Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #secretlife, aggregated by home.social.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 7
Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction?
I reckon it balances out.
I tend to find myself trying to shorten dialogue to make it more succinct, but at the same find I’m garnishing descriptive passages to add to the atmosphere.
I guess I also attempt to shorten sentences in general ‘co sometimes I do go on a bit.
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What is it with Americans and they way they think they can commandeer iconic characters from English literature and assign them a National Day under the American dating system?
According to the Yanks today is National Mad Hatter Day, which is completely incorrect, it should be the 10th of June to reflect the English price tag on his hat showing 10/6 or ten shillings and sixpence.
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#WordWeavers 6/10: What is considered completely normal in your story's world that would seem bizarre to us?
The way most, but not all, members of the magical community accept magic and the supernatural to be part and parcel of everyday life.
There are the odd few who find it difficult to accept magic as being real even though they are capable of doing magic themselves to a greater or lesser extent.
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My Word of the Day today is SCIAMACHY. Share YOUR words to describe this picture in the comments!
Sciamachy, From Late Latin sciamachia, derived from Hellenistic Ancient Greek, σκιαμαχία, skiamakhía, from σκιά, skiá, shadow, + μάχη, mákhē, battle.
Meaning shadow-boxing; fighting that is futile or make-believe.
The photo shows the inside of an ancient-looking, dark stone chamber with bright sunlight streaming across an uneven cobblestone floor strewn with fallen leaves.
The beam illuminates a rustic drystone pillar and the angled jamb of a low doorway, casting dramatic shadows against the textured masonry walls.
I’m not sure how relevant the word Sciamachy is to the content of the picture but it’s nice to come across a word I’m not familiar with.
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#WritersCoffeeClub 6 Oct
What might an inattentive reader miss in your work?
Seemingly irrelevant details are peppered throughout the narrative including scraps of dialogue famous from other works, lines from songs as well as references to both song and book titles and mentions of less well-known stories from folklore and mythology.
Not to mention all manner of supernatural creatures and arcane magical rites.
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Wilson Tucker, American author and critic died on this day in 2006.
Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker became well known as a writer of mystery, action adventure, and science fiction under the name Wilson Tucker.
He was a prominent member of science fiction fandom, who wrote extensively for fanzines under the name Bob Tucker. He became a prominent analyst and critic of the field, as well as coining he term "space opera."
Although he sold more than 20 novels, Tucker principally made his living as a movie projectionist and theatre electrician.
His most famous novel is probably The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970), runner-up for the Locus Award for Best Novel and a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula Award. In 1976 it won a retrospective John W. Campbell Memorial Award for 1972 novels.
Other notable works include The Lincoln Hunters (1958), where time-travellers from the future seek to record Abraham Lincoln's "lost speech" of May 19, 1856. It contains a vivid description of Lincoln and his time, seen through the eyes of a future American who feels that Lincoln and his time compare favourably with the traveller’s own.
Tucker's habit of using the names of friends for minor characters in his fiction led to the literary term "tuckerization" or "tuckerism(s)."
For example he named a character after Lee Hoffman in his novel The Long Loud Silence, after Robert Bloch in The Lincoln Hunters.
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#WritersCoffeeClub 5 October. What haunts the narrative of your current work?
Joseph, an ex-patriot Zulu sangoma and member of the demi-monde living in London, is trying to stop his people from being haunted by a Tokoloshe, a South African water spirit.
Despite his best efforts he is unable to banish the creature and has to call on his friends within the magical community for help.
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My Word of the Day today is CONTRE-JOUR. Share YOUR words to describe this picture in the comments!
Contre-jour, borrowed from French contre-jour, contre, against (in physical contact with), against (not in favor of), against (having as an opponent), as against (as opposed to, compared to, in contrast with), + jour, day; daylight, light; opening, aperture.
Meaning: backlighting (photography), a similar effect achieved in painting (art).
The photo shows late-afternoon sunlight illuminating an intricate network of moss-cloaked tree branches in garden setting. The backlit moss glows with rich olive and chartreuse tones, forming coral-like contours against shadowed bark. Delicate maple foliage and leafy shrubs frame the tangled boughs, while small berries dot the darker foreground, creating an enchanting woodland atmosphere.
Personally, at this time of the year, I’m raging against the light which seems to be perpetually in my eyes because the sun is so low in the sky…
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#ScribesAndMakers 10/5. Excluding unfinished work, what's the longest it has taken you to complete a project?
My first long-form work, a non-fiction book entitled Aquatical•Latin, a guide to the etymology of the scientific names of reef fishes took me 3 years to write.
A certain amount of that was taken up with teaching myself Latin and Greek, plus all the hassle associated with self-publishing for the first time.
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2/2
Bond has been a major influence on the spy genre since the release of Dr. No with 22 secret agent films released in 1966 alone attempting to capitalise on the franchise's popularity and success.
The first parody was the 1964 film Carry On Spying.
One of the films that reacted against the portrayal of Bond was the Harry Palmer series, whose first film, The Ipcress File, starring Michael Caine, was released in 1965.
The eponymous hero is a rough-edged, petty crook turned spy and has been described as both an "anti-Bond” and "the thinking man's Bond".
The four Matt Helm films starring Dean Martin, the Flint series starring James Coburn whilst The Man from U.N.C.L.E. also moved onto the cinema screen, with eight films: all were testaments to Bond's prominence in popular culture.
Recently, the Austin Powers series by Mike Myers, and other parodies such as the Johnny English trilogy of films, have also used elements from the Bond films.
Following the release of Dr. No the line "Bond ... James Bond", became a catch phrase that entered the lexicon of Western popular culture and has been voted as the "best-loved one-liner in cinema" by British cinema goers.
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