@sfwrtr @saposcat

I'm so behind today, I'm sorry I'm so late.
I want to add my thanks to you and to the community for making the #TTMD yesterday so much fun, and so very interesting with both, questions and answers.

@saposcat #ScribesAndMakers #TTMD
I thought today's questions were great, though apparently the magic of Mastodon federation did play havoc with whether I saw your question or not. I did end up searching the tags and making a tagged column in the advanced web interface, and each time I kept on sweeping up new questions

I think I got all your questions, but I still might have missed one. If I missed it, please tag it to @sfwrtr and ask again! I'll retag it to the hashtags. Don't be shy.

I wrote 20 main replies. Scrivener lets me estimate that at 5,000 words.

Thank you everyone.

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@ianscraper

Many authors incorporate their own experiences and autobiographical elements into their stories. How is it with you? Which of your works contains the most of your personal experiences?

I hate to admit it, and I know a lot of people would disagree, but I don't consider myself a particularly interesting person. It may be one of the reasons I'm so bad at parties. Small talk. Scary. They'll think I'm an airhead. My shyness doesn't help that.

That said, I will admit some of the internal dialogue in my 1st person characters greatly resembles the character of my own. (Oh noes, now people will really give me dirty looks.) I do cook; that's definitely in my stories. I am rewriting a main character in an epic fantasy to be a fine art and event photographer because I can relate. I've done it; I can give details. I've even gotten paid. An evil character in a published book was my experience of my evil† stepfather. It provided a certain verisimilitude.

I'm not going to write about being a programmer, though, or sitting at a desk writing stories, or exercising each morning. Too, blah.

To say whether or not any story is even close to being autobiographical, or having more than the most peripheral personal experiences, is impossible.

I am Walter Middy.

Well, not really, but you get the idea.

————
† He was evil.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@RMiddleton

I would like to ask (& apologies if it's been asked) how you enjoyed today?

I thought it was fabulous. I'd do it again. It makes me a lot less afraid of getting interviewed on a podcast one day, as I'm told will be important to advancing my career. The unexpected questions by people who did know something about me really allowed me to pull together a lot of ideas and discuss them. I got to write a lot, which I love, and avoid writing a chapter I really ought to have written and wanted an excuse not to, so that worked, too.

Okay, I also like the attention!

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@sifaseven

What's the most difficult thing you had to write? (Difficult because of subject matter or how to convey what you wanted to tell)

Difficult due to subject matter. My WIP, Reluctant Moon.

English is a difficult language. So many words have so many meanings, that if I state one thing, I will inevitably state other things I don't wish to state, so I will dance around some stuff.

I am probably overthinking the issues. The story takes place in a different society with different standards and radically different gender roles. Western society and the world overlay of patriarchy sets subliminal standards we all subconsciously expect men and women to adhere to, and judge them accordingly. In many ways the story questions our view of reality.

I end up getting blocked and unable to write periodically (tho it's at 71K in length), and I question whether I'm revealing to much about my inner self and what I'd wish would be, and not the shit that is. Of course, in these times, many people feel like heretics just for being themselves.

I was recently heartened to read that Robert A. Heinlein's A Stranger in a Strange Land was written two decades before publication, and he and his wife agreed that the work was way before it's time, and waited. I'm not going to have the hubris imply that I think my work is in that league, but when you find yourself writing something you think could be labeled dangerous, you get to thinking...

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@anderlandbooks

Dear RS, could you choose one among your stories that's your favorite? Which one?

I could. It's a fan fiction novel, however, and I don't want to mix this pen name (the SF and Fantasy commercial author) with the other pen name. The good news is the plot lines and the major characters are my creation. I am rewriting many of the stories totally in my own universe, now.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@johnyNocash

RS, you often post with authority - I mean that as a compliment

Wow. If you met me in person, the dichotomy would astound you… until I got to know you. I'm quite shy.

How would you describe the difference between your writing now and when your first work was published?

First and foremost, I wrote in 3rd person close perspective. Ideally, the narration revealed nothing the POV couldn't experience through their senses. I can't say I was perfect at it, but it got published. My grammar had issues, but frankly, it was often better than that of authors who wrote bestsellers. Remember this: Best sellers are not written, they are made. By editors, copywriters, marketing, media hype, and people spending money to make it happen. What my agent said about my writing is germane, however. He said I told great stories.

I want to believe I still do.

Now adays, I write in 1st person. My characters are the narrator of their stories, and to an extent the stories are about who they are in their head as well as their actions and adventures. I'm also less afraid of revealing their inner (possibly perceived as perverse or perverted) secrets, which, of course, reflects on their author. To the extent that I get writer block, it's what I fear other people will think about the content that stops me cold. If you look at my intro on the profile, I've a little mantra about telepathy there; in this context, that tract might be more interesting.

I've veered away from worrying about grammar. I'm a Grammar B writer, which means my high school English teacher would fail me. I write as if I were telling the story aloud, and if that means I end up rambling, halting, or making incomplete sentences… Well, that's the way people talk and tell stories. In real life. Makes my prose dynamic (except when I go overboard). I'll admit a lot of the composed Grammar B gets standardized during revision. I've some worries about THIS paragraph, so don't take it as a real example. Please. But you get the gist.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers 30: Talk to @sfwrtr

Aside: With parenting, I rarely have time to get to tags until after 9pm EDT. But I don't want to seem repetitive, so I have done some #TTMD scrolling.

Cheaper Q: Is there something you wish you'd been asked today, and wasn't? Include your response.

Alternate Q: I notice you include "author retains copyright" in posts. Did you have a bad experience, is this simply what you do on all platforms, or is there some other reason?

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@CA_Hawthorne

I often see it mentioned that you deal with “issues of gender.” What do you believe is your most representative, or favorite, example of that?

[If you think my answer misses your point, please restate it and I answer again. —RS]

I'd like to say it's my writing. As a shy person, it's nothing I've done physically, for sure, but I do fancy myself as the person behind the throne giving advice. I think my spouse would credit me that much, to do with my spouse's business. I don't mind being a supporting role, but that's not what you asked…

My stories often take a contrarian tack. At first about girls who fought for the privileges the boys had, but that's almost passé these days. My Reluctance Stories will ignore what we consider gender roles (and shame) completely, and seeing how it changes men and women will be the point. I've recently taken a different tack with my #RSMarsNeededWomen web-novel that has MC having an abortion despite living in a theocratic society, finding a husband, bearing five kids, fighting off men who view women as chattel, and becoming a engineer who helps an increasingly female Mars break free from Earth. Not sure if the story will end with a bang, since it is written and published day by day, but I think it works. Agency despite gender is important.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr @amPennyfeather

What is one thing you've always wanted to share about one of your stories/your writing experience that you've never had an opportunity to share?

I can't answer that one off the cuff, I'm afraid. But I will say that my stories are often a reflection of how much my mother's life made her a hero for me. She was a 1st generation American and a black sheep in the family. She was a bailbondswoman in the 60s (and did her own bounty hunting), participated in the civil rights movement, and even (she said) burnt her bra. She raised me, while helping run companies, often as a single mom despite multiple marriages. She didn't take shit from men, except when she did. She was far from perfect, thus so are my characters.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@youseeatortoise

Why first person? What's the draw?

CW: I rambled.

I think 1st person the natural way people tell stories about what happened to them. Personal stories with all the warts are the best, I think. If you look at all my responses to all the prompts, you'll see I'm telling my story, and to get meta about it, I'm telling you my story now. This is actually my writing style.

To me, 1st person POV feels very personal and I feel it is relatable by all readers. Most people don't go around telling stories that happened to other people (3rd person in a nutshell), nor when they do so, do they feel comfortable asserting what those people felt about those events, especially if those events are impolitic or sexual. Maybe taking on the role of the narrator, they may say how they feel about the people who act they way they do in their story—but that's another level of complexity and can off as hypocritical. Furthermore, I feel betrayed when a 3rd person narrator doesn't tell the absolute truth. I expect truth from 3rd person, whether it's from the POV character's perspective, or a limited or an omniscient one.

It's very hard to master all the requirements of good 3rd person narration. It proved so for me. That said, my #RSMarsNeededWomen is the first 3rd person story I've written in many years. I chose that because 1st person isn't exactly a compact or concise POV, and fitting a novel into 31 long toots is hard.

In first person, as in life, the POV tells their story their way, making observations and commenting on what they feel about that. Imagine some embarrassing or revealing situation. How are you going to tell that story starting with the word I? Right, you will spin it. 1st person is all about perspective. Ours. We all censor. 1st person by definition is unreliable narrator, but as listeners we've learned how to read between the lines, to detect the white lies and black, and interpret the spin. Conversely, people may also be confessional. Maybe the POV wants to be seen in all their evil glory, or is simply rude and impolitic, but isn't so foolish as to let it leak out in word or deed. The dichotomy between private thoughts and public action can be breathtaking. Who doesn't like some unfiltered wise cracking and unvarnished cynicism, especially when paired with external integrity?

I hope that answered your question.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@KurtHohmann

Do [writing and culinary arts] intertwine for you?Do you ever use cooking as a creative "palate cleanser," a means of refreshing your brain toward a creative writing project? Conversely, does kitchen-craft ever play a role in your fiction?

A good story is the best palate cleanser for me, whether that's an anime, a k-drama, a story read to me, or a book. I've many times thrown down a book and rushed off to write.

Writing then going off to cook to relieve stress? Not so much. It's usually hunger that grabs me by the nose and drags me to the kitchen.

Kitchen-craft, however, does play a role in my stories. I've had a future prime minster have her friends over while awaiting the results of polls, cooking everyone a meal of (essentially) goat birria. In another story, a state dinner shows the dynamics at court, what dragons can eat and other humans can't, and setups up the steamy NSFW scene that follow. Then there's this that I recently wrote:

Most days they ate at the Commons, but today she cooked vegetable soup. Raquel, who worked the farms, insisted if she wanted fresh, she had to pick fresh. They roamed the acres and acres of green fields set to specific Earth months and climes. She cut Napa cabbage, pulled parsnips, carrots, and leeks, shucked corn, snipped basil and herbs. The 14-year-old even "dressed" a chicken for her, but didn't make her watch or listen. She splashed it into a pot to boil for hours.

Reina, Carlos, and Adrian brought fresh-baked bread, the yeast fragrance melding with the spicy meaty soup aroma in the humid kitchen alcove. When Marisela (who went by Mari now!) arrived with her pod mates, Rufus and Raquel, carrot cake, sparkle candles, and her little sister—who walked holding her hand—the 4-year-old immediately promised to behave herself to join "the adults."

—From "Cooking" Ch 18 of #RSMarsNeededWomen

Eating is something all humans do. Food and meals makes for common understanding between people, paupers and princesses, who might share nothing else in common. Meal and food shows up in Quentin Tarantino movies for a reason. That I can cook, means I can write the stuff from experience!

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@Ink_Soul

Is there one story you'd like to write but haven't had the time to develop it yet?

Okay. Let's get meta with this.

My WIP Reluctance Series is that set of stories, though it wasn't "time" that was the factor in me never writing it. I came up with the idea in 1987 or 88. I always wanted to write a story devoid of patriarchy and always thought it as impossible to do as being an English speaker writing without using English. The concepts and behaviors seemed indelible.

Wrong.

It's risky. It violates societal norms. Ours. But I am doing it.

What becomes of men and women if life isn't about property and the sexual control necessary to insure a baby is genetically his?

My #RSMarsNeededWomen web-novel is a lite version of the concept with a totally different approach. It's an erosion of the concept until it's meaningless.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

@saposcat @elysegrasso

I think this is also something else. @Ink_Soul tagged me but the handle isn't a link and it didn't show up in my mentions. It was only when I created a search column on #ttmd and #scribesAndMakers that I saw that post! I'm so sorry if it seems I ignored anybody!

Please do a search on #TTMD #ScribesAndMakers to see all the posts, or make an advanced interface column.