Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What I Read When I'm Not Feeling Well
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#PennedPossibilities 754 — SC POV: Do you have children? If not, do you want to have children someday?
Dante: I don't have any. And no, dear god... No, I don't want any, either. Not in this economy, and not on this planet. I wouldn't do that to a poor, innocent child, bringing them up in this godforsaken world. Maybe if I ever left, otherwise no.
(Sounds a bit like Earth at the moment too, eh? Citune and Earth aren't so different, after all.)
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.08.12 —How does the morality of the characters you write differ from your own?
There is a distinction between morality and ethics, with morality usually (but not always) taking cues from what the dominant religion considers right and wrong, whereas ethics is generally about the social contract and the concept of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." As such, the dominant morality is often screwy and patently unethical, more likely to squelch individuals and their creativity in line with guidelines that conflict with our basic humanity and animal nature.
How does the morality of my characters differ from my own? In matters of degree and in measures of what I would like, versus what I am constrained to advocate interpersonally. Wishy-washy? Dang straight. I live in today's unsafe world. Look at what I do rather than what I say, especially on an open Internet. I will say my character's society is not a chaste one—a moral can-of-worms if there ever was one.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.08.10 —How much of your worldbuilding extends beyond what's shown in the text?
For the purposes of this question, worldbuilding is what I know about the story's world when I have completed the story. I discover a lot along the way. I know a lot more about the world I'm writing in than could ever reasonably make it into a story. That would turn it into an essay about a culture or a travel guide for visitors instead.
Critically, I leave certain information out in the sense that I never explicitly state certain aspects, or their reason for being. Why? Think of all the technology and traditions we live with in our modern day lives. Do we know why stuff works, or why we cut off the ends of the roast, or question why marriage still exists? No. Some elements need not be discussed in a story, though they unquestionably affect the character's feelings, and guide what happens.
Edit: Better that the reader notice the discrepancies and theorize what is common place to the characters but extraordinary to the reader, without stating some things explicitly. Where would be the fun in that? My stories are always mysteries to a degree, and knowing more than the reader is ever going to be told helps with that.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#PennedPossibilities 753 — Where do your SCs feel the happiest?
Here's a variety of SCs.
Bolt as an SC in an unnamed novel: She was given part of the attic of a downtown building as an aerie (she is a day angel), and she's built a custom darkroom. It makes her rather gloomy life way happier.
Caramello (you cannot pronounce his actual name) from Inklings: Truly, he was happiest before the succession war broke out on Crab Island (think Tahiti). As the son of a second wife of the chieftain, and the youngest over all, he got to live life as a fisher and loved a woman he'd have had as a wife, were it not so dangerous for her to be connected to him. Those days were idyllic.
Emeraline from Reluctant Moon: She can never be happy, having failed to have saved the life of one of her twin sisters. She carries that guilt, but not that of killing her sister's murderer or being convicted of killing an accomplice that had surrendered. She's now a high praetorian. As a day angel with an unusual recessive gene, she can kill with her wings. Her author thinks she's actually happiest when using that talent on anyone who would threaten Director Rainy Days, or the occasional slave-killer.
Boss Mead from Reluctant Courier: It's probably when dining at a specific delicatessen. He considers that he owns Lowtown Home City's underworld, despite appearing very respectable. Little goes wrong for him, so he's probably happy most anywhere.
Chrome from Reluctant Moon: He's a dragon who can still pass himself off as a daemon. When the dragon lords killed his family, a poor daemon village took him in, mistaking what he was at first. Since then, he's used his dual identity to run an underground railroad to spirit away daemons in danger of being made slaves or killed. Despite the hardships in the village, it is there that he is most happy.
Cloud Dancer from Reluctant Moon: In the arms his lover who's referred to in the story as "the hawk." The man uses Cloud Dancer and is trying to separate him from his family, but Cloud Dancer doesn't really care. It's with him that he's happiest, when alone and they need only think of themselves, not the responsibilities society puts on them.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory
Hypothetically, if there were to be a "curator" account for the written word, what sort of content would you like them to post and/or boost?
It's a hard thing, to get an essay to the point that it vibrates. The emotion can't be smaltzy, must be earned. But if the essay doesn't make me cry, I haven't gotten to the heart of what I need to say.
Obsidian Threading Plugin Test
I've installed Obsidian and Mastodon-Threading on my Mac to automatically break up long posts into <500 character replies with a thread post counter.
Only the 1st post is Public, mentions and hashtags must be posted:
@bleistifterin
@pluralistic
@floofpaldi
@lunar_fang
@ElPamplina
#Mastodon #threading #obsidian #author #writer #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon
[1/5]
#WritersCoffeeClub 13. What regrets do you have regarding your work?
Waiting to start. Not that I was sitting on the sidelines ready but not executing, but still. Had I managed to get going around 2011, when so many indie's were finding wild success on Kindle, things would be very different.
#WordWeavers 2025.08.12 — On a scale from 1 to 10 — how comfortable is your MC’s life?
A question like this almost demands a discussion on cultural relativism. Projecting what we think is right, practical, ethical, or moral on another culture has often lead to religious wars or marginalization. The MCs story takes place in a world very different than ours but, through what paleontologists define as convergent evolution, it is also very familiar. It's developed, it's urban, it's modern, with cities and trains and interstellar flight, but without much utilization of electricity. Consent is far more important to them than it is to us, so when it is violated it is more of a big deal. It is not a chaste society, and for good reasons I shan't go into here.
Bolt's life from the outside is pretty reasonable. She eats regularly. She has shelter from the endemic furious heat. She has money, though she's allowed barely enough. She's in great physical condition, and occasionally has men in her life. What she lacks is agency. She has been blackmailed. She has no consent in the jobs she takes, though they're rarely onerous except when someone decides to beat up the messenger, her. Some readers might see her as being used or abused physically, but what constitutes that is fungible in her society unlike in ours, and relies on her perception of consent. What's important is that she often has no consent when she might otherwise withhold it. She knows she's where she is because of her own mistakes (her perception, at least) due to ignoring the advice of teachers and parents; she's become apathetic.
Bolt's story is about how her hobby leads to her taking more control of her life.
Her life is reasonably comfortable, except when it isn't. A 4, with 10 being exceptional.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
Just went back on blue sky, still have an account there but haven't looked at it for 2 years. I found it kind of bewildering, really busy feeling, but it was only first impressions. Does anyone know what's good on blue sky for writers?
Image by Josiah @lessethereal - Haiku by Cendrine Marrouat @haikushack
#completethehaiga #prompt #haiga #haiku #senryu #tanka #poetry #micropoetry #writingcommunity
#WordWeavers Aug 12: On a scale from 1 to 10, how comfortable are your MC's lives?
Before the events of the book, they're a 9 or 10. Really wonderfully comfortable lives. During the book, like a 2. They're in a murder cult (in space!). After the book, they have a lot of healing to do, and that involves a lot of discomfort, but it's to good ends. So, like a 7.
#WordWeavers Aug 11: Looking back at the beginning of your writing journey, what advice would you give yourself?
Trust your own method; bring up a blank page and *write*. It never fails you.
#Writing #Writers #WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon #AmWriting #Scriberspace
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug 12: How does the morality of the characters you write differ from your own?
My villains don't care about people. They care about status and power and conformity. My heroes are my ideal, so not my morality but rather what I aspire to.
Except Sim. He could have gone either way, but his friends all picked "good," and he went with them. :)
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug 11: Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a work of fiction?
Very soon, I will celebrate having for the first time written a first draft of a whole damn novel.
And then soon after that, I will *lament* having to revise a WHOLE. DAMN. NOVEL.
#ScribesAndMakers Aug 12 What's the most rewarding thing about your creativity?
When someone reads and likes it and wants to talk about it. Not praise! *Talk*. I mean, I'll take praise, but interaction is just the best.
A haiku inspired by John Dillwyn Llewelyn's photo "A Summer's Evening, Penllergare"
https://creativeramblings.com/poetry/summers-evening-penllergare-john-dillwyn-llewelyn/
#haiku #poetry #micropoetry #photography #poetrywriting #writing #writingcommunity
"This wave of book bans follows a recent censorship campaign launched by the Florida Department of Education against Hillsborough County, which led to the removal of over 600 titles from school library shelves pending review in May with no public input. These titles had no challenges filed against them, nor were they the focus of complaints by parents, or violated state law. Even so, the state Attorney General called many of them “patently pornographic” and stated they should be removed in a letter to the Hillsborough County school board with threats of legal action"
#books #writing #writersofmastodon #WritingCommunity #bookstodon @bookstodon@a.gup.pe @bookstodon@fedigroups.social
Latest issue of my free newsletter:
Three things learned about work, rest & play in the early months of my book launch (and life in DC in the BeforeTimes);
interview recordings and events;
and my review of Brandy Schillace's
THE DEAD COME TO STAY.
#histodon #writing #WritingCommunity
https://buttondown.com/surekhadavies/archive/three-things-i-learned-about-work-rest-and-play/
