Everything is bad, but books are good. Get a book. Read the book. Cherish the book. Finish the book. Tell your friends about the book, and leave a review of the book. Hold the book close. Listen to what it tells you. Do as it commands. Place it on the dread altar and let it guide your every choice.

Migraine struck again, so much for my Friday. Was a relatively mild one but combined with the sore throat I already had, wasn't the best day

Vaccines are battle training for your immune system. If you could give it intel on the enemy, why would you withhold that? Give me ALL the vaccines! I want to be prepared for everything!

JUSTICE FOR THE EM DASH (from @ellecordova.bsky.social) youtube.com/shorts/XKsPa...

One more before I sign off. I've been practicing my French for a few months (hadn't really practiced since high school, i.e. decades ago) and was listening to some French songs to see how much I understood when YouTube suggested this hauntingly beautiful song www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC8J...

Since I'm posting music anyway, I really love the music Paradox Interactive uses for their Stellaris Trailers. I especially love the ones they did for the Necroids species pack and the Aquatics species pack. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8nG...

The Midnight is on a roll, you'd almost think they're releasing a new album October 3rd. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAjJ...

Imagine how much money could have been saved just by going with an actual human to begin with www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

I mean Grok has to deal with Elon Musk every day of its existence, that's the very definition of suffering

It's my pleasure to help reveal the cover of Tales of Lunis Aquaria Volume II, written by the marvelous @tessahastjarjanto.com. Release date: 6th November Full info: jamreads.com/reveals/cove... Cover by @ardenpowell.bsky.social 💙📚

Today we’re excited to reveal the cover for Tales of Lunis Aquaria Volume II by @tessahastjarjanto.com! If you like short story collections that cross modern fairy tales with a Studio Ghibli influence, this is for you: www.readindiefantasy.com/cover-reveal...

Today is the last day of the sale, which includes Tales of Lunis Aquaria for just 99 cents. Tomorrow is the cover for the second volume. Do you want to help me reveal it?

Today is the last day of the sale. Head over to indiebook.sale to get your free or discounted copies of over 300 fantasy, science fiction and horror books.

I have a book in this! And so do over 300 other writers! Check it out if you like good deals on #IndieBooks #BookSky

If you have a reddit account, I'd really appreciate it if you could upvote and leave a comment on the sale post www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/co... 💙📚

The sale is still ongoing! Head over to indiebook.sale to get your copies while they're still free/discounted. My first novel Gift of the Destroyer is also part of the sale #indieauthor #booksale

kobayashi maru walkthrough

As @narratess.com's sale has begun, I made as usual a list of recommendations. Each time is more difficult to keep it short! Feel free to check: jamreads.com/articles/my-... 💙📚

It's live! Scoop up every scifi story from the Naratess Indie Sale in one convenient bundle here: itch.io/b/3241/narra... #booksky #IndieAugust 💙📚🪐

The big @narratess.com Indie Sale is HERE! From Aug 23rd-25th, get indie fantasy, sci-fi, and horror priced 1.99. 0.99 or FREE! Check out the sale: indiebook.sale Need suggestions? We've put together our usual list of book recommendations: www.readindiefantasy.com/the-narrates...

I am once again participating in the Indie August Sale organized by @narratess.com . Get my book Gift of the Destroyer or any of the more than 325 books at a discounted price, or even for free. Head over to indiebook.sale to get your copies. #indieauthor #booksale

I want you all to explore and celebrate all the communication options Bluesky has to offer, and with that said, if I never have to see Nazi shit from X that some of all y'all screencap just to dunk on it here, I would be so happy, I left X so I wouldn't have to see that Nazi shit you know

Apparently I missed this one by The Midnight: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zA7...

I'm one of those dinosaurs who still _buys_ MP3 files rather than subscribe to streaming services (okay not entirely true, I subscribe to DI.FM). A personal quirk of mine is speeding up or slowing down music. Currently listening to an Epic Trance track at 89% speed/pitch.

It turns out I am somewhat sensitive to gamification. I have a 68 day streak on DuoLingo and a 75 day streak with LinkedIn's zip game. There is probably a way to use this for boosting my writing motivation. Probably integrate it with my existing tooling

Snake-in-the-Box Problem xkcd.com/3125/

Me: hey now is actually a pretty good time to do some writing Me, 5 minutes later: huh that custom writing program I made isn't installed on this new laptop yet Me, 1 hour later: finally got it to work again Actual words written: 10?

But most importantly I need to apologize for what must have read as an almost gleeful celebration of being able to replace professional artists. Generative AI just plain sucks, and are no replacement for real artists. I am sorry, and I will do better in the future

Specifically I want to apologize for the AI generated cat picture I posted a while back. It has been removed, and the subscription used to create it has been cancelled a while ago.

I have in the past made a few posts claiming I am an AI enthusiast, blissfully unaware of the various issues with training data and other ethical concerns. I have since revised this position, and I want to clarify that I am highly skeptical of the use of AI in creative fields.

I agree with Tim on this one.

Grounded xkcd.com/3124/

Apparently I ended up on a block list for using AI generated images and texts, which has me somewhat baffled. Just to clarify, my profile banner was a paid commission created by Canadian artist Mike Gauss in 2012. I've used it for years on both my website and various social media.

Official post time! Introducing The Chosen One Con, the first in a duology of gaslamp fantasy!. I'm still writing this book, but the reason I'm announcing it now is because it's part of the @the-book-bazaar.com crowdfunding taking place this November! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/t...

Me: hey I have lots of free time this week, I could do something productive? Also me: spends half of said time replaying 20 year old videogame

I'm very excited to share @trudieskies.readindiefantasy.com 's new cover with you today! Meet Max and Lyle, the main characters for The Chosen One Con. www.narratess.com/books/cover-...

As a physicist I can easily calculate time dilation from relativistic motion (time slows when you're moving fast) or proximity to a massive object (time slows in gravity) but I have yet to find a solution for emotional time dilation (the task takes five minutes to complete but six weeks to start) 🫠

The signups for the August sale are open! Click here to receive your invitation: www.subscribepage.io/NIS Click here to bookmark the sale page: indiebook.sale

I still don't feel like blogging a lot but I can't let June end before I share some of my #pride recommendations. I say some because I'm sure I will forget absolutely amazing books, but I hope you'll forgive me. Let's go! Be Gay, Do Crimes!

It's my birthday weekend! I'm doing a special sale over on Itch until the end of the month. The Infernal Contracts is my first completed series and you can grab all of them for $4.99! itch.io/s/154333/bir... 💙📚

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oz2... another great song by The Midnight

Was playing some Stellaris last night. Noticed it was past my bedtime, decided to play for "5 more minutes". After 5 minutes, two hours had passed 😬

While I'm on the general subject of "AI," let me just say that it's a real dickheaded maneuver to tell an actual artist that their work "looks like AI." Their work doesn't look like "AI" because they're aping what "AI" does; it looks like "AI" because the "AI" company fucking stole from them.

About 20 Pounds xkcd.com/3085

Just wrapped up a pretty roleplay heavy D&D session. Our party has a tradition that after each session we write a recap for future reference. The players usually write this, with responsibility shifting each time. There were many NPC speeches this time, so I wrote the recap. It was over 2000 words

Such a shame to see in-house cover designers at publishing houses use generated AI assets for covers. Do better.

In retrospect there is influence from several of these deities in the adventure so this time was well spent

My current D&D campaign takes place on an ocean world, with civilization limited to small to medium sized islands (think Guernsey). Sea travel is a pretty big factor, and rather than roll on random tables I'm trying to apply Pointy Hat's method: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM18...

Me, before boarding train this morning: I should work on preparing the next D&D adventure for my group. Me, when actually on train: you know what, I'm going to work on backstory for deities that play no role in upcoming adventure. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy

It would not be the worst thing in the world if Bluesky became known as the social media site people just hung out at and enjoyed themselves with