At Rosa, enjoying a pour-over and getting fiction words on paper for the first time in months! Feels really good.

#Detroit #AmWritng

Morning, pocket friends!

I just heard from my agent that the editor of my previous two books just *devoured* the latest proposal and wants to take it to the next acquisition meeting.

This is a proposal that just over a fortnight ago I'd started to loathe, thinking I'd never get it in a good state to send off.

Keep buggering on, #authors and #writersOfMastodon

#AmWritng

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Paper

The Measurement Problem

Doctor Samuel Okorie figured in the picture three times, once, in a passing shot, talking to a tall, slim woman with paper-white skin and silver-grey hair, the pair of them similar in age: late fifties, early sixties. They stood close, his hand on her arm. Another time he was in the background of Alice's laughter. The third time in conversation, gesticulating forcefully, Wilson nodding slowly in apparent agreement.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt fancy

The Measurement Problem

I'm an old UNIX/Linux geek. I write everything using LaTex:

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{ \markboth{#1}{} }
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhf[HLE,HRO]{The Measurement Problem}
\fancyhf[HRE,HLO]{\leftmark}
\fancyhf[FLE,FRO]{\thepage}

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Myth

The Measurement Problem

Alice, he said, was lost in a near infinity of lives and realities branching from a common ancestor thousands of generations past. His description made her sound like a goddess from ancient myth. I was, to put it mildly, sceptical, but I saw no harm in allowing him to hook her up with his skullcap of SQUID sensors and his monitor with the incomprehensible multi-coloured graphical visualisations.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Stitch

The Measurement Problem

"No. She will never be the way she was before. The best we can hope for is to manage the condition so that she can live independently. And it would be cruel to try, she has seen and lived more than you or I could imagine. Cutting her off from all of that would be like taking the soul of an eagle and stitching it into the body of a worm. I can think of nothing more cruel."

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Hatch

When The Enemy Comes

A loud clunk. The shuttle's hull shuddered and the docking hatch on the far side of the cabin flew open. Six figures in black body armour and helmets flew in, clutching low velocity carbines -- the type that fired a slow, heavy slug that would penetrate flesh but not a pressure hull. Connor recognised the armour, the weapons, and the face of the man in charge, a lieutenant. An army commando unit.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Wither

The Measurement Problem

"Look into his business interests, movements, phone and other comms, contacts, Especially anyone known to be Entangled."

Yes, she spoke the word Entangled with a capital letter and it set my teeth on edge. "Is there any indication that Wyndham was Entangled, ma'am?" She had me doing it, too.

She gave me her most withering look. "And how would we know that?"

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Scribble

The Measurement Problem

She lay on the bed watching me, but I guess the excitement of looking at my back while I read and re-read and scribbled notes was just too much. The muted snoring didn't distract me half as much as the watching silence had.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Trance

The Long Fall

The fever conspired with the droning of the motors, the white noise of the airflow, to lull him into a hypnotic trance. His head pounded with every heartbeat, his chest hurt with every breath.

The medipak strapped to his arm dosed him with antibiotics, antipyretics and stimulants. He'd had to run through several override confirmations for the latter; it wanted to sedate him.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Glass

The Measurement Problem

The sun shone, but the cold wind funnelled around the monstrous old office blocks with the howl of lost hell-hounds. I shivered in my flak jacket and hunched against the side of the APC. Acres of cracked concrete and dirty glass, miles of grimy chrome and dusty marble surrounded us, the forsaken architecture of a power now vested in a handful of plutocrats and their software servants.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Wrap

The Measurement Problem

A small person appeared behind her, tugging at her fingers. I'm no judge of kids' ages, but this one was walking, sucking a thumb. About a metre in height.

She picked him up. "What is it Marko?" He wrapped his arms around her neck.

"I'm actually trying to find someone he used to work with," I said. "Did you ever meet any of the people at VirGenTech? Erica Fallon?"

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Snarl

"So what happened to Frank," I asked over the rim of a steaming mug.

"He took off," she snarled. "Told me he'd had enough of this life. Time to move on, he said." She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Marko was fifteen months old."

"You knew Alice?" _Knew_ sounded wrong, it wasn't like she was dead.

"She was one of the team working on Marko's treatment. It was a miracle, saved him years of surgery. They published a paper on it."

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt Wistful

The Long Fall

Every now and then there was just a hint that she was hanging a little too avidly on his words. A couple of times he thought he'd caught a wistful look from her. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he should mention it, clear the air.

Easier to let things lie.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt Edit (catching up)

The Measurement Problem

One corner of the crossroads was a building site, the next a down-at-heel vegan restaurant, then a shady-looking family planning and gene editing consultancy. The fourth was a two-storey yellow brick building, glossy black painted door, whitewashed lintel. Nineteenth century, most probably. A small brass plaque read `The Gillibrand Institute'.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt silhouette

When The Enemy Comes
The window looked out towards the nine ships and the nearest of the rotating habitats that orbited Fùyǒu, silhouetted against the great banded globe of the gas giant. All around the ships was a constant firefly dance: the maneuvering thrusters of displacement shuttles queuing for the ships' docking ports, leaving and vanishing.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt: Wish

When The Enemy Comes

He leaned toward the camera and spoke in a low voice. "We might have kept her safe, for that I am truly sorry." He glanced to the side again and continued in barely a whisper.

"I would not wish to tell Deborah that her gesture was wasted, but the attempt to take the shuttle was already under way when Liu Mei tried to report it. State Security had the information from elsewhere."

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt: Crumple

When The Enemy Comes

Crumpled fragments of the freighter spun lazily in the near absent gravity. Loose curves of mooring line rippled slowly above the ship. She searched for the anchor plate and found the place where it had been, the rock cracked and broken. The anchor plate was gone, and it wasn't on the end of the lazy looping line. When it failed it would have gone like a catapult, the line, the plate, and Sun Liang.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt: Commune

The Measurement Problem

I bolted out of the stable towards the house. Light flooded onto the puddled, weed-strewn gravel from the wide-open back door. Inside was the kitchen-shining white tiles and steel counters overlain by the thick odour of burnt grease. From there a swing door led into a dark communal dining area, then into a corridor. Lights at the far end lit the reception desk, half-hiding a dark shape on the floor.

#AmWritng #scifi

@FrostPoem

#microPrompt: Oblique

When The Enemy Comes

The passage from the loading bay held the first window since leaving Kunming. She had to stop and look at the view along the spire that led from the dock complex to the hub. Oblique sunlight picked out a hundred cables, struts and shafts that stretched out from the hub to the gently turning rim: a maze of modules and pods and linking tubes dominated by the six dark windowless habmods from Hatton's ships.

#AmWritng #scifi