My occasional reminder to my fellow writers that if you're writing about pointy/stabby things, or shooty things, and the people that use them, and these aren't subjects you know much about, I am almost always happy to answer questions. If I don't know the answer (and there's lots I don't know) I can probably point you in the right direction. (Lifelong military history guy, former Airborne cavalry scout, and historical European martial arts student.) #Writing #WritingLife

No matter how weathered. No matter how lonely or scarred. We are a marvel of architecture and engineering. These self-healing wounds. This reshaping heart. This living ghost of who we've been and who we are. The capacity to be taken down to almost nothing, to be rebuilt, to be renovated, to be renewed.

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/who-we-are-in-the-dark

#reading #writing #amwriting #writingcommunity #writinglife #read #write #books #art #poetry #books @bookstodon

Hello, just a note that I've decided to take a week off Masto while I settle up my deadlines. I hope you will all keep well and I look forward to returning week after next. 🫶🏼

#today #amwriting #writinglife #writingcommunity

Writer moods:

a/ I want everyone to leave so I can write.

b/ where is everyone? this is boring, I want someone to come amuse me.

I am basically a cat, I guess.

#WritingLife #WritingCommunity

Today’s #literary insult (I have to document them somehow): #poet / #editor who has rejected my work multiple times asked me to submit #poems to another like-minded #magazine, because she thought I was someone else. #writinglife

A couple copies to pass out to local folks. Fun seeing a full stack of the book. Helps solidify that its actually a real thing and that publishing this wasn't just a fever dream!

@bookstodon
#writing #writers #writinglife #writingcommunity #writersofmastodon #amwriting #bookstodon #author

Talking about Tigana made me remember when I (or my Dad) bought the book. I was a TOTAL brat that day and it was the 90s and it was on one of the Dad visits when he was trying to make it up to me for the divorce etc. So, he asked me to choose whatever books in the bookstore I wanted. Poor Dad. But I was a nice brat, I only asked for four books. Tigana was one, The Nibelungenleid was another and I believe another was a Jack Vance book. Can't remember which was the fourth. I think of times when I was being a brat to my Dad and I miss him so much.

#WritersCoffeeClub

#writing #writers #writinglife #writingcommunity #writersofmastodon #amwriting #bookstodon

Apparently ritualistic occult ceremony drumming is not available as an ambience in my usual haunts. I am disappointed.

#ambient #ambience #writing #writinglife #mood

Made "business" cards that can be handed out to unsuspecting acquaintances so they can be reminded of Hooper's Junction existence and hopefully pass on the info.

#writing #writers #writinglife #writingcommunity #writersofmastodon #amwriting #bookstodon #author

#WordWeavers

7 September 2023

Why did the Mer-Princes become villains? Simple. They had ambitions that were somewhat problematic, and they wanted to rule the world, which got in the way of other people wanting to rule the world, and the happiness, peace and wellbeing of countless other people. Did they care? Nope. They wanted what they wanted, by any means necessary.

#writinglife #amwriting #writingcommunity #mermaids #merpunk #amwritingfantasy #writing #writers #watermyth

#WritersCoffeeClub

9 September 2023

Not only is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay one of my favourite books (and GGK's writings are a great influence on my own), but the cover by Mel Odom is one of my favourite works of art. I can't count how many times as an amateur artists I've tried to reproduce that cover and in fact doing so in my teens helped me rehabilitate my art and take it to a better place after I'd despaired of ever being good, although I'll never be a visual artist of any merit. One cannot be all the things, after all.

Link takes you to the wiki that has the cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigana

#writing #writers #writinglife #writingcommunity #writersofmastodon #watermyth #amwriting #bookstodon

"The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten."

- Edith Sitwell

#quote #QOTD #quotestoliveby #poet #poetry #writinglife #BeingHuman

#WordWeavers

6 September 2023

Things I consider when I want to add details:

1. Setting and Blocking: how much is needed to establish the sense/tone impression of the world of the story?
2. Pacing: How much is needed to establish pace, how much would detract from it?
3. Beats: (also related to pacing), how much description would contribute or detract from emotion or action beats?
4. Dialogue (related to blocking and emotion beats): how much description would augment a conversation and make it come to life? How much would detract from it?
5. Character: is it possible to have less detail to establish a character? If minimalism is possible/required, go for it.

#writinglife #amwriting #writingcommunity #mermaids #merpunk #amwritingfantasy #writing #writers

Poor people probably didn't get a lot of stories published. That's why they don't start: "I was sentenced to three months in the insane asylum for being poor." 🤔

@chronicillness @humour @writers @writingcommunity @writing

#Writing #Writer #IndieAuthor
#Ghost #GhostStories
#WritingLife #WritingWonders #WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon

#WritersCoffeClub

9 September 2023

I'm all about the intertext, the bricolage, the palimpsest, the mise-en-abyme. it's in my literary research and it's in nearly all of my published work to date, from the Bunian Empire stories, to the Sesen stories to the Laneworld stories. More easter eggs than you can shake a stick at! Layers are my kink, clearly.

#writing #writers #writinglife #writingcommunity #writersofmastodon #watermyth #amwriting #bookstodon

I'm going to mix so many metaphores... 😂

@humour @writers @writingcommunity @writing @linguisticsmemes

#Writing #Writer #IndieAuthor
#Mixing #Metaphors #For #Fun #And #Pleasure
#WritingLife #WritingWonders #WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon

#WritersCoffeeClub

3 September 2023

I teach creative writing to undergraduates and postgraduates but I always start my semester by telling them "some of these techniques may be applicable to your style of writing and your writing practice, some may not. Learn the techniques but later you get to decide what works for you."

And one of the rules I tell them I love to hate is "Show, don't tell."

It's very geared to a Northern American, Anglophone style of writing, the kind of writing that MFAs in America produce. More power to you if you like it and if it works for you. But for the rest of the world?

So many of my favourite authors, Borges, Divakaruni etc would not be able to fit within these generic templates.

But, "Show, don't Tell" can also be very helpful. Especially when I'm trying to guide baby writers into writing a scene, not a summary.

Love to hate it, but sometimes not.

#writingcommunity #amwriting #writinglife #writing #writers

I'll catch up on some of the writer's hashtag games a bit later. Resting my spine after a long drive through heavy rain, then I practice music. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writinglife

Writing the magazine article on rum that's been kicking about my desk for a while now. It's grown so bitty that I've just shifted over from my usual app (Drafts 5) to Scrivener to help organise my sections and make sense of it all.

Hopefully I can turn it from bits into something more cohesive. It's already helping being able to see it all in one go.

#AmWriting #WritingLife #Scrivener #WritingOnMac @writers

Hippie at Aikido: I had retired, and then I got an email asking if I wanted to write a book, so I told him I'm going to have to learn a bunch of new math, and he said that was fine, so that was two years ago, and anyway the book is live now.

Me: What's your book about?

Hippie: Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

Me: Oh, wow. Congratulations!

You meet the weirdest coolest people at #aikido.

#WritingLife