So many options, since my book is about a water dragon and his human protector, living on the coast, making deals with water spirits, following streams uphill into the forest, on a quest to cast the dragon back into the freshwater lake from whence he was hatched. Here’s an early line. #WIPSnips

Ma always calls everyone by their full names. No one else does; not even the narrator. #WIPSnips

Talked to Newsweek about why voters are against data centers, and I think this mostly sums it up: www.newsweek.com/cost-me-the-...

Ironically, the only mention of a fox in my story is this line about the absence of a fox. #WIPSnips

I have almost exclusively written fairly hard sci-fi for adults (not much romance; plenty of swears), but I’m currently writing a middle grade fantasy specifically to have something to share with my own children and my students at work (younger than YA; power of friendship; no swears). #JuneJottings

Stay Writing While the Sun is Shining! “Borrowing” an idea I saw recently: tease your story with five emojis. Mine would be 👩‍🌾💧🐉🥾🌳 Remember to use alt text, be curious, be kind, and use Oxford commas. #SummerSnips

Oh, that’s not good. Can’t run a consumer economy when people can’t even afford to consume. We get one trillionaire, and already the wheels are about to come off the whole thing. Furthermore, I think that Loblaws must be nationalized.

Okay, so I don’t explicitly call it a pair of pyramids, but close enough. From “The Admiral and The Captain”, my milscifi retelling of the old “battleship and lighthouse” joke. It’s published, but I also want to edit it more, so it’s kind of a #WIPSnips

Don’t know what’s worse, the fact that we invented a new, vastly more expensive way to accomplish a simple task that was already solved, or the fact that even while grossly overcharging people for this “service” AI is still incredibly unprofitable.

Stay Writing While the Sun is Shining! #SummerSnips Wednesday’s snip is full of woe! Snip a setback, upset, or Remember to use alt text, and be curious and kind.

I’m going from the wild discovery writing draft stage of unconnected “fun bits” to a more methodical and continuous rewrite, and writing the lead up to the start of the big adventure is very vegetables-before-dessert. There’s important character, stakes, and plot stuff I need to have. #JuneJottings

No finales, but I found a good “finally”. Ela is new to magic, and she just doesn’t know the rules that all the actually magical creatures do. #WIPSnips

“Our extremely expensive software product that runs on even more extremely expensive custom hardware can do the work of some—but not quite all—of the unpaid interns, fanfic writers, amateur artists, and beginner computer animators, so that we can amass the income of all of those unpaid humans!”

Stay Writing While the Sun is Shining! Snip the introduction of your main character! Remember to use alt text, and be curious and kind. #SummerSnips

Like the refs and whatever team is playing against the Ottawa Charge, there aren’t a lot of penalties, so I had to go way deeper into my story than any other snip yet. Guys, I think this mayor might not be a good person. #WIPSnips

The average person is kind, but the mean person is not. They are mean instead.

Stay Writing While the Sun is Shining! Welcome to #SummerSnips. Let’s start at the beginning; what’s the (current) opening line of your current WIP? Remember to use alt text, and be curious and kind.

Dragons are not curious, but humans are. Even when it’s dangerous to be. #WIPSnips

Of the main characters, Rindle won’t be fully mature for another century or two, so not going to be a father within the timeframe of the story (dragons grow very slowly). Ela’s father, Isaac, was a fisherman in the old country but is a homesteader at the edge of the magical forest now.

Living as far north as I do, nothing is finer than the first day you can leave your #jacket behind. #WIPSnips

I love animals like cats, who are both ruthless predators of things smaller than themselves but are also skittish prey animals to things larger than them. In my story, the same applies to dragons. #SundaySnips

It’s more of a lobby than a lounge, so solidly into *vibes* on this one. From “The Incident in Sixteen”, the plants-in-space engineering disaster story. #WIPSnips

Swamp the drain!

Libraries! As good now as they ever were.

Based on my personal experience feeding chickens. The last line, dear reader, is a piece of big neon thematic foreshadowing, and not actually about the hens. The narrator is talking about the little water dragon hatchling. #WIPSnips

John Gruber (@gruber.foo) nails it: “But I’m a writer. I enjoy writing. Writing is probably the most satisfying and fulfilling thing I do in life. I enjoy picking every word as I get to it. I find a blinking insertion point in the middle of a good but half-written sentence to be thrilling.”

Catbus is REAL!!

Ursula K. LeGuin, "American SF and the Other," 1975.

Dr Serizawa in Godzilla (1954) is just every single tech bro in existence

From the very beginning of the story, while Rindle is still hiding in the henhouse and judging if he might be safe with Ela, based on how she is watching her little brother Rod. Surprised it took this long to snip a bit with a “dear reader” aside in it, considering how many there are. #WIPSnips

Unironically, I do really enjoy HFY, and that could make for some fun, expectation-subverting sci-fi movies. But oh my god, there are already a million scripts out there that screenwriters have worked on with passion, just waiting to be looked at. Start there.

Not a word I often have occasion to use, but I found this in the backstory of Barbara Soltis, antagonist of the short story “Security”. #WIPSnips #WriteSky

Watch to the end; they make a strong case. youtube.com/shorts/ohnEl...

Had to cheat a bit on this one, because while there are a lot of trees where Ela is, it’s a bit too wet for oaks. #WIPSnips

Vibes on this one. The human era has been comparatively brief in my setting. #WIPSnips

Yes! Ela doesn’t anything about the magical forest, but her dragon companion does (being that he’s a magical creature), but he’s secretive and tends to give very evasive answers to most questions. He feels it’s dragon knowledge, not human knowledge. Yes, they are inseparable (eventually literally).

Ela discovers a tiny water dragon in her hen house. #SundaySnips 🏳️‍🌈

Pilcrow mentioned! youtu.be/cSsyG2pE-GY?...

From Prologue, the backstory for Influence. Things are not going well on the generational starship *Arvad*:

Apropos of nothing, but the greedy and angry dragon asleep on a mountain of gold stolen from the blasted and ruined countryside around him, who wants and needs none of it but cannot stand to part with even a single ornate cup, is, in fact, the villain of The Hobbit. Totally unrelated to anything.

Elon Musk being the world's first trillionaire is like a trite anti materialist parable, because he truly is one of the most miserable people alive. He'd gladly trade places with any broke schmuck with a handful of good friends who laugh at his jokes. It's all he wants, and his money can't buy it.

The O’Grady Memorial Yarden!

Yes. The iPhone release is the only major world event with broad societal implications for the future that happened around 2007-2008.

Not quite nailed down yet because I’m still working on it, but I have an illiterate farm girl that speaks plainly, but is clever and curious so she asks good questions at the right moment, and a water dragon hatchling that speaks very formally, uses big words, and never uses contractions.

"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some (fortunes) come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this.“ - Vir Cotto (paraphrased)

Heartbreaking. While not quite a genocide yet, it’s clearly moving in the direction of one. The warning bells are screaming. Keep going north, sibs. I would encourage you to keep going until you move to Canada.

Meanwhile, actual criminals are out there, just openly doing hate speech or gloating about getting away with decades of tax fraud or releasing press releases about stealing $1.776b in plain sight of everyone. But yes, this one teenage athlete is the one that faces the legal system.