one of those switchback days where writing feels like a luxury demanding too much space on a road already difficult to steer, too much pull from an engine already overstrained, with a low sun burning holes in eyelids inadequate to protect and the knowledge that these minutes for inside are always stolen from outside and can't be deserved or earned, can they, no matter how necessary for selfish self-preservation they may feel

The #MastoPrompt for Sunday 20 April 2025 is:

#fan

The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.

@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.

If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.

#WordWeavers 20/4: If someone gave you a million dollars (or equivalent) to never write again, would you take it?
If I did, it would be under false pretences. I don’t believe it’s possible for me to not write.
#books #writing #writersofmastodon

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.19 — How do you feel about using real people as look-alikes for your characters?

I don't. I don't imagine faces very well. That could be due my shyness; I didn't learn to look people in the face until I was in my late teens and I attended EST; learning to look people in the eyes, and to hold it, was a necessity for graduation from that seminar.

As a result, I can't imagine faces. Never learned how? People were voices or hands as I grew up. As a corollary: I don't need to. Mostly, I only minimally describe characters. Interestingly enough, if something gets described, if is almost inevitably eye color.

If my latest story, the MC is never described directly. Her only attributes we learn are she's a woman, she looks like she could bear children but is otherwise very average, and she has dark hair because some of her daughters take after her in this respect. She could be Asian, she could be Sicilian with this description.

Who knows? The reader will imagine what they think she looks like, and that's probably better than what I could come up with.

As for creatures and vehicles and places? I find pictures help me describe them. Go figure. The linked image is what I've used to imagine and describe the "red dragon" in Inklings, which is a giant bat wyvern.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/8f/7b/b38f7b59d5eb5afddc25d1187a4d6e91.jpg

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

Please get this shirt for you and your loved ones! A fashion designer is ready to get these made for us! *pouts*

Support indie filmmaking. Support black women in film!

Get this shirt for The Woman Who Knows feature film!

https://igg.me/at/thewomanwhoknows/x/38434936#/

I have the most polite #coprolalia ever, which is the #tourettes symptom of randomly speaking, or shouting.

The Greek basis of it essentially means "feces babble," as it's usually extremely offensive, or random curses.

I do that at times. Only when very mad, frustrated or hurt.

Typical I say or whisper observations, or things I'm thinking

Earlier I said to a woman on a train "My God you're beautiful, why the hell don't you have a wedding ring on?" Then ran away embarrassed.

I was at a group this morning where folks were raving about Ulysses (the writing app). I kept trying to remember why I stopped using that awhile ago, and finally tonight I searched my email, and oh right, here it is. I was a user until I got this newsletter. It's the last one I have, I must have unsubscribed after that.

I'd like to find a new #markdown app and would like to try Ulysses again, but does anyone know if they have corrected their stance here?

@ulyssesapp #ulysses #writing

Something I wrote about #writing, #suffering, #questioning, and — most importantly — whether #cats can make jokes.

#blog

https://www.willbuckingham.com/writing-suffering/

#QuestionOfTheDay in honour of me watching the Minecraft movie, what's the worst piece of fiction/art you've ever consumed in full. Not "so bad it's good" or anything, or like widely considered to be bad but you think it's funny, like so bad it's bad, the least enjoyable thing you've ever experienced, you want to erase all memory of it from your mind. Keeping in mind you have to have watched/read/played/listened to it to completion.

From Skip Rhudy: I’ve got a post-graduate certificate in artificial intelligence (AI). I’m also an author, and I believe writers and publishers should not use #AI in publishing. ... But the reasons I oppose using AI are not the usual ones you hear.
https://www.texasobserver.org/ai-writing-novelist-texas-artificial-intelligence/

Does anyone know where I can find a bunch of those book adverts that have the book cover and lots of very short phrases surrounding it with arrows pointing at the cover, describing what's in the book?

I understand these are called "what to expect" images, but searches fail because there's an actual line of books titled "What to Expect [etc.]".

I want a good sample of things people say is in their books. Especially urban fantasy, but other genres are great, too!

i went to the marketplace
of ideas, just to browse
long trestles of thinkings
in various stages of wear and tear

many bloody, old, wrinkled
often pumped with plastic
or saline to plump them shiny
but daylit to lumpy sagging slop

so many ideas dug clear
from graves of grand or great grand
parents heavy with rot
so many uniformed

jackbooted - priced cheap
piled high to sell to those desperate
for something to hold
but unwilling to spend

#Poetry #Writing #vssPoem Thanks @worded_art - undervalue

water in scooped earth
rippled by teasing wind
and we're huddled

moonlight gone and stars too
and frost filigree
flowing round our feet

on the horizon
fingertips of sun
testing grip

for the long heave
across the dome
to another fall

such small light
we keep our whispers quiet
as if words could shatter it

and night bows and withdraws
taking with her to keep safe
all we couldn't carry into the day

#SmallPoems #Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt 19 April 2025 - dim

No, AI, I do NOT think nuclear war is a good thing

https://open.substack.com/pub/theneuroscienceofeverydaylife/p/no-ai-i-do-not-think-nuclear-war?r=24oxwv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Google's AI is telling people that I am in favour of nuclear war*. Because of course it is. This reveals yet another problem with AI that makes things harder for us all.

#AI #Media #Writing

* = I'm not. Quite the opposite. But AI doesn't have the wherewithal to understand this

bright costumed dancers
quick flicker - pulse to the dirge
of wood's death crackle

#DailyHaikuPrompt - 19 April 2025 - fire.
#haiku #senryu #poetry #SmallPoems #Writing

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing 19 How do you feel about using real people as look-alikes for your characters?

We call them actors.

Just hopped over here for a quick second!

I’ve been posting a lot on the impact of Trump's tariff policies over at @dataandpolitcs.net on

I’m also sharing photos from San Francisco and lots of hiking adventures.

I also launched a newsletter with in-depth analysis at dataandpolitics.net

I’d be grateful if you subscribed. It’s free (unless you want it not to be)!