning to worry you'll hurt yourself further." He set me in my chair and Flash [the cat she just magically befriended] jumped into the newly created lap. > He was acting sweet, again. That word! People being somehow *sweet* made me go warm all over, and forget my new worry about being shy, and the residual tightness in my muscles from the agonizing part of using my gift. Having a human male care about me felt... I could only express the sentiment in Wolf Speak, so I smiled up at him. > He rolled his eyes and huffed like a wolf replying. He splatted the soup into the pot, which made a brief hiss from the heating it had undergone empty. > "No problem," I said. > "About what?" He stirred the soup. > "You're welcome to touch me." > He shook his head slightly. Soon he placed a green-striped earthenware bowl of chicken vegetable stew before me, which smelled of cabbage, carrots, squash, and parsnips, and of chicken. The fatty broth glistened in the deep spoon. He raised it and blew on it, before presenting it to me. > Across the room, Mother Wolf had taken notice of the delicious smell; I could tell by claw clicks as she approached. He was determined to see me rest. > His attention felt excessive. He had seen the scar grow on my arm from using my gift. Had that worried him badly? Did he feel responsible? > Nevertheless, I smiled as I shut my eyes and opened my mouth. It forced him to put his other hand under my chin as I slurped, touching me again. > "Oh, that's nice!" I said, leaving it vague as to whether it was the soup or his actions I referred to. I liked the velvety broth and the savory pepperiness of it, recognizing, sage, sweet forest herbs, and woody mushrooms mixed in—but human beasts flavored things with too much salt, I thought. > I opened my mouth again. > "You're working this," he murmured. [Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.] #BoostingIsSharing #gender #fiction #writer #author #romance #fantasy #writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers #RSdiscussion #RSstory #RSInklingsStory #microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.10 — How difficult would it be to continue your creative activity(ies) if you couldn't have your favo(u)rite beverage?

More worrisome would be why I couldn't have my favorite beverage. Is it a world disaster? Am I being marched off to a concentration camp? Has climate change destroyed the crop forever!? All or any of that would worry me a lot and I might fail to write. That's not going to happen, is it? Is it? Oh, noes! Now I'm REALLY anxious…

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.04 — How do you feel about breaking the fourth wall? If you write, have you ever done it?

I generally write in 1st person POV. Such POV characters tell their own stories, aware they're being read. They take license to be secretly snide to influence or entertain the reader whilst being proper in dialogue. They'll lie or misrepresent facts (for later reveal, of course). It's an opportunity to demonstrate the duality of people's personalities and how we cynically self-censor.

Do these characters converse directly with the reader? If it fits their personality, or it follows from their narrative: Yes. Whether it survives revision depends on whether it works well or not.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.07.01 — What do you want to work on this month? Alt: Bread?

Baking bread—instead of trying meet the guests, schmooze, and network at an SF convention as a shy published author trying to recreate their career—would be a lot less scary and far more pleasant, despite being on a low carb diet. Oh my, am I craving carbs right now. Ice cream, please.

I've made a badge extender that states what I am and that I'm shy. I am reading one of the guests of honor's book (M.A. Carrick). I've researched the others. This weekend is all I can think of for this month.

Will I survive peer interaction?

If you never hear from me again after this weekend, you'll know what happened!

Meanwhile, if you have ideas for conversing with authors or a comics artist, or just anyone, a suggestion or two might help me survive.

🍞🥖🥐😥

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.06.24 — Tell us about a time when you pushed yourself outside your comfort zone with your creativity. How did it go?

Work in progress!

I am attending Westercon over the 4th of July weekend. I registered at a level that gets me invited to guests of honor events, including a luncheon. I am a shy person.

Normally, this would not end well. Already my heart is racing just thinking about what I will encountered a week and a half from now…

In an effort not to lock up and become unable to speak, I am trying these strategies:

  1. I will add to my name tag that I am an SFWA member.
  2. Add a small picture of a novel I wrote.
  3. Add the line: "Shy person, but I WANT to communicate."
  4. I will study and memorize all the information I can about the guests of honor.
  5. I will write a list of questions I can ask.
  6. I will write a list of topics I can talk about if I go blank.

Any other tips or suggestions?

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.06.19 — Did you ever try talking a friend or loved one into taking up your creative activity too? How did it go?

No. Never tried, never will, never happening, Becoming an author requires faculties very few people possess, that must be combined with discipline. You have to want to tell stories and be okay with working alone like a monk, possibly never having anyone read any of those stories except yourself. Despite knowing before I was twenty that this was my avocation, and having sold and published, I still burnt out for 15 years.

I'm of the opinion that friends don't encourage friends to become writers. Okay, maybe sadistic friends do…

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.06.13 — Self-promotion day: show us what you're proud of. Let's boost away.

While I plod at composing story, work at revising stuff, have brought a decades old story into Scrivener to rewrite, and work with beta readers on the most recent novel, what I'm proud of is some of this month is my photography. The moving images are photos: live photos rendered as a wigglegram aka a Harry Potter photo. It includes one tree from my Trees project.

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