Am I the only one on the planet who searched before believing the AI bullshit about Melania and CJ Cherryh? (I know I'm not; I saw others.) C'mon, y'all. Have more media literacy than that.

Wild scored!! I'm actually not minding the Dallas play-by-play guys. They seem to be able to admit when their team did something wrong. #StephYellsAboutHockey

"Feed fanfic into capitalism, and it comes out shaped like capitalism." @readingtheend.bsky.social dissects the trend pulling fanfiction through the traditional publishing pipeline (and what it means for fandom): reactormag.com/with-the-ser...

I do not! Somehow! But a number of them are small and argumentative. (I am small and argumentative.) #PretendPanel

Wish me luck; today is Yarn Chicken Day. I have 26g of yarn to finish a stripe on a shawl (so, each stripe is getting wider) and the previous one took 22g. Fingers crossed!

Santana, Hendrix, Clapton, Talking Heads, Madonna for some reason.... My dad is much cooler than I am.

#queerwriterschat 5: Me hearties! Into the Deep's sixth birthday is today, and you can get both it and the short prequel for .99 gold pieces each, or grab 9 different stories in part of this crew on itchio! talklikeaqueerpirate.com

I'm four away from 100 followers on backerkit! Click the link, watch the trailer, read a sample, take my blood! i've got tons, you're welcome to it, just ignore the prions there might be Mad Cow in there. You've been warned! #queerwriterschat #boombride

#QueerWritersChat VERY excited to say that I'm doing the crowdfunding for GULA with the Book Bazaar! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/e... Check it out here -- you can follow GULA before launch time proper, and check out the rest of the Bazaar here! www.backerkit.com/c/collection...

Since we're talking setting—if you like anomalous malls kind of just hanging out in the middle of a beach-side forest, and stuff set in the '00s that leans heavy on the horrors of '80s and '90s nostalgia, well. I got a thing. www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti... #QueerWritersChat

Check out my latest post on Kofi, open to the public: ko-fi.com/post/Fantasy... The IncSpec Writing server for SFF writers has been having fun planning a community project! Join the server to join in: discord.gg/SYxcUuS4 #QueerWritersChat

#QueerWritersChat Here's my Caard which has links to my fanfic AND my books! And one interview I could remember. LOL seraphrdm.carrd.co

Well! Twin Cities Geek just published this local theater review of mine: bsky.app/profile/twin... And of course you can always buy my lesbian historical novella here: a.co/d/9uiEDhz Hopefully, more soon! (Not that soon.) #QueerWritersChat

Probably not what you-all were expecting, but here's some writing with setting description sprinkled in it. #QueerWritersChat

For contemporary settings, I love giving the little details that let you know not just that I have been there, but that I lived there. Swearing about a particular patch of highway. Reference to real neighborhoods and the character thereof. That sort of thing. #QueerWritersChat

Honestly, I know a lot about the Regency era from research (also the 1790s--I have plans someday! The dresses are stunningly gorgeous and the politics are Complicated in a fun way), but I've got two unrelated series set in contemporary Cleveland (OH). I contain multitudes. #QueerWritersChat

Hey!! I'm Stephanie Cranford, and I write mostly romance, often with a bit of magic, always with much more than a bit of queerness. Right now I'm putting the final touches (read: poking at an already polished draft) to submit to an agent (gulp)!! #QueerWritersChat

So um. This is what's been up with me for the last year. I hate hate hate asking but very much appreciate your support. www.gofundme.com/f/fund-me-if...

Local folks, y'all should go see this play. (And then come back and laugh with me about the photo below.)

It’s a sports romance book starter pack, for all your autumn reading lists! We’ve got: baseball, football, soccer, tennis, hockey, F1, skating, and even a series set in a fictional Olympic games (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/b... #Romancelandia #booksky

I AM WATCHING HOCKEY!!!!!!!! It is shitty hockey (prospect showcase between two teams who are not the Wild) because I missed the Wild rookies yesterday (I went to a play instead). BUT IT IS HOCKEY!!!! #StephYellsAboutHockey

Well, I mean, I generally know a lot more about character's sex lives than I actually put in the story, lol. This is mostly because it's necessary background information for *me* to know, but unless I write fanfiction of my own book (or deleted scenes), it ain't gonna be in there. #PretendPanel

It really depends! Sometimes I just work them over in my head a lot, like, for months or years, until I have something I need to write down. Sometimes I just put my fingers on the keyboard and things happen. I did one of those character questionnaires once! #PretendPanel

Oh, definitely Better Off Ted, but an honorable mention to Powerless.

"Punishing people like Gretchen Felker-Martin for their honest expressions of disdain only reinforces the hierarchy of the right, which normalizes white bigotry and the incitement of violence, while seeking to control and punish marginalized people for daring to think and feel in public."

Welp. Let's try this again! #PitchDis

Well, that wasn't how I expected the (football) game to end, but I'm glad.

Not... Entirely? I did give someone an Auntie Stephanie because she was a lawyer, but she was otherwise entirely unlike me. (I'm a big fan of temporary names.) #PretendPanel

Oh man uhh mostly I just come up with a concept of a person or two who needs a story written about them and then I flesh them out from there. I don't, like, plan a lot, tbh. #PretendPanel

I'd like to publish more! But that also involves getting better at editing and asking people to read my stuff. #SpoonieAuthChat

Queer characters, a HEA (or maybe a HFN), at least one nerd, found family, friendship, enough angst for flavoring.... Maybe hockey! #SpoonieAuthChat

I write things that I'd love to read anyway! Plus I love the act of writing. I love drafting, and I'm learning to love editing. #SpoonieAuthChat

Editing a novel! But I may be drafting a thing soon... Will it be a short story? A novel? A novella? Who knows! #SpoonieAuthChat

This has been great!! Thank you!! I think a lot of things are rattling around in my brain, and we'll see what comes out!! #SummerOfStory

Props to Hiria for running this!! Also, I do encourage all of you to find your local con and sign up to be on panels. It's a lot of fun! #PretendPanel

I don't know if I've been DNF'd, don't care really. I'm not everyone's type. I DNF things if I can't deal with something like underlying racism/sexism that the author doesn't know is there, or if the plot depends on something (usually around musicians) that I can't believe. #PretendPanel

These are fun when done deftly. I think, not on purpose, the two leads are foils in the story I'm editing--two different lives, similar (psychic) powers. I don't plan things like this in advance bc I don't plan much in advance 😂 but they do show up! #SummerOfStory

You left out my favorite one--zeugma! "He fell out of her favor and out of her bed." Nah, I like a lot of these. I didn't study them any more than anyone who took two entire college level lit classes (I did have good high school teachers), but I use them as they come up. #SummerOfStory

I haven't written one! It sounds like fun. I like some unreliable narrators but often they do come across as annoying, and I generally don't write hard-to-love characters. But I should try! #SummerOfStory

Not really! But I do usually tell Spouse and sometimes we end up with ice cream. Clearly I need something better. #SpoonieAuthChat

Oh man I don't have much to say. Like most things, when it's well done, it's really great! I don't think I'm particularly good at it--I'm rather heavy-handed. #SummerOfStory

Sometimes! Sometimes I have no idea of how a book will go until I'm already there. More likely I have a goal, like "they kiss," but the path gets weird. #SpoonieAuthChat

Oh I love this. Yes! Fight scenes, just like sex scenes, need to develop character/plot/theme, and describing in intense, blow-by-blow detail can be correct for some genres!! But not all of them. Please know what genre you intend your book to be! #SummerOfStory

Early afternoon, I guess? I also do pretty well in the evenings. Kind of depends on how my brain is working, as one might guess. #SpoonieAuthChat

I don't! I mostly write in the corner of the couch, but I've been known to write in coffee shops and whatnot (mostly back in the day). I also teach from the corner and everything else there, so it's certainly not dedicated. #SpoonieAuthChat

I really do think having some choice in the plot can be important, yeah, but I think the constant harping on how if your character doesn't have agency, you're a bad writer, well, isn't true. The example of _The Handmaid's Tale_ is really good here. #SummerOfStory

Ok uh most lukewarm take ever based on a video I was watching: _market your book properly, not with the hot genre/subgenre of the day_. If sex is the plot, it's probably erotica. If horrifying sex is the plot, consider erotic horror. Just for a totally random example. #SummerOfStory

I set no goals (forgot), but I did write almost every day this week! Not much any given time, but I did it!! #QueerWriters

Well, there are at best 3 reviews of my novella, and two of them are brief mentions, so me knowing this tells you I have done it. Would I do it for an entire novel? Probably. I would try not to, but .... I would fail. I know myself. #PretendPanel

Oh I very much agree that too many synonyms for "said" is a problem. You really do have to stop for each of them, and do you want to kill your rhythm like that? I do appreciate a well-place "he lied," such as, "I never did that," he lied. Other than that? Nah. #SummerOfStory