#WritersCoffeeClub 11/8: Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a work of fiction?
No. There are books that I've enjoyed enormously, but none of them "overwhelmed" me. On the other hand, I find increasing numbers of books are irritatingly "underwhelming" but they're really not worth mentioning.
#PennedPossibilities 752 — Tell us about something that will always make your antagonist laugh.
[Rainy Days answers:] What? Monologuing.
I know, you're laughing now, exactly as I quietly do when it happens. I've lived so incredibly long, and since I always look too young to be taken seriously—I mean, never a day over 24, and look at this healthy skin, perfect posture, never a scar, even with these mistakes. [She waggles a set of mismatched wings, a large blue one and a smaller red one, and she has hooves. She's somewhat of a Frankenstein, but arguably pretty, and perfectly feminine despite her height. Not monstrous at all!]
I've been monologued more often than you might imagine. Usually by a man, but not always. By someone willing to try to fight me, wanting to conquer what I hold, disdainful of my use of wiles, diplomacy, coin, or shadings of truth, disdainful of so called soft power. These people have convinced themselves I'm unable to fight back effectively, thus don't fear me as they should. Rarely, it's one who hopes to cow me with words, and puts up a façade hoping I'll concede.
I don't usually laugh aloud. Instead, I destroy them.
You may have heard that I sometimes monologue. I'll share this secret: I never do anything by accident. Sometimes taking blows and retreating serves my purpose, especially if what a foe wants is what I too want. Sometimes to admit I share common cause with a foe can unravel a greater good. Better they think they've vindicated themselves, so I can distance myself. And watch. And wait. Lifetimes if need be.
What? Do I think others might monologue for the same purpose I do? No. Leastwise, not those I've met thus far—and I've lived so very long.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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Check out BL Maxwell
MM Action Adventure, Contemporary, Fantasy, Holiday, Paranormal
BL Maxwell grew up in a small town listening to her grandfather spin tales about his childhood. Later she became an avid reader and after a certain vampire series she became obsessed with fanfiction. She soon discovered Slash fanfiction and later discovered ...
https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/bl-maxwell/
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#PennedPossibilities 751 — Check-In: Share a snippet you’ve written recently that you’re proud of. (Doesn’t matter what it’s from, or if it’s edited or not.)
This #excerpt is from my third attempt to write the first chapter of Reluctant Courier (for the Mob). It is a glimpse into the tortured apathetic MC, Bolt, who focuses her desire for a normal life denied her into her street photography hobby; she captures glimpses of normalcy. Here she's encountered something else, with a newspaper reporter by her side.
The apparition shuddered. I captured the pop of the miracle imploding from waist level: Click!—caught the multistory darkness folding into itself, revealing snarled traffic abandoned on the opposite side of the formerly blocked uptown thoroughfare. Cracked pulverized cement fell, no longer pressed into place against the two buildings. People far from danger dodged back. Click! Gasps, panic, arms over heads, blurred, running. Click! Click!
A hand gently touched my arm when I relaxed, stalling me as I brought the camera to eye level. Men knew better than to touch without being asked, even here in the cosmopolitan capital city. I lowered the camera, facing him. His contrite desperate look, hands together still holding his [broken camera]—
Click!
Reflex portraiture. Of him.
He might have been somewhat adorable, were he a day angel not a saint. When I taped his image to my wall, I knew I would stare and stare at that expression. Still, raised in a day angel forest town, I couldn't help but see a saint as a wing-amputee. Feathers like me were a minority in this daemon-majority city, and though I rarely interacted, the people Boss Mead forced me to interact with never hid their disdain for the featherbrained tree tweeter in their midst.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
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#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
#WritersCoffeeClub 10. How much of your world-building extends beyond what's shown in the text?
A lot. My genre is "hard" #hisfic. The world of the story is real 14th-century history, without any magic or fantasy. So I have to research the history before I can write the story.
Most of the research never gets into the manuscript because it doesn't contribute to the story, but more than once, real events have suggested storylines I hadn't previously thought of.
#WordWeavers 2025.08.09 — If you needed advice about your personal life, which character would you ask?
That would be Rainy Days. Her life experience is immense, considering she's immortal. She is always 24 years old in body, and a human memory is limited, so she's generally relatable, wily, and willing to find something interesting.
There is that thing about never letting yourself get mixed up with the monied classes, the powerful, or royalty. It's always bad news in the end. And, she owns everything in the world (literally, she just shares it with everybody so long as it pleases her), she's the greatest thaumaturge to ever live (reputedly), and for all intents in purposes she is royalty (she's certainly an absolute ruler).
She does give my characters good advice and guidance, though. However, it is usually because their circumstances fit into her agenda, which is keeping the human species from extinction.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#PennedPossibilities 750 — Is your SC aware of what the MC wants out of life, and are they willing to help them acquire it?
No, not really. None of the supporting or secondary characters in Reluctant Courier (for the Mob). Bolt (the MC in that story) is not so sure herself what she wants. She's been beaten down so many times, mostly by doing stupid things, that she feels she has little control over her life. She's become apathetic. Her story is about her wrestling some control back.
Sugar is more concerned with navigating and getting ahead in a workplace that trivializes and objectifies him, but he empathizes with Bolt. He works to help her get her street photography published while she helps him get his newspaper articles published.
The crime boss only cares about using Bolt like a favorite tool he owns.
The devil-girl, who's an SC in this one, is autistic and finds herself blackmailed. Her focus is keeping separate attending an elite high school as an ignorable mousy student while being forced to work for the crime boss in an "executive" fashion. At this point, the relationship between Bolt and the devil-girl is distantly collegial at best. (In a later story, they become true friends.)
The blue man is more than an acquaintance (attending night clubs and flying together) but less than an actual friend, despite them being intimate. To the extent that they have chemistry, he provides passion that makes her life somewhat more palpable.
The remaining secondary characters all have their own agenda that Bolt fits with or conflicts with.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#WordWeavers 2025.08.08 — Describe the sensations of one of your characters in the last scene you wrote.
Bolt, being a day angel, can fly, but she finds herself unaccountably in an air taxi. That's essentially a rickshaw being pulled by another day angel. It gives me a chance to hint (without getting technical) how a human with human-scale wings, inadequate by physics but not so with reluctant physics, can propel a person through the sky, and also allow that person pull a carriage behind them. Since describing description seems decidedly dreary, here's an #excerpt from Reluctant Courier (for the Mob) instead. It's a once revised first draft, so be kind in any criticism.
A day angel harnessed in a leather flying rig with taut traces, flapped, then soared, primary and secondaries splayed, vibrating, audibly buzzing, as he felt and adjusted to the air currents and thermals, the carriage tilting and lifting behind him, joinery clattering, as he banked and curved around the convective hills and along the valleys of turbulent air, above a city painted absolute white, flying on a bright furiously hot day. Each dome and tower reflected skin-tautening heat that rose beside it, ejecting columns of air from roof vents that none could avoid absorbing. I instinctively felt what the man felt, that sense of extending one's wings and reaching with my longest feather many times beyond my wingspan to draw that primary along the textured cement of the building as I soared past, calf and thigh rudder feathers bending but holding, palpable air trying to twist my legs—legs that in my mind had elongated enough to let me stand three stories tall—with buoyant forces tossing me like wind waves on Lake Emeraline, but letting me glide on a true course, very much as a ship cut a path though watery troughs and spume toward the next shore. His rust red feathers glowed as if iron from a forge, sparkling with preening sebum. His faintly ruddy skin glistened with perspiration. He smelled like ironed linen and nicely male. It was so hot—
I tensed, sitting straight. Why was I riding in an air taxi?
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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Time to share another author friend: Abigail Aaronson
FF Historical, Lesfic
In 2025 Abigail Aaronson will debut her first novel, Lavender & Gin: A Sapphic Historical Romance. She has been writing for a lifetime and her work reflects her passion for queerneess, queer love, and the queer community itself.
As a research nerd, Abigail loves a ...
https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/abigail-aaronson/
#GayRomance #WritersofMastodon #AuthorSpotlight Bookstodon #MMBookstodon #LGBTQBookstodon @LGBTQBookstodon @MMbookstodon
#WritersCoffeeClub 9. Have you ever encountered a work uncomfortably similar to one of your own?
No. That may be why I don't have an agent yet.
My mother was born on the farm in a small Mennonite community on Vancouver Island. She grew up mostly in the years after WW2, raising her kids in the 1960s-80s. In her 40s she got her Grade 12, then went to college in Kamloops where she was a nurse into her 70s. She started writing her memoir decades ago, publishing it earlier this year just before she turned 88. She’s a remarkable woman. I’m proud of her. You can read her story here…
https://bit.ly/3PttMwe
#Booksofmastodon #writersofmastodon #published #books #writing #writinglife
Would you read a book about “the secret life of pianos?”
ps. Get a free chapter at http://dontshootthepianotuner.com
pps. PLEASE BOOST SO THAT PIANO ENTHUSIASTS WILL SEE. Thank you.
#booksofmastodon #writersofmastodon #published #books #writing #writinglife #music #pianos #musictech
4000 words in two days. When I get going, I GET GOING.
Still good words, too. Words I like. A flow I like. Even a little gag; I rotate around 3 POV characters until they come together into 3rd-person omniscient. I don't know what it means, but I did it! I even took a whack at the denouement.
A complete first draft is VERY MUCH within my grasp in just a couple of days. I might have a late night tonight. :)
Time to share another author friend: Jess Mahler
FF, FM, MM BDSM, Comedy, Fantasy, Lesfic, Paranormal
Jess' weird fish-out-of-water life has left them with an enduring love/hate affair with common tropes. The relationship counselor recommended they break it off, but they just keeps coming back to play with tropes (and fuck them up) some more...
https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/jess-mahler/
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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.08 — Do you like baking? If so, what do you usually bake?
Yes. Salmon. With squeezed lemon, garlic, and basil. Wrapped in parchment paper.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool
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photographer #chef #cooking
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Japanese style dinner last night with miso garlic broth, chicken, marinated eggs, pickled daikon, fish cake, and edamame soba. The sushi-style seasoned riced cauliflower, random sushi, and homemade tsukomono. The hot saki is Otokoyama. The salad is cabbage salad with sesame dressing.
Wrote 1500 words today, good ones, too. It was like old times where I Just Write, and it magically comes together. One thing leads to another leads to where I wanted to go to begin with. Very satisfying.
Lunch is a tomato basil salad.
Okay, let's end the trope that flicking the katana (or any sword) will rid the steel of a red, viscus, proteinous liquid such that you can sheath it in the scabbard without fouling the cloth or leather it's crafted from! It's absurd! Your scabbard will rapidly smell gross and you'll be pegged as unclean at best, or a murderer at worst! Sword-wielders need clean cloths to clean with!
#writer #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon. #writingAdvice
#EroticMusings 2025.08.03 — Week 10 (August 3-9) Culture: Is there a refreshing trope, pattern, or topic that you'd like to see more of in erotica?
I'll admit I don't read the genre much, for reasons I've stated, but as a subplot in other stories, I'd find it refreshing if it was about the delight of pleasing the other more often than oneself. That's an insight into a character I'd like to know.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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