Someone today opined on whether short stories are worth the effort vs writing and selling long forms. If I recall correctly, they said they found they'd wished they'd stuck with the long forms after years of experience.

Generally, I'd agree (I'm a novelist myself). But then I thought: /If I had not spent the last five years writing lots of shorts, and recently very short stories, I'd not have gotten the experience starting and completing stories the way I have./

Writing novelette length, short, and super-short has gone a long way to vanquishing my recurring writer's block. It's given me the repeated experience of starting and finishing stories, building my confidence that there's always more to write. (I burnt out in '01 and didn't start writing again until '15, so I'm recovering.)

One of the hardest things for me to get over, which plagued my early career, was my inflated opinion that my ideas were somehow special and unique (they're not), and that I would never come up with more than a few worth writing. Writing lots of little stories cured me of that delusion.

My little stories might never sell, but they could act as regular content to convince people to return to my author website. I use shorts to introduce people to my writing style and to explore ideas I might incorporate in longer forms. I've definitely used it to work out character backstory, even stuff that might contradict canon. It keeps me from fearing the experimental stuff; at least it gives me a chance to get the nonsense out of my bloodstream. Some of this might go into an anthology one day (as if, but I can hope.) In any case, they're the practice equivalent of tossing nickels and dimes into the wishing well compared to burning C-notes attempting a sketchy novel.

This isn't writing advice, nor am I advocating one way or another. I'm simply reporting what I've observed for myself.

#writing #author #writer #writers #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon

#PennedPossibilities 80 — MC POV: What was your greatest personal failing?

Being blind to what I didn't want to see.

Because it was fun. I could learn "magic!" Slowly being turned into a criminals protégé is never good, no matter how much I worked to not know anything about the business I was helping prosper simply because it was just another thing I could do well.

Because I didn't have the courage to say, No, no more of this...!

People died.

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #WritingWonders

So day 3 of #covid taking #Paxlovid for #COVID19 and I realize there's different color foils on the back. The dusky bronze for the morning dose, grey for evening. I realized suddenly I never saw this. My splitting headache at the time made me keep the lights low and I was too fogged to notice.

Did it matter!?

Oh, I really hope not!

I'm a sucker for a good story. Sleep is overrated.

#WordWeavers 9.15 — Is your MC neat or messy?

My devil-girl is an ascetic by practice. Her possessions are a messenger bag containing her notebook and a 500 year old "magic" text. If she's traveling, she'll have a pack, sleeping mat, and tarp. Little to be physically messy about. Public baths are as common as groceries, so she can take care of appearances.

Physically, she's as average looking as they come, if you ignore her muscles, but with green-tinted skin that suggests she's the chameleon she is. She can do a silly mid-teen or a elegant woman hitting thirty, out sophisticating most society people. (She was well tutored.) She even designs clothes—that she can fight in. The upshot is she can be a messy vagrant or a high society snob, or in-between as her job requires.

So... either neat or messy?

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #WritingWonders

nostr:npub1mfgp8vr0d2kgcd5jq4a8eme4javl2pvk7qxp6w3ekpxsw9vpnwsq97zv6k

I'm not going to quote you lest it sound flippant, but knowing yourself as you seem to, sees like a really good start. I like your style in any case, so you must be on track with at least one vote!

#WritingWonders 8.27 — (CW: Frank talk.) Antagonist POV: What do you like the least about the place where you live?

/That everyone recognizes me./

It's by design, but also inevitable.

I've been 24 years old for so many centuries that they blur together. My looks come in and go out of fashion. At times, men think I'm genuinely attractive; there is certain biology human males can't mask. Nevertheless, they know who I am. I look, well, /distinctive/. You've seen my face in the newspapers, if not your history books. I always look the same. My wounds always heal and my memory always fades, making everything old new again. I'm recognized rightly as dangerous in so many ways. Men consider me unapproachable, not a woman with whom you might trifle to ask a night with, or spend a week in idle meaningless fun.

/I hate it!/ I destroyed and rebuilt civilization so nobody should be coerced, and I don't. I won't. Not ever!

My last fellow plotted to start an interstellar war against me. At least he didn't mind being a kept man all those years before!

I'm 24 years old. Twenty-four. Always. I know it affects my decisions, sometimes, and it makes me want to cry.

[Author retains copyright]

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #feminist #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

nostr:npub1c57hfwynxkarccttpyc4k9j42nsec2ccpl4aye8n3ernm5cv7jyqrrawu5

I'm impressed. It's actually flattering. Of course, the photographer has had a lot of practice with all the president's men...

#PennedPossibilities 41: If your MC was to teach as a career, what would they teach?

While in very arcane terms, she may be the greatest thaumaturge of her time, she's piss poor at a surprising amount of common stuff people don't even need to go to school to do. Moreover, she gets stuck performing new things unless threatened with life or limb (or helped remedially by someone). As a result, she can't teach miracle working.

Nevertheless, she's is good (actually VERY good) at mixing working miracles with fighting without weapons, having been a both a prizefighter and a mob boss' bodyguard. As a result, one of her current jobs — one that she's actually asked for and gotten — is training the Residency staff and certain select constabulary staff how to guard someone and disable an opponent long enough to escape — even a dragon.

She'd happily abandon her current responsibilities and teach just that for a career. Not that her employer would let her.

Example teaching a dragon to respect her from the dragon's point of view: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110603595653290409

Example teaching that it is important to learn to fight without armor before learning to fight with it: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110874975005516372

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

nostr:npub1nuuew8v67hyvvhda9tpwe82jl57wese9npmjxq3mx6t2f4szhpfs2j6n22

Is there a list of prompts/questions for the [#writingWonders] hash tag?

This is a post by one of the canonical creators of the hashtag, the one for August: https://writing.exchange/@BranwenOShea/110809678379998763

nostr:npub148rj8ffcqvllr63760j8wux5w6zcgtlsle503zfxmh2zc8sqs67q3k0yv8

... with ice cream

RS approves this message.

nostr:npub1a6ky8rsr80yppj9fjf67l6xukvcqzpk0naaceyyx3ea25zptwp2q3fu6fx nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4

Sorry if I sound condescending or righteous or accusatory about all this, I don't mean to, but these are dangerous times for people like us.

[Nods in agreement.] As for condescending, maybe a little bit but I understand it is hard to tune one's words to satisfy (or not trigger) a diverse audience like all these writers and authors. I apologize if I sounded like I over-reacted. I replied to the both of you separately CCing the other just so I can do that tune. It really takes practice to so tune and I am no master at it.

No worries. It's an important topic I feel passionate and worried about, too.

#WritingWonders 8.5 — Does your MC have any pictures of themselves with their friends or family? Why/ why not? CW for fire and explosions and mention of blood.

No. She ran away from home when she felt she'd not grow any more and looked passably adult. By then, her mother and mori had been dead almost a decade. Her mother was the Streisand or Sinatra of her time, and possibly that's why she avoided any images that included her daughter. In any case, as my MC ran away, finding a memento what the last thing on her mind. In any case, she can still hear her mother's voice in restaurants and her face is on album covers that still sell well.

The only image she does have of "family" is of herself: It's a front page newspaper clipping. It is of her covered in blood, triaging and applying first aid to a dozen people using her thaumaturgy after a building exploded. It's a reminder that she should have the courage to make the choices that can prevent such disasters.

If you are interested in the #research I've done for a story, this link is a SFW video link of forensic research that is never the less CW for fire and explosions. I used this disaster in Lebanon to model the same disaster on a lesser scale in my novel: https://youtu.be/3s54_MF2XPk.

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4

Please don’t criticise me for trying my hardest.

Because you are quick to reply, I'll add this as a separate reply. Professional writers only criticize the work, never the artist. I don't think I overstepped, but if I did, I am sorry.

nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4

Please don’t criticise me for trying my hardest. I just want to write!

Nope, never! I applaud you. Do what you must to get those scripts out!

nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4 You wrote:

...for someone who can’t afford an artist, what choice do I have?

I have spent a career making goofy sketches I'd never share or stick figures (which are acceptable as storyboards amongst colleagues), imagining really hard laying in bed working on a story, or writing treatments. AI seems fine, but I look at it and envision an AI writing stories in the style of RS the SfWrtr and shudder.

I can't tell you what what choice to take. For me, I pay a cover artist and am commissioning cover art as I write this.

Depending on your niche, you may find fan artists who might find a concept fascinating and work for you sharing their business card in your network of colleagues, or simply giving artist credit. If you get it for free, you must give the artist credit. I always tell my artists this and refrain only if they say not to.

Since you are a screenwriter, you don't need artwork to sell your stories, so I am guessing you are using AI to help you visualize. Might I suggest you consider only using AI to the extent that it is free? If nobody will pay for for AI services, it will affect the business models and investment.

#AI #Writing #WritingCommunity #author #cover #coverart #art #AI #chatgpt #writersofmastodon

cc: @scrhill@indieauthors.socia@scrhill@indieauthors.social

nostr:npub1a6ky8rsr80yppj9fjf67l6xukvcqzpk0naaceyyx3ea25zptwp2q3fu6fx You wrote:

Please don't help train these [artwork generating AIs] when you can commission a person...

But I wrote:

not that I'd ever use AI to create something for actual publication

and

These are things I'm sure my cover artist would make happen.

I pointed out that I use a cover artist for real work. My understanding of how AI works is they don't use prompts to train them. That's done by spidering the web for posted images or by being feed scans of actual image. In any case, I am only playing with /free/ alternatives, so I am not even supporting the developers or their venture capitalists.

cc: nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4

CW: AI Image. Thanks to nostr:npub1fgle6lnth5pces3v5hayhvdsaqg7r842gxhg9fh5a7l66jm2qp3q0w4jl4 and his #writingWonders 8.4 response, I actually tried another AI generator named #Gencraft (not that I'd ever use AI to create something actual publication), but I got the following. Mind you, no wings and it defaulted (or course) to caucian, but it is something.

It is missing the sense of the character being fae, vulnerable, and mysterious. These are things I'm sure my cover artist would make happen.

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

#WritingWonders 8.4 — Share art, pics (face claims), and/or mood boards of one (or more) of your side characters.

I'm really not good with drawing figures. A sketch would take me days when I could write a two page description in an hour. Generally, I'd rather not have a precise idea of a character's appearance, and I sometimes make someone intentionally vague such that a reader is allowed to imagine someone like them or someone they'd like. That said, the little art I do possess is of main characters. I've nothing for side characters.

Instead, in humble defiance of the prompt, I'm sharing an #excerpt that evokes the visual (and other) senses. It is from an unpublished romance adventure novelette last revised in 2008, thus it is written in 3rd not my usual 1st person. The characters are both amazing side characters from an epic fantasy trilogy (also unpublished). Pardon it for being a little rough.

From Through Blood and Tears by RS.

An unseen cloud of lavender and heather enveloped [Myra] and she sneezed. Needing a distraction, she followed the scent. She pushed aside spiky blue-gray bushes dotted with purple flowers and peered into an herb garden.

A winged girl squatted amongst the aromas, intent on a porcelain dish containing wet snowy-white sand. She wore a white linen blouse and gray work trousers, a dirt splotch staining one knee. She molded the grains with her fingertips, spun the plate, and brushed it some more. The girl pushed aside her red hair, rapt in her creation, humming, her voice cracking and drifting into the upper registers. The girl could echolocate already.

Myra tilted her head and strained to hear sounds that, until last week, she could neither hear nor make. An apparition of a hand, index finger pointed skyward, flickered above the dish. Myra gasped.

The girl flinched, striking the plate, spraying globs of sand, dispelling the effect. She landed hands and knees down, her red-brown wings pointed behind Myra. The girl turned her fall into a bow. "Highspeaker! Forgive me!"

[Author retains copyright]

#BoostingIsSharing

#CommentingIsCool

#fiction #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writer #writers #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon

Some days you realize some of the people you work with are less neurotypical that you are and the term "on the spectrum" actually makes sense.

#programmer #developer #writer #author #actuallyautistic