Also, today feels like a really good day, for various reasons, including: I have seen the cover art for "The Cloak and Its Wizard," and it's pretty great. I can't share yet, and I'm still waiting for copyedits, and pub date is TBD next spring... but definitely excited. #amwriting #urbanfantasy

#WordWeavers Oct 11: Tell us about a strained but important relationship one of your characters has. Jay's interactions with Laxmi, the team's engineer, are not so great at the start. Jay loves all the animals, including creepy-crawlies. Laxmi does not share their enthusiasm. #amwriting

So I finally finished playing #DragonAge #Veilguard the other day, on my highly non-standard setup. Pretty fun, liked the fact that you got to make friends with the supporting NPCs. Might like to play again some time... but only on very different hardware that's, you know, actually above min spec.

#WordWeavers Oct 10: Tell us about an event in your antagonist’s life that has a big impact on what they’re doing now. Given the antagonist is Mother Nature... let's say the Great Oxygenation Events. I don't know if you've noticed, but atmospheric oxygen is a pretty big deal for life. #amwriting

"So, are mirrored satellites a practical means to produce affordable solar power at night? Probably not. Could they produce devastating light pollution? Absolutely." 10/10 no notes theconversation.com/a-us-startup...

#WordWeavers Oct 9: Tell us about an event in the history of your world that has a big impact on the period you’re writing about. There's almost no discussion of it, but _somebody_ had to invent time travel. Also, in the era they travel to, they're coming off the Permian ice ages... #amwriting

My data point on my upcoming debut novel: I've really enjoyed working with my editor so far! The book is better now. Tighter prose in various places, unnecessary scenes trimmed or dropped, stronger plotting in the second half, and so on.

Well then maybe we let the industry die? Just saying

#WordWeavers Sep 8: When was the last time your MC felt safe and relaxed? Probably several days before leaving on the time travel trip. (Closer to departure time, they'd have been too excited to be relaxed; and after, well, this trip has not gone as planned.) #amwriting

#WordWeavers Oct 7: How does the world your characters inhabit deal with garbage? The time machine is set up to contain the garbage so it can be brought back to the present. There's a section for compostables. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Oct 6: Does your story involve any events that would make it into history books? Short answer: No. Long answer: Also no, but some stuff would make it into the time travel emergency procedures and cautionary tales. #amwriting

Another #book I've read lately: Strange New World, by Vivian Shaw. Nothing to do with Star Trek -- after the apocalypse is cancelled, an angel, a demon, a vampire, and a doctor are supposed to going on a research road trip. (It goes sideways immediately.) #urbanfantasy #fantasy #amreading 💙📚 🪐📚

Yet another #blog post, but this time, I'm here to complain about #StarTrek : #StrangeNewWorlds. And no, I'm not going on about "Four and a Half Vulcans." Or the Gorn. (Mostly not the Gorn.) Look, I do enjoy the show, but that third season hit a fundamental problem. rznicolet.com/2025/10/05/t...

#WordWeavers Oct 4: Choose a holiday that people in your world celebrate. What gift would you give to your MC? They're from the future of our world, so: Christmas. Maybe hiking gear, but they know more about that than I do. Maybe just a non-fiction book about some weird biology. #amwriting

A cartoon from my new book, 'Physics for Cats'. Out next week: www.tomgauld.com

The official database of works eligible for the Anthropic AI settlement has been released and, as I suspected, many authors are screwed. Basically, if your books weren't officially registered with the US Copyright Office you're out of luck. 1/ secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/results

#WordWeavers Oct 2: What do your characters argue about? A lot of them are around what's for dinner. (Rationing of the normal food and "can we eat that?" are key issues.) Plus an ongoing argument about how much science to do while working to fix the time machine. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Oct 1: Tell us what you’re working on now. What’s special about the project? Time-travel survival in a period _before_ the dinosaurs. So many weird critters you don't hear as much about. I am ~11.5k words from the end and I want to be done so I can work on the next thing. #amwriting

In other news: Is it okay that I want to write/edit 5 or 6 books simultaneously? Of course, that does not include the one I'm actually working on and am only about 12k words from finishing. #amwriting

Just upgraded my laptop to Tahoe. Ugh. Everything is annoying bubbles that take up too much space. I like crisp corners, I don't want my computer to look like my phone. (I try to stay off my phone for most computing tasks!)

That's quite the chart annotation. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I miss the days when the headline was supposed to convey the gist of the article succinctly, not act as a sort of desperate lying tease in hopes of a click

#WordWeavers Sep 29: If you could treat your characters to a meal in our world, what would it be? These folks have been stuck in the Permian for a while, so any normal food is going to make them all very happy. Maybe take them to a nice Thai place. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 28: Is your MC more likely to fight, flee, or talk their way out of trouble? They 100% go for talking first. (Honestly, they talk themselves _into_ trouble sometimes.) Then flight. Fighting is a last resort they've never really needed. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 27: Has your MC had any amusing injuries? Yes. They're insatiably curious, and have been since they were a kid. They've gotten various minor injuries while distracted by an interesting book or a neat animal. As an adult, they've learned (some) caution... #amwriting

Another #book I've read lately: Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz. Exactly the cozy, community-building sci-fi I wanted. I love all the robots and now I'm hungry for noodles. #amreading #cozy #nearfuture #scifi

#WordWeavers Sep 26: Does your character pay particular attention to any aspect of their appearance? Why? Not overly much. Especially under present circumstances (stuck with a busted time machine before the dinosaurs), they're more focused on practical clothes without too many holes. #amwriting

This is why I have such immense respect for the Tainted Cup books. You have the dual challenge of piecing out worldbuilding while also building a mystery plot that integrates well with it. Both the world and the mystery and the mystery-inside-the-world have to make sense.

#WordWeavers Sep 25: How is information preserved in your world? Oral tradition? Libraries? Hard drives? Other? The time machine has a good quality on-board computer, including a large archive of paleontology and archeology research. (It comes in handy when stuck in the Permian.) #amwriting

“This confirms once more that when it comes to copyright and its enforcement, there is one law for the rich corporations, and another law for the rest of us.”

On a given page, I often write tidbits out of order, so that Then, when I come back around to editing, there are all these sentence fragments I overlooked that need filling in.

I've been archive-binging on this webcomic, and it's a delight.

#WordWeavers Sep 23: If anyone in your world has imperfect vision what, if anything, can they do to correct it? It's the near-future, so all the usual things, though almost everyone wears contacts with built-in displays. (Konrad's the exception: he insists on glasses and a tablet.) #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 22: Is there gambling in your world? Do any of your characters participate in it? Yes, since it's our world a bit in the future. The core characters in the WIP don't participate -- for reasons ranging from understanding math to not finding it entertaining. #amwriting

I mean I'm glad we have data but yeah that feature is kind of baked into the models themselves, conceptually speaking

YEP

#WordWeavers Sep 21: Would your MC contribute to any discrimination in their world? Not intentionally. Possibly accidentally, but they'd be very apologetic once they realized it (or had it pointed out) and would try to made amends. #amwriting

Compaction in Deciduous Foliage: An Experimental Study or Maybe if I stomp on this bag I won't have to get out yet another one, yeesh, why do maple trees have so many leaves anyway

#WordWeavers Sep 20: How does society think about nature and its protection? The characters are from a couple decades in our future, so... pretty similar to now, sadly. One of them is a somewhat jaded climate activist. #amwriting

Inspired by the Torment Nexus, I wrote a #blog post about #ai in #fiction after reading plot summaries for a lot of bad movies (with a few thoughts on how it all reflects on us). rznicolet.com/2025/09/19/a...

#WordWeavers Sep 19: Is there anyone your antagonist misses or longs for? The main antagonist is nature, so, no. (Though Hoa might say it longs for the days when it wasn't polluted as much.) These antagonist questions are rough when the biggest plot thread is survival... #amwriting

"What Strange New Worlds has accidentally proven is that you can’t have episodic TV without a whole lot of episodes." @use-theforce-em.bsky.social reviews where Strange New World season 3 went wrong, and what it reveals about TV's streaming age: reactormag.com/star-trek-st...

#WordWeavers Sep 18: Does your antagonist have any specific fears? Mother Nature: No. Many animals have their own, distinct fears. I am beyond fear. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 17: What is your SC wrong about? Konrad grumbles in the first chapter that they're all going to die, which, you know, they are stuck in a time before flowering plants much less modern agriculture, and mortality is a thing, but I write more optimistic stories than that. #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 16: Share a snippet with a color in it. A lawnmower was an apt comparison. The short snout with its flash of teeth was surprisingly effective at inhaling everything nearby that was green and leafy. It wasn’t chewing. #amwriting

I'm tempted to mute "Vance" and "Kirk" as keywords on here, but then I might miss important updates about Captain Kirk and Admiral Vance from Star Trek. (The latter is one of my favorite Good Admirals from the franchise.)

#WordWeavers Sep 15: Do any of your characters create any form of art? They're kinda busy surviving for that; the clay pots they make along the way are pretty far from art. That said, when not dealing with a crisis, Laxmi is an SCA enthusiast who likes making swords in her free time. #amwriting

Another #book I've read lately: The Incandescent, by Emily Tesh. Magical boarding school, but from the PoV of one of the teachers. Absolutely fabulous. I love that they had the big obvious confrontation right in Act 1, and then explored the consequences. #amreading #fantasy #urbanfantasy 📚🪐 📚💙

#WordWeavers Sep 14: Does any kind of spirituality play a role in your story? For this WIP, only a minor one. The characters are mostly focused on survival. (Though, one character is vegetarian for religious and cultural reasons, which somewhat complicates the survival part.) #amwriting

#WordWeavers Sep 13: How much does your SC fear death? Laxmi: A fair bit, but she's young, so she tries not to think about it. Hoa: Worries more about global warming-related disasters and extinctions. Konrad: Doesn't fear death itself; fears the suffering and decline that precedes it. #amwriting