#boostingissharing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #boostingissharing, aggregated by home.social.
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.16 — If one of your characters could ask you a question, what would they ask?
What's that three-eyed metallic orange slab you keep on taking out of your pocket to look at the glowy side?
How do you explain an iPhone to someone from an advanced culture that doesn't have or need electricity?
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
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#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1102: Do you have a strategy for how you approach worldbuilding in your WIP(s)?
I often start with only a vague idea of how the environment works, as predicated by what the prototyped character has to go through to achieve the ending of the story. I then start writing. As background, history, locale, science, characters, society, amusements, education, antagonists, and friends become obvious, I put in whatever is needed, then backfill it to substantiate their existence. After a while I get a world that feels very lived in. The Reluctance Series already had a cognate world defined. I'd accumulated details of the "magic" system I'd need to create, so that series has world-building by revision, also, but it started as a few givens as discussed above.
My world-building is substantially by living the lives of the characters and reporting what I find. I like adventuring.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.16 — How do you keep a character from becoming unsympathetic?
I don't. I like my characters to fail and do things they realize they shouldn't have. Sets up a mini redemption arc under the scrutiny of the reader, lets characters earn the reader's sympathy. Makes them more like you or I, more real life.
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#PennedPossibilities 1101: What creature or monster would your MC or SC love to keep as an unconventional pet? Why is that?
The only monsters in the Reluctance Series are human. Cats, dogs, chickens, horses, &tc. exist, but so far we've only seen horses and they have tiny cute stegosaur plates on their backs, but are still ridden. Cats? Dogs? [shrugs] No monsters, or unconventional pets, though. The people in these stories don't keep human monsters as pets, either, and attempts at slavery have ended poorly for societies that embraced the idea.
Stepping back to the incomplete Inklings in my Wands Universe, there are "monsters." The Red Dragon looks more like a house sized bat with a very ugly face, but when Wintereyes befriends animals, she makes them more human. Not a pet. She'd never have a pet.
It's interesting to realize my characters don't do the pet thing let alone want one that's unconventional.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory -
Why we can't remember things from before the age of five or so has been something I speculate about. As an author, I think that as we mature and our facility with language improves to the point that we think symbolically with words (e.g. we talk to ourselves), we simply lose track of our ad hoc likely purely visual indexing of our oldest memories. This article speculates our indexing fades as we age out of infancy, but for those ages where we are learning mavens does that make sense? Interesting article, regardless. Worth a read.
https://scienceblog.com/t-infantile-amnesia-hippocampus-memory-encoding-retrieval
#memory #language #author #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon #science #writing
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#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD »2026.08.15 — Featured creator Stephen Cox @stephenwhq
How do you approach writing a mystery? Do you plot it out completely, knowing the entire story, before writing any of it? Do you write the murder scene and the solution scene first, then let the characters drive the story and pants it until the two scenes connect and form a story? Do you write backwards from the solution scene until you have a story? What's your process? What's most important?
I ask this because, whilst I'm not writing mystery stories, most of my stories incorporate a mystery or two to drive the plot. As a pantser, I do a lot of writing backward and backfilling of clues as I discover them.
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photographer chef cooking
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#PennedPossibilities 1100: Who is the most challenging opponent your MC has ever faced? What did they learn from them?
Almost anybody would be a challenging opponent for Bolt (a day angel courier for the mob). She doesn't fight, usually; when she's thinking straight, she flies away because she knows they do kill the messenger. Even Shugh, her newspaper reporter friend is a challenging opponent. Bolt is attracted to the trans woman, but if she gives in… she fears she'll ruin Shugh's other relationships—but now Shugh's interested in her. Or is it her hidden identity? She's sure it's both.
The story is a cozy mystery, however. Bolt is an interstitial character becoming an MC, who is subtly influencing everyone around her (main and supporting characters from other stories) as they face off dangers.
The exception as far as not interacting is Rainy Days. The woman ticks Bolt off when Bolt is flying with her friend and lover Blue. The two engage in flying aerial combat… No, scratch that. They fly super dangerous, madly skilled, stunts around poor confused Blue who has to fly as straight as an arrow so they don't crash. Rainy Days ends up conceding after Bolt's defeat that Bolt is persistent, at least.
What did Bolt learn? Yes, she learns Rainy Days is dangerous, skilled, has her eye on Bolt, and knows too much for about Bolt for Bolt's comfort considering that Bolt is a criminal and Rainy Days rules ten worlds. However, mostly Bolt is ticked that woman has ridden her best friend, Blue—and Blue didn't share the interesting news. Not jealousy, it's trust.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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Black Hole Star = #JWT Red dots. Start #writing!
#sf #scienceFiction #astrophysics #science #Writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #blackholes
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.14 — Which fictional setting of yours would you most like to visit?
I would like to visit the "villa" described in Reluctant Accomplice. It was extravagantly constructed 20 to 30 years ago in the shape of an amanita mushroom using the same miraculous reluctant technology used to build structures in space, dipolar gravity. The amanita is a famous hallucinogenic poisonous mushroom that has a red top dotted with white warts, with white gills, stem, and skirt. The building is whimsical. Like from a fairy tale. Immense. At least a dozen stories high, reflective like a soap bubble, with moving prismatic soap swirls on its surface. Inside, down gravity conforms to the surfaces regardless of planetary down. The great room room at the top of the structure has the sky for the floor. When the abducted MC arrives, it late in the day. The gathering storm clouds are colored underneath by sunset and shadow; quiet, intriguing, otherworldly. Ought be spectacular in person. The ruler of ten worlds built it so she could disappear there occasionally with her exiled dragon lover. The chapter is titled Love Nest. Another of the villa's features is a hot spring in a gravity bubble, which is described in a short sample of my writing titled Ms George and the Dragon (https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110603595653290409)
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#mystery #thriller #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.14 — How often do you reread what you've written after it's 'done"?
"Done" is likely intentionally ambiguous in this question, so I'll answer comprehensively. I reread chapters that are "done" extensively and randomly when it's during composition of the work. After the first draft is done, I read primarily to edit. After edits are done from the editor, I reread again. After it's done been published, I usually reserve reading for the then current WIP. I occasionally reread published works I am not going to change, but will definitely reread something that's done if I might retcon the work.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#ScribesAndMakers »2026.08.14 — Our next featured creator differentiates himself from his "name buddies" on his website. Do you share a name with anyone famous?
I chose RS as I think it'll be rather unique and gender agnostic. My writer friends use it. Not sure if a publisher will require me to add a last name or not. Do I share a name with anyone famous? Well, the omitted last name is probably that of a famous late 1800s early 1900s French politician that my grandparents took when arriving in Ellis island. Beyond that, nope.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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photographer chef cooking
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#PennedPossibilities 1099: SC POV: Describe the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.
[Steamed Milk and Sugar aka Shugh:]
I never thought about it, but there are plenty of times I've taken a break on the first floor. There are broad windows to the street where you can see the newspaper printing presses rolling. Now employed here, I can watch from the inside the press room so long as I stay behind the yellow lines. That thunderous rumble! It's amazing. Dynamic. Alive. Mixed with the shouts of the technician managing the paper and the daemons powering the steel beast. The energy defines my dream of becoming a journalist that's slowing coming true. I had thought, in the beginning, that the sounds of dozens of reporters at their typewriters banging away the next edition was it, but no. This is better. The whir for the paper through the rollers. The smell of the ink…
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.13 — Do the arts appear often within the works you write? Which ones?
Often enough to say yes, depending on the work. Which ones? Examples? Oookay…
One series follows an amateur DJ from her late teens to her mid-twenties, as she grows into a singer, producer, and songwriter while, at the same time, she tries multiple times to save the world but only ends up anonymously saving thousands of lives—which ain't too shabby. The stories are full of music.
Another story has a teen using her knowledge of impressionist paintings and painters to deliver the "etchings" pickup line in reverse, as in, "Don't you want to invite me up to your apartment to see your…?" The man, who she describes as an uncle's age, wants to be her coach and isn't going to sleep with her for all her trying. It's all about them taunting each other, exchanging zingers, negotiating, at one time from his bed from which he tosses her out. She's an elite sophisticate, trained in the beaux arts and dance and other more deadly arts, who's run away, but the devil-girl is not letting on lest she be found and dragged back home. Her weird knowledge comes up all the time.
In the current WIP, whilst performing as a courier for the mob, Bolt is, or rather is rapidly becoming was, an amateur street photographer. With a life only encompassing what she is forced to do (fly messages) and what she can do in between assignments (take picture of people living a normal life), she's developed a Henri Cartier-Bresson eye for subjects. Using her professional camera (that fell off the back of a truck), she accidentally, and ultimately to her great distress, becomes a sensation, an up-and-coming in-demand professional, after some of her incidental photos of a disaster midcity are bought and become front page photos in a major national newspaper. Her art and unwonted celebrity (which confuses her greatly since she's a jock and no-way an artist) defines her character; it is a major complication in the novel.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory -
#WordWeavers 2026.08.13 — What's the most unexpected source of inspiration you've ever had?
For me, likely all the writing hashtag games (and response thereto). Social media, even Facebook which I rage force quit 3-4 years back, was never my thing, so what I found when a friend convinced me to try Mastodon was surprising. Not only do hashtag games keep me writing daily through dry as well as wet spells, one is responsible for me writing at all the novella Mars Needed Women, still in beta editing. Many are the times of the week that I discover something about characters or the world they live in by answering prompts, and recently I've been writing bits of chapters or tiny side stories.
Search from:sfwrtr #excerpt)
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#PennedPossibilities 1098: What is a relatively recent invention that dramatically changed the world in your WIP?
Oddly enough, it is a world with an economy based on human labor. They've had railroads and paved roads for centuries and air transport for longer than that. Now someone has invented the road locomotive and gotten it licensed for lading. It fills the same ecological niche as an 18-wheel tractor trailer, but has power wheels similar to the ones on a steam locomotive. Oh, yeah, it's steam powered and can be piloted by a single individual rather than requiring a dozen. A shiny brass-appointed example figures prominently in a devil-girl story that takes place 200 years after the moonshot. It is so controversial that transportation unions have called strikes where they have been introduced for freight carriage. The one the devil-girl rides on was converted into an RV bus. The urbanized modern world in the Reluctance series is quite unlike ours.
The tech doesn't show up in the current WIP.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#ScribesAndMakers »2026.08.12 — How often do you take mental breaks from your creative work?
I sleep, often daily?
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photographer chef cooking
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.12 — What's the last museum you went to? Did it inspire you?
San Diego Model Railroad Museum. They have recreations of important California railroads, including the famous Tehachapi Loop. Inspired? Yes, to enjoy other people's model railway hobby and to not advance beyond my small set that circles the Christmas tree.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.12 — If your main character had a comfort food, what would it be?
Probably squid, but I haven't asked. Bolt grew up in a forest on a rocky coast with high cliffs and her mother used dried squid for teething. It was an inexpensive common seasonal food, so she ate it a lot. In the story, she does eat chopped squid grilled on a stick. The honey sesame tomato sauce brushed on becomes very gooey as it cooks, turns a deeply delicious ruddy brown chewy treat that is more savory than sweet.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#PennedPossibilities 1097: Do you boost or share work from other creative individuals on Mastodon?
Take note: I boost author publication posts (not publisher posts) when I see them in my feed, as detailed in my introductory post. I boost interesting or masterful artwork and photo posts by the original artist or photographer (not their proxies) when I see them, usually but not always after favoriting them. Since I value my followers, I may choose not to boost if you are flooding the zone, posting nonsense, or posting something hurtful.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WordWeavers 2026.08.11 — Which shelved project are you itching to get back to?
Not scratching any itches, ignoring them best I can to concentrate on what's needful and necessary.
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.08.11 — When were you last a student?
Twenty years ago. I took two semesters of Japanese in 2006 in preparation for touring Japan before the 2007 WorldCon in Tokyo.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#sf #sff and historic #fantasy authors in the #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon, here's some light #science reading you might find thought provoking.
https://dino-world.com/17-facts-about-the-ancient-world-scientists-have-quietly-revised-1-77131/
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#ScribesAndMakers »2026.08.11 — Do you feel like a different person when you're doing your creative work?
I'm an author, a prosaist, a literary shaman. When it is all working, I become the character, experience the sweat bead on their skin, see an alien world through their eyes, feel their head throb, breathe their air, speak their words, and narrate their hell and heaven as they live it. I channel spirits of the who-could-have-been. I gets lost in them. Can't become more of a different person than that!
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#PennedPossibilities 1096: MC POV: When was the last time you got lost?
Kinda hard when you have these babies since I can fly anywhere above the city. [Bolt flexes her blue-feathered wings, inadvertently knocking a box off a high shelf in her teeny-tiny aerie apartment.] Anyway… When? Probably taking the metro midcity where it's all underground, but I only take it when my companion can't fly cross town with me. When he gets lost… [Scratches the back of her neck, glancing away with a sheepish grin.]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#EroticMusings 2026.08.10 —Week 63 (August 9-15) Setting: Do you create cultures, ethnicities, or even sentient species for your work? How do you go about it?
It shouldn't be surprising that I answer "yes" and "all of the above" since I write #sf and #sff stories. That they are spicy at times is important to the story, not an end in itself. That sex ends up being important is that, for most humans, it's important either personally or politically. I like making it a feature, with the above caveat, that readers will enjoy. That gives a clue as how I develop these things.
I generally want to point out gender inequities. In stories, as well as in photography, extremes in contrast often highlight specifics. I once created an alien species where the death of one gender was part of the natural life cycle, but humans marooned on the the planet quickly saw a technological solution, to save friends they'd met, unthinkable to the equally but differently technological sentients, disrupting every level of the alien and human societies. This singular detail let me address religious hypocrisy, morals, ethics, gender, overcomplicating sex, and violence against women. The story came together neatly, and it's another case where one of my stories inadvertently predicted something mostly below the radar at the time (1990s): artificial meat. Impossible Burger, anybody?
In a sense, what you want to show—act as a foil for what you want to say, or make possible to happen—gives clues to the culture or ethnicity you want to create. I wanted to depict a culture where patriarchy never existed. To a large extent, I made this work by making it impossible to inherit property, or power since it usually requires property. This implied family would be predicated primarily on who your mother is, and who her siblings were. In a pre-gene savvy world, it's a failsafe method that doesn't require one gender sequestering and oppressing the other. Doesn't create a utopia—humans don't work that way—but it does change perceptions, significance, and emotions tied up with gender, sex, and engaging in sex. Dramatically. Throws a monkey wrench into concepts tied to fidelity. Turns out culture and ethnicity write themselves when you posit something like this.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#Writephant 2026.0810 — A4. For the Americans, aye or nay on s’mores? For international peeps, what outdoor treat do you like best?
I say YAY!
The photo was from Kings Canyon National Park in June. It's where I learned that starting and maintaining a campfire is relatively easy if you have the right kindling. Keeping it blazing (fiery not smoldery), however, takes constant vigilance and work. I appreciate my kitchen appliances that much more, now. Tasty s'more, btw.
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#Writephant 2026.0810 — A3. Some literary classics show protagonist adapting well to nature, like Robinson Crusoe or My Side of the Mountain. Others show the survival becoming horrific, like in Lord of the Flies or Hatchet. Which side of the adaptability spectrum do you prefer?
This answer is self-evident. I come out of the side of good story.
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#Writephant 2026.0810 — A2. What books featuring nature or the great outdoors come to mind? And yes, they can include extremely inaccurate ones..
The question and tag imply fiction titles, and whilst almost anything I read that isn't space opera or urban fantasy includes nature (though not necessarily the great outdoors), nothing exemplary comes to mind on such short notice. As for non-fiction, I brought back Death Valley Rocks! from our trip (the fellow mentioned in Q1 and I) to… wait for it… Death Valley National Park. Stayed overnight two days in Panamint Springs. I recommend the restaurant (there's only one).
The photo is the sand dunes near Furnace Springs back in 2023, not this year.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#Writephant 2026.0810 — A1 . Do you like spending time outdoors in nature? Why or why not?
Yes, I like spending time in nature. I like hiking, but nothing strenuous. The spouse is the opposite, so there's the "why not." A guy we know reminds me of the Marlboro Man. He's the one I go with on excursions.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#ScribesAndMakers »2026.08.10 — How willing are you to take risks with your creative work?
These days almost anything I write will be subliminally subversive, mildly uncomfortable for some, yet without a doubt thought provoking. I use SF and SFF to cause social and gender issues to subtly creep into the forefront of the reader's consciousness—though foremost, I ensure it's thanks to a compelling uplifting tale. If my work got banned in some places, I'd not be surprised—only disappointed.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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photographer chef cooking
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