Final story in my trilogy of absurd childhood secrets. Tragic yet comical. Follow the link to find out how Lisa Frank saved me from a biohazardous social disaster on the school bus.
Lunch is a tomato basil salad.
Okay, let's end the trope that flicking the katana (or any sword) will rid the steel of a red, viscus, proteinous liquid such that you can sheath it in the scabbard without fouling the cloth or leather it's crafted from! It's absurd! Your scabbard will rapidly smell gross and you'll be pegged as unclean at best, or a murderer at worst! Sword-wielders need clean cloths to clean with!
#writer #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon. #writingAdvice
#EroticMusings 2025.08.03 — Week 10 (August 3-9) Culture: Is there a refreshing trope, pattern, or topic that you'd like to see more of in erotica?
I'll admit I don't read the genre much, for reasons I've stated, but as a subplot in other stories, I'd find it refreshing if it was about the delight of pleasing the other more often than oneself. That's an insight into a character I'd like to know.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#WordWeavers 2025.08.07 — SC POV: If you could have one food right this moment, what would it be?
[Steamed Milk and Sugar, male, referred to by the day angel MC as "Shugh."] I'm soooo excited right now. I'm getting an above-the-fold front-page byline all because of Lightning Bolt's photography. She seems unable to accept she's talented and, worse, is blinded and dizzy from the spotlight she's walked unexpectedly into. She doesn't look like she's up to eating anything, but I can tell she's faltering, that her blood sugar is low. I know this joint close by, where I can get her some calming tea and maybe a sugary donut to prop her up, if she'll forgive me for prodding her into this mess!
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #cozy #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#RSdiscussion
#RSstory
#RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.08.07 —Have you always written, or was there a tipping point to get you to start?
Throughout my primary education, up until my senior year of high school, my least favorite class (besides P.E. which SUCKED), was English. I struggled for a C-. I was an avid reader, however; ever since an uncle introduced me to SF at age twelve. Grammar nevertheless confused me: so bore-ing.
Then, one day, I thought: I can write that! Maybe I could write that better. Perhaps I could even write the stories I wanted to read that I could not find. I studied the styles of the authors I loved, sentence by sentence, word by word, until I could reproduce their style, until I understood the music and rhythm of the words, and could recognize when my writing got it right and when it got it horribly wrong—despite my not understanding what a predicate was, or my not wanting to learn the mechanics of grammar.
Then I wrote a novella.
I was 18.
To this day, grammar vexes and sometimes defeats me. I. Am. Still writing, tho!
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
Misleading your readers is fine, lying to them not so much
That's a 180° perspective on the matter of misdirection.Yep. I am against bait-and-switch writing, where the author presents a sheep story camouflaging the wolf as a wooly comforting idea then ending it as another with ugly teeth, especially when perpetuated without foreshadowing. It's an author knowing what they have written won't be willing read by the audience they want to deceive into reading it. That indeed constitutes lying.
ps: I've included a #AuthorVsAI screenshot, showing the pablum #Apple's on-device #appleintelligence #ai proposes, which strips any semblance of my idiosyncratic style. Why #genAI is bad news.
Gute Nacht, Freunde.
Wrote 250 words for Moon today - slowly getting back into it. Won't last long, I have more family visiting starting Saturday... but I am trying.
Also updated my backmatter template to include a link to my store, and updated the first Wolf book with it, since that's in a promo right now.
In addition, I had to raise the price on my two smallest print books, since Amazon changed their rules about print. (Sorry!)
I did basically nothing today. Oops. I'm trying to write every day, but really the book is currently in the thinking stage. I never used to do the write-every-day thing, tried it for my last book and it was surprisingly fine. I will write later, but it doesn't matter how much. Writing books is a rewarding process, though definitely not 'fun'. Write slower = takes longer. And? Finishing the process is always a bit sad so what's wrong with prolonging it?
#WritingCommunity
#Today 07 (pt2)
Good day!
The advantage of where I live is that I left home, went to the hospital, had my mammogram, and made it home in less than an hour.
And still it’s raining.
This is a true soaker rain, something I haven’t seen here in years. We really needed it.
Back to editing…
Be everwell.
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug 7: Have you always written, or was there a tipping point to get you to start?
Always*
My first "published" story was about ziggy saving the Space Needle for the Puget Sound Young Authors contest in 3rd grade.
Between then and 2016 I didn't do much else outside school work and some dabbling during lunch at work on ideas that bopped around my brain.
The tipping point was “Winning" NaNoWriMo in 2016.
Vol. 3, issue 32 of Johto Times is now available! This week's issue features an interview wiht Ferretsroq, the top mod of r/Pokémon. Plus, a recap of the latest Pokémon news, and a couple of big announcements!
#WordWeavers 7: SC POV: If you could have one food right this moment, what would you choose?
"I miss dadi's cooking so much. At first, being able to get whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted from the food machines was amazing. But none of them use enough spice."
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug 7. Have you always written, or was there a tipping point to get you to start?
Basically always, yes. A lot more drawing when I was little, and a twenty-year gap when what I wrote was academic work, first as a student and then as a prof, but writing has always been a huge part of my life. Hell, I've been *writing* on the internet consistently since I was 14.
#PennedPossibilities 748: How does your SC view the world?
"Everybody can be good. They just haven't all figured it out yet."
I had the loveliest rejection letter from a big lit mag. My personal essay "The Centaur Effect" doesn't work for their theme, but here is what they wrote:
"We appreciated reading your work. We are inspired by passages that were frankly, fearless and deeply wrought, as well as by the evocation of rural geography that we've rarely found in literary non fiction. To be sure, the entanglement of family and animal life, ecology and social history is impressive."
Personalized rejections are rare. To receive one this complimentary is almost unheard of.
Someone will want to print this essay eventually.
#WritingCommunity #LitMag
While I've got the chance and I'm free, I thought I'd post this for you guys. I have a new chapter for my long story for The Hour ready to go as well, and it's also the last one. Randall and Lix deserve some peace.
Anyway, here's the conclusion to our Jamie and Malcolm story. I really enjoyed writing this whole thing.
For @youseeatortoise, especially.
⸻
Jamie has a bright idea. Which is a terrifying thing, of course.
You can read Chapter 5 of "Cowardice and Convenience" here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68393481/chapters/178197486
@therivercrow @DoctorMonkey2 @doctorwanderer @QuokkaMocha @Luna_Catriona @Firlefanz @paulk @strangeseawolf @aperfectsong
You must give,
more than you receive.
You must listen,
more than you speak.
