Login

Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Only available when logged in.
social.lol is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
social.lol is a lighthearted social hangout for the omg.lol community.

Administered by:

Server stats:

848
active users

social.lol: AboutProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.3.7

#sciencefiction

152 posts120 participants11 posts today
Public *
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#PennedPossibilities 643 — How does your SC respond to the quiet? Do they take comfort in silence, or seek to fill the void with noise?

Bolt, from the Reluctance Series during the Interstellar era, was blackmailed (framed for a murder) by the mob into being a messenger for a decade. She has wings. She had to be silent, sometimes a detective. It's not like she hung around mobsters, or wanted to be pulled in deeper. Nor could she confide in anyone, lest they get targeted by association. Worse, she never got paid much.

Eventually, she found a camera that fell off the back of a wagon. She got into street photography. One time, when she happened to be where news happened (too often in her profession), she had taken a few photos when a reporter's camera got slammed into a wall.

He asked if she'd sell him photos. Turned out she's pretty good.

She often gets her photos into her world's version of The New Yorker and The New York Times and is also a part time stringer. As you can guess, she wanders the cold dank unfriendly streets when she can be free (makes it harder to be given "assignments"), and dispels the dangerous depressing quiet that might otherwise seep in.

Her love affair with B&W street photography does not wane when she is freed from the mob, pardoned, and begins train to become a praetorian. Sure her subjects are different, and her wandering happens between trainings and bodyguard duties, but she has the knack of using a rangefinder without being noticed (think Leica).

Edit: This actually gave me detective noir story idea...

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

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

Public *
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2504.14 — Would you enjoy living in a creative village/house/shared accommodation? Or do you already?

The question did not ask if I had enjoyed living in a creative space (past tense).

I did.

I attended the Clarion Writers Workshop (Clarion West). It's for Speculative, SF, Fantasy, and (I think) Horror Genre writing. It's for professionals or professional wannabes. You have to submit work to qualify.

It was literally (pun intended) the best six weeks of my life as an author.

Don't get me wrong, selling is fabulous, but the feeling lasts only a moment (like sex). The sense of community and actually living the life of an author while attending the workshop cannot be beat.

We lived together (except for a few locals) in the dorms of a college in downtown Seattle, cooked together, used the showers together, had our own floor to ourselves. We spent many hours in the common areas gabbing and blue-skying. Mostly, however, we wrote.

Then read what others wrote.

Then critiqued. Learned how to do that well, learned how to anticipate certain critiques from specific authors and to fix our stuff (assuming we thought we need to), learned how to have a hard shell by accepting criticism that helped us, and rejecting what didn't. Largely, we also helped each other through our fears.

Week days we had a guest lecturer who was a professional writer or editor. One day a week, we attended readings, usually at Powell's, by a local writer, though once at an author's place (I think that was for Octavia Butler).

The feeling of community and support was amazing. One time I wrote a 15,000 word novella in 15 hours for critique the next day. That was my max output per hour or per day ever.

I never felt burnt out. Those six weeks seemed to compact six months of life into a short span. When I returned home, I barely recognized my surroundings or old life. Ask my spouse!

Highly Recommended

PS: After reading other responses I want to qualify that I am cripplingly shy, introverted, and write fiction that doesn't go much with my persona. Nobody knew my gender despite an enormous email thread until I arrived, and I got the nickname Ambiguous Spice (and Oblivious Spice) for a reason. I warmed quickly because these were people like me. Kinda weird, some introverted, some extroverted. All in love with words and stories. I warmed up quickly.

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

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion #Clarion #ClarionWest #critique #critiquegroupsforwriters #actuallyAutistic

Public *
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#PennedPossibilities 0.044 — What is the most altruistic thing your MC has ever done?

May Ri is neither altruistic nor is she transactional. For a woman who is always fighting against the paternalistic rules placed upon her, she pretty much does what she is told (but not always!). Her choice of friends and her prior decisions shaped her actions, which greatly helped the initial generations of native martians. She's great at engineering design and is especially talented at reverse engineering tech if given plenty of electronic and optical scopes, and other tools.What she did for Mars will be noted as foundational as much as it was politically ancillary, except for the last thing. She often volunteered in the crèche domes taking care of 3-6 year olds, but she liked that. Having been oppressed and mistrusted as a girl, she let her five daughters make their own choices, which is arguably how they grew up to be a force in their own right. She mentored and apprenticed hundreds of young martian women (and a few boys) in engineering and design.

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

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen

Public
Paul Semel
Some people think we're living in a "Matrix"-like computer simulation. In Daryl Gregory's humorous cyberpunk science fiction novel "When We Were Real," they know they are. But that's not why BFFs J.P. and Dulin are taking a bus trip. To learn more about this sci-fi novel, check out this exclusive interview.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-when-we-were-real-author-daryl-gregory/
📖💻🚌
. . . . . . . . . . .
#DarylGregory #DarylGregoryInterview #DarylGregoryWhenWeWereReal #DarylGregoryWhenWeWereRealInterview #Books #Reading #AuthorInterview #AuthorInterviews #BookTok #ScienceFiction #SciFi #SpeculativeFiction #SciFiBooks #Cyberpunk #RoadTrip
Some people think we're living in a "Matrix"-like computer simulation. In Daryl Gregory's humorous cyberpunk science fiction novel "When We Were Real," they know they are. But that's not why BFFs J.P. and Dulin are taking a bus trip. To learn more about this sci-fi novel, check out this exclusive interview.
#roadtrip
ExploreLive feeds
About