@thelaughingmuse Thanks, I'll check it out. Nothing really against a general audience neighbourhood, it's where I started.

@SallyStrange Thanks, I'll have a look.

Looking for a Wandering.Shop invite - it looks like the instance I'm currently on is going to shut down.
Alternatively, suggestions for a good instance for scifi, spec fic, fantasy writers and readers.

Any help greatly appreciated.

#scifi #sff #amwriting, #writing #author

Reposted from @IanDSmith with missing alt text

(There's an automatic option for that on mastodonapp.uk, if not all.)

@samsteiner well, that’s a bit gorgeous.

Steampunk Bass Guitar Weekend Project Idea.

#bassguitar #bass #bassplayers #steampunk

When I was still working as teacher and writing part time, one of my colleagues was a physics teacher who would proudly declare he hadn’t read a book since he finished Year 12.
He was my special case. I wouldn’t let it drop. I nagged, and nagged. I don’t know what worked, but one day he sidled up to me and said, ‘Get a look at this.’
He thrust a library card under my nose. It had his name on it.
‘I thought I’d give it a go,’ he said.
He wandered off. To bounce some lights through prisms or stare at an oscilloscope, no doubt.
I left it. I didn’t want to pressure him. But I was worried after a few weeks because I hadn’t heard anything.
Then one lunchtime, a month later, he finished his salad roll and speared me with a look. ‘I’m up to D,’ he said.
He explained. Being a methodical man, and new to this reading fiction business, he’d done the only natural thing and started his reading journey with the authors whose names started with ‘A’.
From then on he’d give me little updates: ‘The Fs aren’t much chop’; ‘Liked the Js’; ‘Not many Qs, are there?'
He left the school before he reached the end of the alphabet. I often wonder where his reading journey took him. Did he get to the end of Z and start again at A? Did he work backward? Did he start reading by title rather than author?
I'll never know, but I'll always imagine him as a reader, out there somewhere, enjoying the Ws.

#reading #writingcommunity #writinglife #books

“People who criticize new technologies are sometimes called Luddites, but it’s helpful to clarify what the Luddites actually wanted. The main thing they were protesting was the fact that their wages were falling at the same time that factory owners’ profits were increasing, along with food prices. They were also protesting unsafe working conditions, the use of child labor, and the sale of shoddy goods that discredited the entire textile industry. The Luddites did not indiscriminately destroy machines; if a machine’s owner paid his workers well, they left it alone. The Luddites were not anti-technology; what they wanted was economic justice. They destroyed machinery as a way to get factory owners’ attention. The fact that the word #Luddite is now used as an insult, a way of calling someone irrational and ignorant, is a result of a smear campaign by the forces of capital.”

Ted Chiang in the New Yorker.

REMINDER: If you see abuse, don’t boost it. Report it instead.

Boosting creates more reach for the initial abuse, which makes it all the more worse.

Also, please give moderators a chance to respond to reports. During times you’re active on the Fediverse, some of us are literally sleeping 😴

Don't forget: Giving a musician $10 is worth as much as streaming their song 1,000 times on Apple Music and 2,500 times on Spotify.

@christine_broesenhuber If they liked the first couple they won't be disappointed.

@jaelisp Living the life!

So, just posting and adding hashtags for "AmWriting" and wondering what the equivalent is for music? Apparently "MakeMusic" has a few posts but "AmMusicing" somehow doesn't feel write ... Any thoughts from the Mastodon mind?

#makemusic #music #bass #?

I'm not one for "inspirational" quotes, and while this is not so inspirational, as a writer and musician, this one hits.

#AmWriting #music

Went and saw the new Guardians of the Galaxy last night. It was as fun as it should be. Probably still not bettered the first and they may have lent a little too heavily into the music being one of the characters, but still lots of fun and some very cool moments.

This is big. No #embargoes. No #APCs.

"The #EU is ready to agree that immediate #OpenAccess to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, w/o authors having to pay fees & that the bloc should support #nonprofit scholarly publishing models.

In a move that could send shockwaves through commercial scholarly #publishing, the positions are due to be adopted by the Council of the EU member state governments later this month."
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-europe-infrastructure-2023-5-eu-ready-to-back-immediate-open-access-without-author-fees/

#Europe #RightsRetention

Can anyone top this today?

I know Bandcamp is not without its problems, especially in the wake of its acquisition by Epic Games last year, but it still seems to be the best way to get money in the hands of musicians short of visiting the merch table after a show.

I also suggest you check out @bandcampunited to learn more about the efforts to Bandcamp workers to unionize.

I would be so much happier about living in a monarchy if after each bad year the king was sacrificed to ensure prosperity next year.

Monarchs might be less willing to appoint a Prime Minister who believes in austerity for teh poors if the royal intestines would be steaming on a stone altar in event of a recession ...

#StarWarsDay #MayTheFourthBeWithYou #MayThe4th #DoctorWho