There are so many prints of the old copies over the years, turning the new copies into paper craft resources is more useful than reading them at this point.
#WritersCoffeeClub 7 Oct Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction? A great deal of my editing process is about character and continuity. My first draft, I usually don't have the characters' voices and vocabulary clearly distinguished in my head, so they all tend to sound the same; and other things like 'does she have this item with her on this day? Have I established the room layout of the third floor? What phase is the moon? journeyman.cc/blog/posts-outpu…
"When did books become political" Uhhhhh probably when Plato decided to write "The Republic" in (checks calendar) 380 BC. Idk why people suddenly dont think books and reading can (and should) be political.
Midnight X-Men #1 was a fun read, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to be in for a specifically horror-themed cape comic. I dig that cape comics are built to sample/pilfer a variety of genre modes, so rooting an entire line in just one feels potentially limiting long-term.
Never give up. Somewhere out there is an old manor house on the moors that needs a new shadow lurking in the attic, drawing travellers towards their romantically terrifying doom.
I mean… horrifying but also can we not think about the uptick of readers during Covid, how to make stories fun again, not abandon YA and MG which produce new readers, maybe a lil less snake eating its own tail…
#slowBookClub is finishing reading Fight Like Hell - The Untold History of American Labor luma.com/chwiawi1 our 3rd/last session will be Tues Nov 3 at 6p Pacific The chapters stand alone really well, so this is still a fine time to drop in - just read some of chapters 10-13. Or if you've read the book and want to discuss, this is a great time to join. (for the planners amongst us, our book for December will be Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green everythingistb.com - it seems short enough to read in a single month)
there's so much Japanese fiction that features a village protesting a dam that i want to read a history of Japanese dam construction
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Spookymonth! We House-of-Usher* the month in with the Story Hour debuts of Grace Daly and Nicole Givens Kurtz! Join us Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. PDT! *Not a content hint; just a Poe sense of humor. #Horror #HorrorFiction #GraceDaly #NicoleGivensKurtz #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading storyhour2020.com/
This is honestly a ripping fantasy series with incredible but not overwhelming worldbuilding, a complex and intertwined plot, mashed up genre combinations and spectacular characters. Really one of my favorites of the last decade.
anyone at Fantasycon where I am reading from one book, launching another and being moderate and balanced about AI ("die die die in the fire of a million suns") Fantasycon 2026 Around, Friday 5-6pm reading from “Terror“, Malin Saturday LAUNCH 9.00am (!!!), Orkney Wizards Tower Press Wiz-4 (“the story of my heart”) 11.00 am Death to AI Panel (Panel Room 2) Sunday am, Around #books #glasgow #SFF #murder #aliens
As a musician, I always just say “weird stories via weird music” As an author, I’ll probably refine this because I’m in the middle of my first full length novel, but: Detail-oriented realism and surrealism, & just abundantly evident that I’m an ADHD know-it-all and a poet first.
It's Book Quote Wednesday. #BookQW Today's word is Push. Caroline witnesses a hit and run and stops to help the downed motorcyclist. He acts like he knows her, but she has never met him. Tomorrow UK amazon.co.uk/Her-Borrowed-Grav… #UrbanFantasy #Fantasy #Bookstodon US amazon.com/Her-Borrowed-Grave-…
Independent bookstores support local communities in so many ways! I will always put my book budget there and not Amazon, which is actually horrible toward authors
Wrote the rough drafts of the two opening scenes in The Lesbian Cheese Novella (name in progress). I think I might actually manage to write a novella this time. It's about a couple, not a triad, so that's weird too. #writing #QueerWriters
calling it a rewrite, but it's at least 65% entirely new stuff
BREAKING SCOTTISH PUBLISHING NEWS: A horrible party held at John O'Groats for the bestselling academic book '80 reasons to Study Publishing' was shattered by the classic Scottish, horrific hailstones, ruining the chance of a film deal. The book has so far made £50 trillion in its opening week and will become Scotland's new national text.
Really wanted to like a fire upon the deep by Vernor vinge as there's a lot of cool aspects (aliens! with no short term memory or that need a set number of bodies to achieve sapience), but it's just not working out 😭 something about the style drags for me. Such cool concepts tho
lord of the rings is so cool because there’s elves and dwarves and hobbits and a sense of utter apocalypse that feels like being beaten with a blunt object to read these days and also wizards too
Random book from our personal library: 📖 The Pictorial History of Winchester Cathedral, Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Swithun by Norman Sykes (Pitkin Guides) #bookstodon
I didn't intentionally time this for Banned Books Week but any list that would think to take issue w/ @jeremywhitley.bsky.social & @breindigo.bsky.social's incredible THE DOG KNIGHT needs to do some introspection (& this is the completely unbiased opinion of a non-dog person). Interview link below:
This afternoon's writing session resulted in another 203 words added to the story in progress, as well as yet another working title — my fourth or fifth, I think. Any one of them would do, but a title can't merely do — it has to call out to me as the only possible title for that particular story.
I get why people want audiobooks to “count” as reading, but they’re such fundamentally different acts that maybe the actual problem is that someone gamified reading for you when you were a kid and your self-worth doesn’t need to be tied to counting it at all, as much as experiencing and enjoying it.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 7 Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction? Both. The first rounds are always addition as my early drafts are incomplete, like scaffolding or a line drawing. I add details which bring the story to life. Later go throughs are about trimming excess words or duplications, revising to make things clearer, etc
Still thinking about an author talk I was at, where the author described himself as writing for "the general reader, curious and intelligent." Isn't that effectively code for writing for yourself? If you don't choose an audience, you're just likely to write to your own biases and interests. The...
Ebook and paperback: books2read.com/TheNextHorizon Amelia and The Book of Newts are in conflict. She wants to explore her feelings. It wants to explore space, taking back the gift for mathematics and piloting it gave her. She’s left unable to plot a direct course home. She’s desperate to see the man she loves, lest she lose him forever and The Book is in her way… @bookstodon #author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books
I often think I have the a lot of the sensibilities to be a YA author but I really don't wanna be. Like one of the reasons I had quit comics was like 100% of the money to make comics about lesbians was in YA. Like you aren't seeing even a lot of indie publishers doing queer shit outside of the YA.
That’s what it feels like when you Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space your finger and my skin. I forgetGet up, Shahrzad.
Working on rewrites for one book while I let the book I just finished simmer. An important part of the process. The simmer. #writesky #writing
#writersCoffeeClub Oct. 7. Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction? Almost always addition. I tend to write tight scenes that leave a lot on the table so when I go back to revise, I flesh those out more. #writerslife
I'll be running a free workshop about book design as part of New Mexico Writers’ Rising Writers program — whether you’re doing your own, contracting, or working with a publisher, learn how the decisions you make about the cover and interior can market your book […] [Original post on ohai.social]
For #BannedBooksWeek I’m sharing some of the resources I’ve put together over the years. This one is on #Queer books that have been banned. #lgbtq #BannedBooks #BookBans #reading #books underground-bookshelf.com/reso…
My next translation is out this month from Faber Books! Minihorror is good as hell, and perfect for Halloween (and for all-year-round creepiness).
I first learned the basic plot of the Epic of Gilgamesh #literature #classics #startrek
A really cool project in Brooklyn: "I'm raising $40,000...to get more free books into kids' hands, offer free and pay-what-you-can classes and events, and build a mobile bookstore that can bring all of this directly to young readers." chuffed.org/project/1992...
"The thing is...to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, weighs you down, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then, you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, Yes, I will take you, will love you again." 🖋️Ellen Bass, 2002
Got the first half of my first beta reader feedback (though with the state my manuscript was in, let's call it alpha) and I am ON IT. Added notes to their notes, migrated said notes into my manuscript, and now I'm adding bits to scenes. Let's go! 😆😭👍 #IndieAuthor #WritingCommunity #WIP
Someone in India bought one of my science fiction books. ...in paperback, even. O.O (That is my delighted but bewildered face) I sure hope they like it.
I'm a mannequin, dressed from head to toe, including a mask. The outfits change, but the form underneath cannot be altered. I consider myself to also be every costume I wear, even if I'm remembered differently earlier. My book characters aren't me but share a part of me and everyone I've met.
Hope everyone's enjoying spooky season so far! I've got a new short story up on Ferenbrooke, an epistolary corporate horror tale. I'll aim to get something more traditionally halloween-y up there later in the month. #smallweb: ferenbrooke.com/short-stories/… #geminiprotocol: gemini://ferenbrooke.com/short… #horror #HorrorFiction #weirdfiction #indiehorror #bookstodon
*Hits the elevator stop button* Let me tell you about my lightly-to-moderately feral autistic characters, my sad dudes Going Through It physically and mentally, my spiky female characters, my anticapitalist rantings - no you can't call the police from in here stop screaming
#WritersCoffeeClub for Oct 7. Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction? I do both, obviously, but I end up removing a huge amount, which I keep in an "offcut" document for the project in question. Often I have gone into too much detail or otherwise am not happy with the writing, but don't want simply to delete it. I also do a lot of moving of text, because the thoughts I'm expressing don't always come out in the right order. A lot of my writing is me "thinking aloud."
I write stories where mostly-good guys fight less-good guys, often with swords, as they discover new things about themselves and uphold ideas that our present society is so jaded as to consider that a fantasy. Also a lot of my characters are queer and discovering things about themselves.
Hello Mastodon! Looking for some good website recommendations for used books located in Europe. Most of those I found are located in the US and the delivery fees are quite high! Would appreciate some recommendations of fellow readers! Cheers! #books #usedbooks #reading #europe
Oh, I've seen plenty of artists use the pages for creative art projects, no burning needed The book doesn't need to be banned but if I were a librarian, I'd definitely encourage kids to seek out other book
Gay dystopian SF about inheritance, faith as a weapon, and a love that costs everything. HORIZON by Chris Lloyd — amazon.com/HORIZON-Christopher… #HORIZON #LGBT #GayIcon
I got my short story stretched to a novella draft at just under 22k, yay! But I'm not sure about the transitions. I'm not against it feeling episodic, but i don't want it to be chunky
Hi all! I'm new here and new to fiction writing as of earlier this year. I was in the corporate world for 19 years and I recently left that to pursue this dream full time. It's a big change and a leap into uncertainty but I've been waking up every morning excited to work and more energized than I've felt in years, so I believe that I made the right choice. I'm learning the foundations and craft while writing the draft of my science fiction novel WIP. #writingcommunity #writing #writersofMastodon
Ok, the idea that "they're trying to manufacture consent around Harry Potter" sounded a little conspiratorial until
In which the British Fantasy Society reveals that Cheryl is a necromancer. (Hopefully in the mode of Saint Bueno rather than of Sauron.) Thanks Andrew, you are a dream to work with. britishfantasysociety.org/brin…
