A lightning storm, a woman on the run--and a man trapped in dark armour. From 12/19 to 1/2, Chained Knight (the second Tale of the Underdark) is $1.99USD in ebook. books2read.com/chainedknight

For the lunchtime crew: Now, Extra Credit

Writers, this is your regular reminder: sometimes show, sometimes tell.

"Like most Americans, I never heard anything about the “Conspiracy” of 1741 in any of my history classes or textbooks."

The morning has been a mad scramble, and Boxnoggin had to be content with someone else taking him for walkies. (He's still a bit miffed.) But now, save for one small unavoidable errand early tomorrow morning, we're done with holiday prep.

Cosigned. Many story-telling traditions don’t include active protagonists. Demanding that they be closes the door on a world of great stories.

There are many people who simply do not understand the stakes and either understate or overstate them. The issue is not that AI will replace writers or w/e: it can't. The issue is that AI will make our working conditions significantly worse and harm the development of new artists in our fields.

Wouldn’t be the holiday season without someone running a stop sign at the four-way, provoking rage from two other drivers. I was glad to be a pedestrian waiting out of direct sight, I tell you. Don’t know how there wasn’t a crack-up.

big tech stealing and burning up the environment for AI while they still can't auto-translate a comment in my tribal language

This is a fantastic intro to Lilith Saintcrow's work. And a rollicking, assholes-get-theirs, cathartic read. Check it out!

From 12/8-1/1, several of my ebooks are 25-50% off in ebook at Smashwords for the 2025 End of Year Sale. (These ebooks can be side-loaded to Kindle, by the way...) www.smashwords.com/profile/view...

"The pond has been visited by hundreds of people during the past day or two, and they all marvel at the strength of the "goblin" in lifting or conveying the landlady over the high fence."

I am trying really hard to kill the cop in my heart and be a full abolitionist who doesn't crave retributive violence and also I cannot stop watching Jake Paul getting shit kicked outta him by that gorgeous man

For the entire month of December, my homage to blood-drenched, determined cyborg-assassin motherhood (not to mention Westerns and manga), SHE-WOLF AND CUB, is a Kindle Monthly Deal at $1.99USD (and CAD) in ebook. www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL48T5C

If you happen to be looking for bad redactions in a large set of data files today for some reason, there's an open source tool for that.

I’m making some real rookie moves this year, folks. Constantly underestimating the amount of paper

This. I have seen the following things advertised as AI: * A weight sensor * A physical thermostat * Markov chains (this especially bothers me because I did a little bit of fun generative art with Markov chains before "Generative" "AI" was a thing) * Procedural tree generation * Procedural textures

After finding an old crown on the beach, Vin Diesel must utilise his expert driving skills to outrun an ancient curse in... A WARNING TO THE FAST AND THE CURIOUS.

Now, Extra Credit

when some people choose between a weekly injection or daily pill to regulate their hormones so as to align their body with their desired appearance i guess it's no big deal

A lightning storm, a woman on the run--and a man trapped in dark armour. From 12/19 to 1/2, Chained Knight (the second Tale of the Underdark) is $1.99USD in ebook. books2read.com/chainedknight

For the entire month of December, my paean to blood-drenched, determined cyborg-assassin motherhood (not to mention Westerns and manga), SHE-WOLF AND CUB, is a Kindle Monthly Deal at $1.99USD (and CAD) in ebook. www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL48T5C

From 12/8-1/1, several of my ebooks are 25-50% off in ebook at Smashwords for the 2025 End of Year Sale. (These ebooks can be side-loaded to Kindle, by the way...) www.smashwords.com/profile/view...

"I remind myself that I’m not at the mercy of a mercurial muse; I just need to gather my tools and start chipping away at the project before me."

I know we like to lay all of America's problems at Reagan's feet, but may I suggest Anthony Comstock? I'd like nothing more than to go back in time and fist fight that bastard

“We’re not going to stop making people or humans, they’re just saying we’re not going to treat you as humans. And I refuse. And I think that we all can.”

I just uploaded @jasonparis.bsky.social 's recording of the segment CBS News pulled from "60 Minutes" to YouTube:

I believe this also works if one sets one's VPN to Canada.

Every ding-dang time I sit down to work some damn thing else happens. Might as well just make some more tea and guzzle it standing up.

A lightning storm, a woman on the run--and a man trapped in dark armour. From 12/19 to 1/2, Chained Knight (the second Tale of the Underdark) is $1.99USD in ebook. books2read.com/chainedknight

easy to feel demoralised seeing all these game company CEOs talking about genAI but remember a bunch of rich people will lose a lot if we don’t suddenly develop an unquenchable appetite for slop so they’re actually the ones on the back foot and have every incentive to lie about everything

I’m so glad we put so much financial and political support behind the tech industry so they can come up with amazing new ideas like charging you 23% more for the same groceries

“You have been asleep since November,” said Frog. “Well then,” said Toad, “a little more sleep will not hurt me.”

Hey peeps, about ten years ago there was a small business who specialized in ordering (trad published) books at wholesale prices for authors if they needed to stock up on titles for whatever reason. Are they still around? Not looking for KDP or Ingram Spark, to be clear.

...and I've scheduled a few re-releases for January, so Future Lili will be *ever* so grateful to my present silly self. I think this calls for another cuppa.

For the afternoon crew: Vigil's End

"But this chapter wasn’t in the hands of good writers. It was in the hands of a careless hack guided by a heretical pedant."

One positive (I guess?) to the current regime: I get to use the word “lickspittle” a lot more often now.

The final Kobo Plus fantasy promo of 2025 is here! Find my gothic-dystopian YA+ Dark Fantasy series* & tons more fantastic fantasy (incl. audio!) by subgenre: kobo.com/en/p/kobo-plus-fantasy-reads (*or search my name to binge-read all my books!) KOBO PLUS folks, reply your titles/graphics/whatev!

From 12/8-1/1, several of my ebooks are 25-50% off in ebook at Smashwords for the 2025 End of Year Sale. (These ebooks can be side-loaded to Kindle, by the way...) www.smashwords.com/profile/view...

Merry Christmas to everyone on Thameslink trains drinking wine straight from the bottle right now.

"Here are a few murderous nineteenth-century American Christmas "celebrations.""

I'm tired and crabby about AI so please share your favorite artist or piece of art? Especially if you made it. (alt text is goooooood)

The largest, most technologically advanced companies in the world NEED quality content to feed their machines. They have also explicitly said they'd like to crush IP laws. And, given what I've just said about Amazon. Do you think big 5 publishers are going to come out on top?

For the entire month of December, my homage to blood-drenched, determined cyborg-assassin motherhood (not to mention Westerns and manga), SHE-WOLF AND CUB, is a Kindle Monthly Deal at $1.99USD (and CAD) in ebook. www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL48T5C

...and there was official sunrise, behind heavy grey cloud because this is after all the PNW. Still, I almost felt the urge to cheer.

Pretty exciting to be here in the UK for the David Walliams news. We got Neil Gaiman earlier this year and now this one. It took years and years and suffering and reports and payoffs and misery, but in 2025, a few chickens came home to roost.

Vigil's End

I keep seeing this across my dash and every time I’m like “People think everything has been digitized?!” and then I remember that most people haven’t spent weeks manually feeding things into scanners that were already kind of dilapidated and temperamental when they were new…