#rsreluctancestory — Public Fediverse posts

#WordWeavers 2026.10.18 — Share a line from your WIP where a character is lying. Do they get away with it?

This needs context. The novel is titled Reluctant Courier (for the Mob). That Bolt is working for the mob is a gimme. She is the POV here, dealing with a managing editor of a magazine of the caliber of The New Yorker who is saying…

… "I showed photos of your exhibit walls to the chief and the publisher. They'd hire you probationally on just that. If you were sane, you'd quit your job—"

"I can't!" I said instantly, way too forcefully. My heart raced. Dizzy just thinking of getting arrested for that nightmare I walked into, I white-knuckled the armrests. I didn't want to lie, but I didn't know what to say until I blurted, "I am committed to what I am doing."

Well, that's one way of looking at being blackmailed.

The lie, the hiding her "day job," gets harder and harder to get away with as she becomes intimate friends with people and they figure out something is wrong.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#PennedPossibilities 1160: Sunday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “feline.”

This is a tail end of one of the larger descriptions in the series, almost Dickensonian in extent (maybe over three pages). It introduces the main series antagonist as almost godlike and seemingly magical. Well, she is the dean of the university (amongst other things). Despite some extra body parts, she's genetically human. Btw, the nephil (pl nephilim) are described in Abrahamic mythology, along with demons and angels.

#excerpt:

Rainy Days looked little older than Thorn, less than twenty-five, certainly. Physically elegant, but in an average not pretty way. Maybe that was because pretty was a measure of conformity; the Director of Home did not conform. The chimera had a pair of yellowed ivory wraparound daemon horns below the scalp line of her messy profusion of short cropped muddy brown hair. Their sharp tips intertwined above her nose, giving the impression that she wore a crown of thorns. She had two mismatched day angel wings, one large, blue feathered; one smaller, feathered red. To this nonconformity, add the legs of a nephil: Horse-shaped, seeming backward pointing unless you accounted for what anatomically were elongated foot bones that added a third to her height, all with feline suppleness from her hips to her toes, her toes ending in massive nails that fit tongue and groove to form a dainty hoof, polished in silver enamel.

To be in her presence made me instinctively afraid…

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#PennedPossibilities 1159: If you told your characters about our Halloween, what would they think?

Since I would be telling the "characters" about Halloween, I could avoid the triggers that could get me pegged as mentally ill—for instance, the supernatural. Halloween, if presented as the Day of the Dead, would resonate since the dead are important technologically and bureaucratically—and, no, I won't explain; spoilers. Most people who had lost someone or deal with the dead would enjoy the commemorative aspects of the day, as well as the zany irreverence of costumes and pretend, kids begging for sweets, and adults partying like crazy people later on, including bobbing for pommel fruit (something like apples). They'd happily implement the idea of jump-scare creepy houses as well since there are plenty of scary things in real life to fill auditoriums with, especially for anyone who has visited the forests of the Wild, without invoking the supernatural or paranormal, and, of course, the whole thing being totally safe. Pumpkin spices would be a people pleaser, a sweet variant of normally savory flavors associated with squash. I'm sure Rainy Days, the main series antagonist, would rush to make it at least a one-time novelty day globally. She would definitely find a way to bring in sex into the equation.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#EroticMusings 2026.10.18 (1 of 2) — Week 73 (October 18-24) Setting: Does your setting include sex magic, lustful rituals, or horny technology? Share an example!

(1/2) Though it is science fiction fantasy, and thus not technically magic, I will point out there are day angels in the Reluctance Series. They have wings with feathers and can fly, and, since they are human, flight presents to the reader as magic mixed with technology. Regardless of it being spoilers, it is not to the point to explain how it works here. Being as the angelic are very human—there are night angels, too—of course they bring new meaning to the term "mile-high club." Very few are capable, though, because the skill required to fly tandem is very hard.

Share? Okay. Part 2 is a CW'd excerpt. Lightning Bolt, a day angel MC, who named herself that because she can fly fast, finds new meaning in her name…

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#PennedPossibilities 1158. MC POV: Where is a place you never want to go, see, or visit again?

Do you know what it feels like to become conscious in the middle of something, like walking to who knows what destination, slurping bonito broth ramen noodles at a restaurant you've never flown to, or at home enjoying a beautiful man you've never met? Not a blackout from a drunk. Something far scarier, seemingly random but maybe stress-related, that I've become accustomed enough to that I'm no longer surprised, compensating deftly for in the moment, and definitely dreading. I think it's because I want to forget my disastrous blackmailed life. Nevertheless, it's a dark place I never want to go to again, but inevitably will do just that…

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2026.10.17 — What is the worst possible first impression someone could get of your MC?

That she's a dangerous punk gangster who would as soon pull a knife on you as smile.

Would it be accurate?

Actually, that would be the best impression she could make. It's a persona she projects for self-protection. She is a courier for the mob (involuntarily) and as such she has found that it is true that they do try to kill the messenger. Her attempts at fighting end up comedic, so she knows better.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.10.16 — How do you feel about people reading your works without buying a personal copy?

This question asks how I would feel.

Assuming we are talking about a for-sale book here. With the exceptions of a brick and mortar library loaning out copies they have purchased, or friends and family reading a purchased or resold-as-used copy, I would feel violated. It is theft.

It is different if I post free-to-read on services, like Mastodon, which I do for small works, but I retain the copyright and note that in posts. Were something or somebody to package and sell such work in whatever form—or train an LLM with my content—it is theft. I don't intend to profit materially from free-to-read, but someone else doing it? I would hate that.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2026.10.16 — What is one choice your MC made for the right reasons that ended up having terrible consequences?

In Reluctant Moon, Streak, the MMC, acts to be supportive of a stressed-out woman who in his eyes has reached the limits of her endurance. His actions lead directly to a war in which Thorn Rose, the FMC and his LI, becomes involved in its opening salvos. There is a loss of innocence all around.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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