Somebody quoted this but didn't allow replies & then screenshotted once I removed the quote to yell at me for not finishing a series I wasn't enjoying and this is exactly the kind of freak behavior I was talking about in the first place. Enjoy your shit, weirdos. It makes no difference if I don't

Random fiction writing thought: “Raising the stakes“ is rarely “increasing the scope of the threat“ and is almost* always “deepening the character’s emotions.” *Maybe not almost. Maybe just always.

Every time someone says "I can't write X, editors will never buy it" an angel loses its wings Those shining adamantine feathers, sharper than death, slice all creatures in their path to molecule-thin ribbons, blood raining down onto acres of land rendered poisonous for decades. So maybe reconsider

💜

This is why the best ways of telling people about your upcoming written fiction are almost never summaries. This is why the meme about rewriting the plots to things in misleading summaries works.

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

Nowhere near as many Campbell stans in my mentions as I anticipated. One is too many, though. That said, either bluesky doesn't encourage that, or perhaps (cross my fingers!) his star is waning just a trifle.

Fun fact: when one ebook outlet has a sale, the others follow. Just got the deal on kobo!

My Short Story Workshop starts Jan 3, and will run for 6 sessions online. There's still room in the class, including full and partial scholarships. www.catrambo.com/classes/shor...

Just a reminder, my next novel, Radiant Star, is available for pre-order wherever fine books are, uh, pre-ordered!

This set of observations is produced by my scrolling Reddit and otherwise listening to people talk about "how to write." A) there is no requirement that any of your characters has any sort of "arc" let alone a redemption. B) there is also no requirement that your fiction has a plot.

Learn how we utilize Gen AI at Buttondown–it may surprise you. buttondown.com/blog/generat...

This is going to catch me flack: it's what people who don't know what good writing is think is good writing, and without understanding what makes writing good.

Also re-upping this interview about Murderbot and real, or the lack of real, AI, one of my favorites of the year:

The trade paper edition of Queen Demon, which will be out next September, seems to also qualify for the preorder sale, if you've been holding off waiting for a good deal on it: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/queen-demo... (It's already out in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.) #booksky

I read this, and you should pre-order it because it's (unsurprisingly) excellent and super fun.

Debugging physics with food was the best crossover I never knew I needed This book was an inventive delight and you need it

Ah, now I'm fondly remembering the WU Womens Society lunch (an annual, very large event at the chancellor's residence) which was overseen by Harriet Switzer and not Mrs Danforth. One year, the guest count kept changing all morning, and this was not a trivial thing.

And now another story about interacting with a rich dude at the faculty club. So, at the time, the chancellor already lived in St Louis, so the chancellor's residence was pretty much only used for fancy parties, which the faculty club would cater.

I worked at the WUSTL faculty club and was running the post-graduation drink reception before the post graduation fancy lunch. Stan Musial was one of the honorary degree recipients that year and the only one to acknowledge my existence as I gave him a glass of iced tea. Super nice guy.

It's weird as a biologist to say "ignore the science part" but here we are Science: Vaccines don't cause autism. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. If vaccines caused autism I would still recommend them. Dying of preventable disease is bad. Autism isn't a disease and most of the "bad" of autism is society.

All else aside, I ALSO dispute the idea that non-fiction &/or communications writing is not "artistic creation." Writing is creation, whether emotional lyrics, an engrossing novel, a taut screenplay, a rich science/history/non-fic book, a deft memo, a snappy ad, or an effective announcement.

Yes, this forever!

Definitely DO NOT outsource the reading/summarization of the legal contract to which you will be bound to a pattern matching program that can AND DOES willfully create misinformation when its algorithm tells it the misinformation is the statistically mostly likely next set of words.

I don't know how many times it needs to be said that you absolutely should not let fucking "AI" anywhere near your legal contracts, either in creating them or evaluating them, but apparently it needs to be said at least one more time, so allow me to say it again, here, right now

These motherfuckers who shill AI keep saying 'the genie is out of the bottle'. You realise that stories are full of ways to trick the fucking genie back into the bottle, right? You keep using that metaphor but I do not think it means what you think it means.

Folk have confirmed that this applies to ebooks from Apple & Bookshop as well!

SO, you want to network but don't know where to begin. 1. DON'T. Make friends instead 2. It's not about what they can do for you 3. Famous people are just people first 4. If you do have to gush, don't just say 'i love your work' , pick one thing and say why. Open ended compliments are awkward

Here's a simple happiness hack: Do something for someone that is truly altruistic. Do it in secret if you can, and take no credit, if you can manage that in a world that sees everything. Do this as often as your circumstances allow, which may be once a year or once a day. Try it and see.

We didn't survive and thrive as a species because we had warriors or hunters - pretty much every omnivore can manage that. We did so because we developed Grandmothers, and domesticated Dogs. Community is what defines us as a species, and every "self-reliant" libertarian shitweasel be damned.

TL;DR be a decent human, do the work, and make some friends. The rest is just dumb fucking luck, but even if you don’t have the dumb fucking luck, *you will have been a decent human, done some work, and made some friends.*

Oh, and incidentally. Those other writers, they are not your competition. They are your colleagues, and the kinder, more generous you are to them the better things will go for you.

2/2 "fame" is not evenly temporally distributed; some people are hot out of the gate, some build over time, some get hot years or even decades after their debut. Every writer you meet, "famous" or not, will remember how you treated them, their friends, and why. Treat everyone as having value.

Thank you so much, Nicole!

true. that's bc you've allowed your sense of style to be narrowly defined by fashion brands, instead of thinking about it in terms of cultural history. over the course of the 20th century, many groups have dressed well, even if they didn't conform to fashion trends or bourgeois respectability

He ys ridinge a horse He ys emerald and svelte He will get reallye weirde If you lie about beltes The Greene Knighte Ys Cominge To Toun

First, the Christmas Ham. Next, the St Stephen's Day ham and potato soup.

This is a really good thread about a thing that I've noticed, but have not had a good word for. My experience of my various disabilities is not as uniformly negative as the OP's, but I certainly do get hungry for more portrayals of disability that make room for messiness, confusion, and struggle.

I LOVE my under-thumb trackball mouse and you will not even pry it from my cold, dead hands.

We're all descendants of a bunch of Mesozoic mammals who scrambled around trying to avoid being lunch for dinosaurs. I don't know what that makes you feel, but remember how far your DNA has come, and that there lies within you a plucky survivor.

The news about Harlequin translators getting fired en masse? You should care about that. They're doing it there because they think nobody gives a shit about romance and so it's fine to experiment with it first.

INCIDENTALLY for those who don't know--Yes, Ancillary Justice WAS optioned and WAS greenlit and there were scripts and concept art and talks with actors and then...the streamer decided not to do it. Yes, I was a bit miffed. But the experience of meeting folks and learning things was amazing.

So, for a while, Ancillary Justice was optioned for TV. Or, actually, streaming. And I had a chance to talk to the people who were writing the screenplay(s), and the person who was in charge of the project. They were all super smart and very very good at what they did.

I'd argue it's worse than a blank page, in the same way that garment pieces cut slightly off the grain are worse than not having cut yet. When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.

The act of writing is *thinking*. If you do not allow yourself to think thoughts that feel wrong, you will never get a feel for what feels *right*.

The point of writing crap is not that you should barf out anything. It's that you should be aware as you are writing it what the flaws are, and you need to get through it the first time, because the act of doing so informs you what is wrong.

It's okay if writing every day isn't for you- writing a set amount of words every day definitely isn't for me!- but if you are struggling to make consistent progress like I was writing in fits and starts, you might try to do it for a week or a month and see if it could be a good fit for you too

Writers, this is your regular reminder: sometimes show, sometimes tell.

Remember: It ys okaye to be lonelye. It ys okaye to feel lost. It ys okaye to be sad. It ys okaye yf nobody ys arounde. It ys okaye to have no plannes or just small plannes. It ys okaye to have big plannes that seem exhausting. It ys okaye to be a mess. Take care of thyself. Thou art amazinge.