Each chapter of Gildenhammer I narrate for the book club, my voice and delivery breaks a little more. Sure, I could edit it and dozens of takes, but why not give my closest readers a proper expression of how thoroughly the process of writing dismantles me until nothing but a fervid rasp remains?

Every now and then a reader will come across a book which changes them - which irrevocably alters their view of themselves, their life, or the world around them. Four times this has happened to me. Bridge to Terabithia, The Giver, The Fifth Season, and Blackcloak: A Man Of His Sword.

I said: "I need imaging on my neck. It hurts, I have headaches on one side of my head, tinnitus in one ear, dizziness and nausea when I look up, and two different physicians have said this is all related to my neck and posture." The doctor said: "It's probably due to stress."

Chronic pain is one of those things I never get tired of complaining about, and the only reason I stop is because I feel guilty for dragging down the people around me. And because I'm not talking about it, it plays out in my head as bleak fantasies of acknowledgement.

Customer basically said I looked like shit today. He was right, but still.

It's 10.15 on a random Saturday, and the neighbours have loud music playing. I'm way too much of an old lady to have neighbours. I mean good for them, they sound like they're having a great time, but ergh.

Nobody swings around a butane-powered lantern like a mother who's feeling defensive.

On the plus side, I still have one shoulder, one knee, one thumb, and nine toes that DO work!

Please remember that "understandably" is a perfectly valid modifier to your being upset. Empathy is not a sin. It is real. It is everywhere: afraid and uncertain, yes, but weirdly hard to kill. And it is the *only* thing that is going to get us through this.

"In an open world economy, it is almost always cheaper to trade for a particular natural resource or industrial product than to take it by force. But with foreign markets locked away behind insurmountable tariff walls, conquest once again became thinkable and even profitable."

"What's your book about?" "It's an exploration of the shifting nature of political divides, set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia, as experienced through the eyes of a deeply unwell woman with a misguided hero complex." "...Oh." Follow me for more tips on how to avoid follow-up questions.

"Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

Well. I think that's enough depression for one day.

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay by Katherine Child, debut author-illustrator of The Notted Island, a fantasy novel about an island in black-and-white which is waiting to be coloured, and about a deity who is in charge of the night sky. Skilled and lovely work. Flying Eye 9 Oct. @flyingeyebooks.bsky.social

The Nobel Peace Prize winner is María Corina Machado Parisca, an opponent of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Dirge-like, her weeping echoed. #7SyllableSentence #Dirge

Ouch #Repostober #BandW #Ink #Art

Oh yeah, links! Well, the book is available on tons of sites. For this new one, be sure to get the Rose cover. Otherwise, you'll have an older version of the book. On ko-fi and itch.io for next to nothing. As in, zero dollars. #Booksky #Poetry #Writingcommunity #IndieAuthor linktr.ee/spookypickle

You are free to post AI videos and I am free to hate you for wasting my time with such worthless useless horribly low quality fictional trash. Your videos are terrible and so are you.

"The only correct interpretation of the bible is the one that lets me do whatever I already wanted to do and reinforces my biases" —Assholes 3:16

I wonder how many of them thought, "If I stand up now, will others in this room join me?" But it doesn't matter. Because not one of them did. They just sat there as an alcoholic and a cholesterol timebomb called them fat. And told them to be ready to make war on their own people. Wow.

THE WHITE HOUSE USING DEEPFAKE & AI TO MISREPRESENT POLITICIANS AS OFFICIAL VIDEO RECORD SHOULD HAVE ALL OF US VERY VERY VERY VERY FUCKING WORRIED. AND YES I AM SHOUTING WITH MY THUMBS BECAUSE I AM VERY VERY VERY FUCKING WORRIED. DO NOT LET THEM NORMALISE THIS. DO NOT ACCEPT IT AS REALITY. RESIST.

A satirical pic of my favourite antifa member, who actually said (roughly translated from Aramaic), "Fuck your temples and fuck your monopolies and fuck your markets and fuck your moneychangers and fuck your bankers, I am the LAW!" like Judge Dredd, only with the actual power of God on His side. ✝️✊

104,487 words on the page, 104,487 words! Cut one down, Change the sentence around, 104,486 words on the page.

Anyone use Firefox and want to disable that pesky AI overview function on google? This website has you covered. Just did it - was easy to follow - and now I can search shit without the AI spitting stupidity at me. gist.github.com/gene1wood/0b...

I'm not religious, but you can't tell me God wouldn't kick that stupid orange spongecake out of Heaven after just five minutes alone with him.

Via garyseconomics 💲💲 Here's a short animated video about how wealth inequality affects us. Share it with a friend who might not understand it yet.

Gif yourself. #fucktrump

I have an announcement... #fucktrump

Between the inevitable reinstatement of Kimmel and that clearly rushed Lone Wolf and Cub In Space trailer, Disney is playing the "oops, you got us" card. The worst thing anyone can do at this point is say "we won!" and pretend things are back to normal. They are not. Stay the course, friends.

Review for Alec Ireson's "Greenthorne". TLDR: read the book instead, it's fucking good. (Picture is of a man in 1920's shirt, suspenders and brown cap, on a green background. Man is smoking and looking to the left. Title reads, "Greenthorne", by Alec Ireson.) ko-fi.com/post/Review-...

Ergh. Writing reviews is so much easier when the book sucks.

I don't have my own book to promote, but some of the details other people have posting while chatting sounded really cool. But check out @wjameschan.bsky.social, @willowzane.bsky.social, Greenthorne by Alec Ireson, and of course our host, @spookyxpickle.bsky.social #TBBChat

#TBBChat Q4: Do any of your characters have a connection (or the wish of one) to nature? A total lack thereof? Hmm. You know, the only one who has the barest hint of connection to nature would be Princess Laela, and her desire to run away into the forest. And would, were it not for The Paladin.

#TBBChat Morrow ends up getting inhabited by a parasitic river god, with the mashed up appearance of multiple animals that rely on a rivers ecosystem (as well as some fun bugs), so very much so yes! Morrow is also a Druid, which comes with a lot of knowledge needed about the local animals and beasts

Well the story involves her developing a connection, so I'd say yes to both questions. I was interested in how it'd feel to be let outside after a lifetime of being trapped inside and, conversely, how it would feel to then go back. Would the inside space feel more or less safe than before? #TBBChat

Oh dear... She has quite a few animals that *aren't* her favourites. Birds. Wolves. Wallabies... I think a bear might be her favourite. She's never seen one, of course, but she imagines this big, lumbering creature as something that might be friendly. Nobody told her otherwise, after all. #TBBChat

Now you're asking the hard questions. I like different bugs for different reasons. Scorpions are cool, dragonflies are savage, mantids occasionally fly in my face... I guess spiders might be my favourite -- jumping spiders, not the hairy murderers that inhabit the warmer states. #TBBChat

Off the top of my head, Snow White and Rose Red. I loved that story when I was a kid, and I remembered it the other day when I was thinking about bears. But otherwise, I always loved Rapunzel. The creepy version as well as the delightful Tangled rendition. #TBBChat

Hi. I'm Elle. I'm an Australian science fiction lover, and I'm nearly two years into writing my first book. #TBBChat #scifi

You know what's shit? We've never before had so much access to knowledge, and we're still so fucking stupid. We still think religion is righteous, despite how many wars it's started. We still want to stifle individualism. We still think progress can be stopped. Pick up a history book. I dare you.

Wow, excellent work by the FBI expertly being fully prepared to let the suspect's family just hand him in for a substantial kash reward. Cutting edge investigation right there. You're going to hear the word "hate" a lot in the coming days. Just remember: their every accusation is a confession.

A lot of things make me sad right now. The death of one man, who cared nothing for the deaths of thousands of others, is not really one of them.

If you don’t want to be called N*azis, don’t compare yourselves to N*azis. I don’t make the rules.

Today has been weird. My small world is changing, the larger world is a shit show, and I spent WAY too much time mentally rewriting the lyrics to "Pieces of You" to be about cooking and eating a co-worker. Don't worry, I sang it to the co-worker. Felt like it was creepy to keep it a secret.

Nothing has ever made me want to be loud as much as Trump did, telling that reporter to "be quiet!" How fucking dare he.

Day 4: #FantasyIndiesSeptember I talked about this a bit last month! My antagonists both showcase their hobbies in the current draft of the novel. Galean thinks he's something of a bard and dabbles in song-writing (with a side of cryptomnesia). ... and Mardus' hobby is picking on Galean's songs.

I've done a lot of snippets recently of the more-developed novel I'm working on, but this opening for the first chapter of the prequel really caught the attention of two of my test readers last month. #WednesdayWIPs #WIP #RookeryWriting #AmWriting

Tired of Amazon getting a cut? Just want to read high quality dark literary fantasy? Grab both BLACKCLOAK and GILDENHAMMER for free/pay what you want here: ko-fi.com/wjameschan/s.... Download once, yours forever. Heck, copy and spread it around! (Paperbacks also available at Barnes & Noble) 📚💙