[6 likes/6 mutuals] 🐉 Reading/Writing Fantasy 💞 Romance subplots/Shipping 🏒 Ice hockey 🎮 RPGs of all kinds 🎲 DnD! 💮Aloha Shirts @gunsmile.bsky.social @bookspotlight.bsky.social @havetsavain.bsky.social @callmerux.bsky.social @mcburnellauthor.bsky.social @marinestjean.bsky.social

10/35 chapters line edited in what I am calling draft v2.1. These first ones are going well since they are already once revised scenes. The end is going to take slightly longer. But good progress is being made! #WIP #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #cozyfantasy

I need roughly six more hours in each day to actually accomplish what I want to. Who can I talk to about this?

Reading your book aloud I'm finding is a great way to line edit and also a great way to remind myself why I should never do my own audiobook

Seeing a lot of very justified "kids will get it anyway!" posts around this but I don't want to miss the more basic point: *it is fine if kids read books with (healthy) sex scenes.* Like literally 100% fine. Not a problem.

In non book related hobby news

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate

The thing that always gets me is that the implication is always reading a sex scene = immediate harm. I guarantee the catholic sex ed books I got that told me how sinful I was for thinking about sex in any capacity did far more harm than any sex scene I might have read as a 12 year old

5 books to get to know me by: 1. Foundryside by Robert J Bennett 2. Redwall by Brian Jacques 3. Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne 4. How to be the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler 5. This Will be Fun by E.B Asher

A wonderfully helpful, friendly, and supportive discord. I highly recommend

I honestly thought the anxiety would be around deciding to even share my writing but I seemed to have moved past that and am now struggling with the idea of querying or not. I'm putting the cart before the horse a bit right now but I am absolutely a planner who needs to know what he's aiming for

Had to take a benadryl today for the first time in years because I was out of no drowsy allergy meds and having an attack. I am now literally barely functioning. Its taken over 10 minutes to type this. I fear what the line edit I just did on a chapter is going to look like.

Queer art is exploding in vibrancy right now and it's a shame you'll only ever really see it online because trad publishers are stuck in ancient ways. That's given fascists and other social regressives an opportunity to apply pressure to payment processors, none of whom perform due diligence.

Hey #WeeknightWriters I hate my first name so I usually just go by Schwartz, I like writing fantasy about people trying to be happy and all the stuff they have to fight through for that. My WIP is a cozy fantasy about a noble running away from her father to chase her dream about learning magic

The argument that many books with prologues are using them to info dump and should start with more relevant action is something I will listen to. The belief that you should just skip prologues is insane though. It's like saying you show up to movies 10 minutes late on principle. What?

The AI writing discourse has been aggravating but it feels a little like astroturfing from "authors" benefiting from selling AI. The flip side that is really concerning is the thought that we may reach a point were publishers (and maybe agents and editors) will be using AI to help go through subs.

I've seen people trying to defend it today by saying "No, no, I just use it to brainstorm, bounce ideas, I do the actual writing" and with all the kindness in the world I need to tell you: if there is a stage of writing you are not good at, you need to get good, not use the plagiarism machine.

I had to learn the history of the sandwich for a one off joke in my WIP, which turns out to be a complete subversion of the actual history of the sandwich. Fun times.

This must chart on the pantheon of top tweets

also like listen, I get that maybe this is just me, but isn't part of the fun of being an author is that you get to wander off into endless research spirals on whatever thing you're currently obsessed with and buy books & write them off and call it work??? WHY ARE PEOPLE SKIPPING THE FUN PARTS???

Haha there you are anxiety attack, you silly goose. I thought you'd been suspiciously absent lately.

I worked hard to become a writer. And I enjoy being a writer. I'm not here to let techbro robots take that shit away from me.

This. I don't like the "talent" argument a lot of pro-AI people use to argue for "leveling the playing field". Writing is a skill you practice, like cooking and drawing and painting and woodcarving and a million other things. No one is born knowing how to do things. We work at it. Its being human

#WriterShareWednesday When a young noble runs away to chase her dream of apprenticing at the mage's tower, she never considers that she might not pass the entrance exam. Far from home and refusing to give up, the only logical choice is to open a spell shop and learn magic on her own! #CozyFantasy

I am so anti-AI, I have stopped using word databases because they added AI. Do not make these assumptions about professional creatives.

Lots of tech dudes think the "idea" is the important part of creating, not the creative journey you take through work to give that idea actual meaning. Ideas are the easiest, cheapest and least fulfilling part of it. Giving ideas life through work, and sharing that work with others, is the stuff.

Authors with ethics and standards and morals aren't using gen AI and never will because we have stories to tell and believe in art - but boy, techbros and sellouts and cringy grifters are just foaming at the mouth to convince you they've got the map to El Dorado in their little sad slop machines.

April fools! My book would be really standard cozy fantasy, if not for the fact that there's a weird bottomless pit in the middle of the world #WIPSnips #amwriting #WritingCommunity #CozyFantasy

Good morning! Happy #WriterShareWednesday! I released a book yesterday! The Need for Dandelions is now available! 💛 It’s a MM Fantasy Romance! Uni link: books2read.com/u/meYkPE Itch: bit.ly/3N1RDWk Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/alexlarkspur...

I feel it is important to say that I am once again thinking about 2005's film Sahara and how unbelievably good Steve Zahn was in it

Star Trek figured this out thirty years ago. It's not hard. Even an old, drunk Klingon got it.

Didn't think these two would get their own card, yessss

Today I just want to offer my support to all Trans people out there. You are all some of the bravest people I know, and I will always welcome you. I have friends and family among you, and I want you to know you're not alone. Much love

<I see trans people>

Still getting some chapter 1 snippets from these. #WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #CozyFantasy

The older I get the more I am drawn to the stories of someone just trying to have more good days than bad

I often think about how much I wasted my teen/college years by being incredibly boring stylistically. It's a lot harder to dye your hair or pierce your ear when you're almost 5 years into an upper management job without looking like you're having a mid-life crisis and are about to snap

I must once again trot out the revealing anecdote: Disney execs were shown beautiful scenery from a superhero movie. They wanted to know what technology was used. They had to be told that the cinematographer pointed a camera at scenery that existed and photographed it. 🤯 These are not smart people

Finished book 6 of Dungeon Crawler Carl yesterday and its hard to explain how a series so irreverent can manage to also emotionally resonate on so many levels. It's truly fantastic.

#ChaosChat I am unreasonably happy with this one #amwriting #writingcommunity #cozyfantasy

this is turning out to be one of the onion's all-time classics

We're doing portals! #WriteSky #WIPSnips #cozyfantasy #WritingCommunity

Tonight all I managed to do was figure out how three different ways this chapter was not supposed to go.

If you aren't already a member of my indie community Discord, do come join the fun! The server has over a thousand members, all ai generated content is banned, and there's lots of great places for sharing your stuff and/or getting advice! Link in my profile 💞✨ [ #booksky ]

All the way back at chapter 1, a mirror scene that hopefully does not come off too cliche #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #cozyfantasy #WriteSky

It's my niece's birthday tomorrow. Last time I was over, she showed me a story she wrote about her class exploring a castle full of living gingerbread men. It's so popular all the kids are making their own stories in the setting. I hope I can be as cool as that kid some day

2 chapters to go, plus some scenes that need to be cleaned up after some decisions made at the climax that I wasn't expecting, and draft 2 is ready for line edit and beta(?!) readers. Never actually gotten something to the point of being comfortable with beta readers. Feels good! #writingcommunity

In a few months I will be taking over as DM for my group for a new campaign, to give our long time DM a chance to play on the other side, and I cannot describe how excited I am. The best of writing and gaming with friends in one.