🌿✨️

Here’s the thing about folks speedrunning the creative process with AI: I could go to the beach every morning and put a grain of sand in a cup. They’d take their cup to the beach and fill it one day; but the point isn’t to have a cup of sand. It’s to fill my life with a thousand trips to the beach.

Here we go. It's Friday, and this dropped.

If you want to write anything good, you cannot afford to be afraid of your reader.

It's publication day for In This City, Where it Rains out now from @lunapress.bsky.social! This is my Scottish gothic love letter to Edinburgh, a weird tale of ghosts, curses, family secrets, weird moths, & dark rituals 🖤 All links: linktr.ee/lyndseycroal Bonus Q: how many ghosts can you see here? 👀

🎉🎂 Happy UK Book Birthday to @kerstinhall.bsky.social 's ASUNDER! 🏆 A Finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards, 🖤 A @reactorsff.bsky.social Reviewer's Choice of 2024 📙 A New York Public Library Best-Of Pick SABRIEL meets WITCH KING in this deliciously dark fantasy. Buy: https://geni.us/asunder

Whattttt - City of All Seasons shortlisted for the PKD??

Hey. Make that story weirder.

And just like that, SFWA capitulates. Keep fighting. It works.

This is a truly wild decision to make. It's insulting to all the writers and past winners/nominees.

Listen, maybe you're scared to speak up because you think one day you might get nominated for an award, but here's a newsflash: it's not of the same value if plagiarism-droid assisted work is eligible. Do not support any of this nonsense. Keep your head down if you must, but don't acquiesce. ✊🏾

Silksong. Curling up on the sofa beside my SO, cheering him through the platforming and planning boss tactics. The soundtrack! Time well spent.

Do you have plans next summer? My first horror collection, MIX TAPES FROM DEAD BOYS, is coming June 2026 from @journalstone.bsky.social.

Maybe a lower dose next time.

Toebean is home and doing greeeaaaat. *drugged smile*

Toebean is enjoying some gabapentin ahead of his surgery checkup today. 🤞

Rewatched The Princess Bride this morning. This film brought me a lot of joy as a child, as did Stand by Me.

Oh my god. Awful.

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

They have two of these beds in the house, but they both wanted This One.

While we're waiting for HOME SICK, now's a good time to check out my first dark and haunting novella THE QUEEN OF THE HIGH FIELDS from @lunapress.bsky.social 🌊 www.goodreads.com/book/show/59...

Our first release of 2025 will be @kerstinhall.bsky.social 's ASUNDER! 🏆 A Finalist for the Nebula & Locus Awards, 🖤 A Reactor Reviewer's Choice Best Book of 2024 📙 A New York Public Library Best-Of Pick SABRIEL meets WITCH KING in this deliciously dark fantasy! Preorder https://geni.us/asunder

Loved this a lot. What a gorgeous story. 🌊

'you can cradle to grave away every warm human word you could ever have said' 💔

If you have a day job and your payslip this month is correct and on time, spare a thought for us Payroll Tech grunts—we are very tired, we have accrued TOIL we don't have time to take, and we are desperately trying to squish 5 weeks' workload into 3. 🫠

I'm going to be in North Wales (Eryri specifically) in the second week of Feb and I'm looking for a portrait photographer who'd do some new author shots in a dramatic location! Can anyone help? Please do share 🙏

Look you just have to make the cool weird shit that excites you. You must. In this world besieged by bland, scrubbed boring, computer slop, you must. Make the thing you’re embarrassed to make, the thing that feels “too much” because otherwise we get drowned in a sea of cowardly work made by a button

The tree is up, and it looks a little different this year.

UK COVER REVEAL Job description — Isolation, madness, obsession, (light) cannibalism. Apply at @torbooksuk.bsky.social. Deadline 14 May 2025.

Oh yeah, you lot across the pond are eating turkey today, right? *waits patiently for the nice food pictures to roll in*

Those that got nothing done, I see you too.

Currently reading The Queen of the High Fields by @rhiannonagrist.bsky.social @lunapress.bsky.social ✨️

Head up, UK types. Looks like you can pick up GODS OF THE WYRDWOOD for just 99p on ereader. So if huge trees and deep weirdness that will only get weirder are your thing THIS MAY BE FOR YOU. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/gods...

I have seen del Toro's Frankenstein! I may give Mary Shelley's grave a little tip of the hat on Wednesday, since she's buried 5 mins from my office. Watching the film reminded me of a very fun panel I did with @tadethompson.bsky.social at FCon a few years ago. Frankenstein fans. 🙌

It's that time of year where I search for the perfect diary. Page per day, space for addresses and loads of notes. The diary that will change me—it's out there, I can feel it.

🚨SALE ENDS TOMORROW🚨 Halloween may be over, but we're still feeling spooky! Shop a bumper selection of titles, exclusively on our website, DRM Free for only 0.99 each! geni.us/Solarissale Titles available vary by your country of origin. Ends on 24th November 2025 at 23:59 GMT. 1/6

Part 7/7 is in people’s inboxes today! That’s a wrap on “A Road Less Taken.” I hope y’all enjoyed it, got a glimpse into what @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social offers, & had a good National Book Week wherever you happen to be! This was part 6: mailchi.mp/scottishbook...

I held out as long as I could. I bought my first pack of stollen bites for the season and now I've broken the seal; I will be made of stollen by Christmas.

bit overwhelmed by the influx of patrons 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu PATRONS support us and get access to our ePub/print issues YOU CAN DO THAT, really. also support tiers increasing in new year 😿 but if you sign up this year NO INCREASE, really.

a post about Psychopomp in 2026 please read and share thank you very much

I got my first invitation to an event tied to my next novel, Mercutio, and it is Extremely Shakespearean, which delights me. If you or someone you know has a Shakespeare podcast or blog or event next spring/summer/fall, I would like nothing better than to come talk about stuff we like together. 🤓

Part 5 went up today! Only 2 parts remain! Part 1: mailchi.mp/scottishbook... Part 2: mailchi.mp/scottishbook... Part 3: mailchi.mp/scottishbook... Part 4: mailchi.mp/scottishbook... Sign up for the rest!

Y-you ok there, duolingo owl?

I dunno, buddy, maybe if it didn't encourage young folks to kill themselves, or drink all the potable water, or pollute the Infoverse with fallacies, or add glue to recipes, or be that guy who lies rather than admits a mistake, or, and this is important, buddy, or IF WE WERE GIVEN A FUCKING CHOICE!

yes pls 👀

Lying down in front of the avalanche of my 2026 preorders, while my TBR shelves are already overflowing: yes, take me.

Preorders are open for HOME SICK 👀🪓🐑 * Cottagegore * Unhinged women * Female rage * Creepy folktales * I tHiNk I'm GoNnA dIe In ThIs HoUsE geni.us/homesick @solarisbooks.bsky.social

...and somehow, she suddenly had 4000 words. they're just not GOOD words.

My advice is to become unsummarizeable.

Following insightful convos at WFC about drafting fast to outrun your brain weasels, I am attempting to Let Go and give myself permission to write the Really Bad First Draft as quick as poss. I usually draft super clean but slooooow. Slow enough for doubts to fester, so I give up more. Wah, enough!