Me: *wonders if religious ideology is a necessary part of the definition of a cult* Me: *goes to Google, types ‘do cults have to be re-* Google: “Do cults have to be refrigerated?*

How to tell you’re a writer: your Google history includes such searches as “Is psychopathy a spectrum,” “how long does it take human blood to congeal,” “Singapore slang terms for fuck,” and “luxury hotels Hong Kong.” #AmWriting

Woke from a dream about writing a classic scifi/retrofuturist novel about rogue AI set in the early 1970s. Now my head is filled with thoughts about writing a plausible-looking implementation of TensorFlow in FORTRAN-66, you know, as one does. #AmWriting

Hot take: The conceit that someone you’re texting with owes you an immediate response is a particularly insidious form of narcissism. Texting is an asynchronous communication process. Texts and DMs are designed so that replies don’t need to occur in the moment. People have lives.

I was today years old when I learned that one of the six flags of the Six Flags theme park is the Confederate States of America flag.

So my Talespinner and I are 36,645 words into our hyperurban retrofuturist gangster noir novel, and it’s…not going like we planned. Our protagonist, Indah, as we’ve written her is a sociopath, which isn’t what we’d planned. She also sends quite a lot of time telling us what…

Bad: You’re working at the coffee shop, you’ve just kicked out almost 2,000 words on a nonfiction book and 1,084 words on a novel, when the operating system on your ten-year-old laptop craps itself. Good: You can reinstall right there in the coffee shop. #AmWriting

PDX folks: it’s Thursday! That means I’ll be at Bold Coffee and Books near Providence Park in downtown Portland from 5-7 PM writing. Come say hi! Look for the guy in bunny ears. #AmWriting

Yesterday, whilst I was walking to a coffee shop, a woman walking the other way pointed at me and said “Tacit Rainbow!” I was so surprised I just stood there until she’d walked by. I quit using that name as a handle at the end of the BBS era, so like 2002ish. I’m still perplexed.

Spent the morning shipping books, posters, and stickers, now I’m sitting in an eyeglass shop waiting for them to make me a new pair of glasses. Brought my laptop, so I’m working on two new books whilst I wait.

Watching the fountain whilst waiting for the light rail, it occurs to me: is this behavior, the variations in the water stream, truly random the way, say, lava lamp behavior is random? Is it deterministic if you know the system’s exact state, like a double pendulum?

Blog post: Love and Communication Considered Harmful: Love is not enough. The polyamory mantra “communicate, communicate, communicate!” can trap you in a toxic relationship. Yes, I know this is heresy. Sometimes life is complicated. www.morethantwo.com/blog/2026/03...

You know what this world needs? A thrash or industrial cover of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song “Cathedral.” That’s what this world needs. (Among other things, of course, but it’s definitely on the list.)

My dad just called to say “Hey, did you hack the Epstein files? I saw on the news someone hacked the Epstein files. Was that you?” I was like “thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad, but no, that wasn’t me.” 🤣

Blog post: Why grammar matters: I hear people say that learning and using correct grammar is “elitist,” and as long as you make yourself understood, using correct grammar “doesn’t matter.” That misses a point: grammar is your first defense against scams. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/03/why-...

I am fortunate to have people in my life who bring all three, sometimes at the same time.

32k words into our gangster noir novel and my Talespinner just pointed out we don’t pass the reverse Bechdel test. We have three named male characters (the BBEG, a himbo, and the protagonist’s love interest), and so far they never have a conversation with each other. #AmWriting

Good lord. What is happening to this man? This photo looks like an effects shot from a low-budget zombie flick. Night of the Restless Dead or something.

Blog post: The pathologizing of sexual disinterest: In 2014, the FDA approved bremelanotide, a potent aphrodisiac that works in about half the people who try it…but only for women. That sends a message I think bears examining. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/03/the-...

At a coffee shop writing. There’s a gaggle of uni students here, one of whom has a copy of Molecular Biology of the Cell, the same textbook I used in one of my biology classes in uni decades ago.

“Aren’t you afraid to walk around Portland at night?” My dude, I belong to a generation that grew up with lawn darts. I watched broadcast entertainment on a device with a linear particle accelerator pointed straight at my heckin’ FACE. No, walking at night doesn’t scare me.

Reminder: I’ll be at Bold Coffee & Books in downtown Portland, Oregon tonight from 5 to 7, working on a book. Come say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears.

I have an opportunity to buy a used Sybian at a really good price, so today I’ll be measuring out the inside of the alien xenomorph tentacle violation pod to see if it’s possible to mount it inside the housing underneath the bench.

Hot take: Every social media site needs a Red Team not for infosec/pen testing, but for hate speech, CP/CSAM, doxxing, and other forms of abuse. People use complex, rapidly-evolving strategies to slip this content past social media moderators, who end up clueless and confused.

Blog post: Night of the Opossum: It started out simple. My friend Tony and I went to work at a prepress shop on the night shift, as we normally did, not expecting the night to go all Alien -meets-Benny-Hill. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/02/stor...

Blog post: Of Bananas and Determinism: The universe is not deterministic. Rewind time and roll it forward again, and the outcome will be different. A banana shows us why this is. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/02/of-b...

I tried casting a pattern of veins to place over the window in the alien xenomorph tentacle violation pod, but I cast it on a flat surface and it didn’t drape over the curved window correctly. So I’m covering the window with foam clay. When it sets, I’ll pry it off and cast silicone on that.

Back panel of the alien xenomorph tentacle violation pod! After months of experimentation, I’ve come up with a technique involving covering the pod with foam clay, dying it with red leather dye, then brushing a thin layer of brown-tinted silicone over top for a wet look.

Currently writing a “boy meets girl being sexually tortured on stage in a restaurant, boy stalks girl, boy asks girl out, girl works countersurveillance for organized crime, girl sexually tortures boy for stalking her, girl is framed for murder, boy goes on run with girl” story.

Wrote a bunch of words last night on a new novel, decided this morning they need to go. The bones are there but the pacing is worng; they need to be rewritten to be much shorter and snappier. Pacing in this novel is turning out to be quite a problem! #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

Blog post: Marry an angry woman: I’ve seen a huge surge of extremely problematic memes lately, memes that suddenly hit a lot differently when you flip the genders around. As a survivor of intimate partner abuse, I find this deeply disturbing. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/02/marr...

Blog post: Ask me why I’m in the Epstein Files: I know this is an unpopular (and politically incorrect) take, but we could do with a bit more reason, a bit less propaganda, and a bit less knee-jerk virtue-signaling in modern American society. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/02/ask-...

Life tip for guys (or women who prefer women): Find yourself a girlfriend who will randomly send you little snippets of fae lore throughout the day. Trust me on this.

It’s Thursday! That means I’ll be at Bold Coffee & Books in downtown PDX near Providence Park writing from 5 to 7. If you’d like to meet up, feel free to join me! I’ll be the guy in bunny ears.

“We can’t take action against the largest sex trafficking ring the nation has ever seen because if we do, the whole government will collapse” is simultaneously such a weird take and also so very mid-2020s.

I just deleted a chapter and a half (9,402 words in all) from the sequel to London Under Veil. Now to replace them with better words! #AmWriting

“Nobody really needs proper spelling and grammar. That’s just elitism. As long as people understand you, you’re fine.” My brother in Christ, you follow a bunch of social media scammers online. Maybe if you knew better spelling and grammar, it’d be easier for you to spot them.

Got up at 6:00 this morning, started writing, went to the coffee shop, kept writing before my tea, came home, still writing. Except for about an hour to make food and run an errand, I wrote today for about thirteen and a half hours, on two novels and a nonfiction book. #AmWriting

TIL: I’m in the Epstein Files! Seriously. I’m in document EFTA00700657.pdf in DataSet 9, as a top writer on Quora. Epstein created a Quora account, which means he received the Quora Digest emails, and I frequently appear in the Quora Digest, so…

Beta readers! I’m off to ship more advance review copies of upcoming books. I’m out of paperbacks of The Temperance Engine, but I still have two paperbacks of Spectres and ePubs of both, so HMU! I’ll be at Bold Coffee & Books in downtown PDX from 5-7 today writing. Come say hi!

The Three Body Problem. Never have I ever encountered a more appropriate meme.

Packing up advance review books to hump them down to the post office today! Had a batch I wanted to ship last week but then I got floored by a head cold, so if you requested an ARC paperback but still haven’t received it, I’m sorry, I’ll get it out today.

As a writer, having a wife who’s a costumer and cosplayer who’s also an avid dancer AND skilled with knives and crossbows is incredibly valuable when you’re writing a female gangster in a society where dance is an important part of the culture. #AmWriting

Blog post: Some thoughts on canting languages: My Talespinner and I are on to a new novel, this one following a member of the criminal Warisan Kita. We created an unusual quasi-canting language in which communication is sidechannel, not main channel. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/some...

Two days of sleep, tea, and ibuprofen and I’m once more back among the living! I’ll be at Bold Coffee and Books tomorrow in downtown Portland, 1755 Southwest Jefferson Street, from 5 to 7. Stop by and say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears.

Lived in Florida for years. Can confirm. This kind of shit goes on all the time.

Sound asleep this morning feeling poorly when I got jolted awake by a FedEx delivery…for a dude named Alex, who lived here in 2021. From the size and weight and the battery stickers on it, it’s probably a laptop. Now I gotta hoof it down to FedEx to send it back.

I still feel like hot death in a microwave, but at least there is a solitary spot of light amidst the gloom and drek: it seems to be ordinary everyday crud, not COVID.

Ugh, I’m feeling miserable. Run down, slight fever, chills, achy, generally blah. If I still feel like this tomorrow, I’m taking a COVID test.

Regular reminder: beginning writer or seasoned pro, NEVER sign a publishing contract before you email beware (at) sfwa (dot) org This free service helps you avoid scammers and publishers with poor reputations listed on the Writers Beware list of predatory book publishers.