We're happy to announce the official addition of Renaud Chaput (@renchap) to the #Mastodon team as Chief Technical Officer 🎉

He will be overseeing the technical direction for the project, overview the infrastructure, and streamline the contributing experience.

The Last Update
I completed the first draft of book No5 last night. A late session (for me - finished at 10:25) delivering 3,700 words and bringing the final total to a smidge over 111,000.

Regular readers will know that's a significant drop on the ~140k that my spreadsheet predicted up to and including the end of drafting Ch5. As you can see from the graph it dropped off significantly towards the end.
Main reason is another large dollop of over-plotting in the final two chapters, which I needed to put right to keep the tension and pace up.

But I'm not worried. I'm still expecting the final thing to end up closer to 125k, which I'll be happier with. My expectation is based on having a to-do list of 115 items picked up during the draft, and also knowing that I need to flesh out the relationships between the old characters and those introduced during this book. I have at least half-a-dozen ideas how to do that, and none of them reduce the word count. 😆​

But for now, I'll leave it alone for two weeks to "steep", while I catch up with several admin tasks I've been putting off as the excitement about finishing the draft mounted. I expect to start editing somewhere around the start of November.

For my stats nerd friends:
Elapsed days drafting 70 (cutting in half my previous record of 142)
Current actual run rate (wpd) 1600 (maintained across the whole 70 days)
Actual completion date 9/10/23 (target was the end of this month)
Number of deleted scenes 24 (but some extras will be added back during the edit)
Final scene count 148 (over 23 chapters)

#writing #SFF #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon #writersLife #writingCommunity #amWriting (soon to be #amEditing )

Labour makes key pledge to nationalise the Conservative Party https://newsthump.com/2023/10/08/labour-makes-key-pledge-to-nationalise-the-conservative-party/

At a dinner party, we were all talking about how hot the summers have been getting and how many times we’ve seen the sky turn orange, and I suddenly had this sense of foreboding, like we were living the first act of a disaster movie…

Good News Everyone

Journa.host is joining the family and will stand alongside Newsie.social as a leading news and journalism platform on the fediverse.

https://journa.host/@AdminTeam/111172238886482437

Rest assured, Journa.host will maintain its fully independent server status and current members won't see any changes.

A heartfelt thanks to @adamdavidson, @tprice504, @e_urq, and @siw who are sticking around to ensure a seamless transition & will remain as valued members. 🙌🎉

#journalism, #news #fediverse #mastodon

@David_Kelly_SF This is amazing

Jellyfish, with no central brain, shown to learn from past experience #science #biology https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230922110845.htm

So I will accept *backstory* as necessary in two situations:
1 - Where it turns out to be a lie, such as Du Maurier's Rebecca
2 - Where it is a separate storyline and the mystery is how it aligns with the main storyline, such as Bank's Use of Weapons.

But NEVER as a shortcut to character development. A character is not their past; they are their decisions right now, today, in this moment.

- More detail does not equate to greater depth -

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#writing #character

Mastodons annual report is out.

My main takeaway is how utterly little money there was needed and also invested into this project given its huge vision and potential. I’m happy some public funds flow into this project but given its far off prototype status I wonder why there was no idk 5m€ EU fund or 3m€ from some billionaire or whatever.

326k€ in donations is what, the wage of someone at Google making a nicer hamburger menu API?

1/n

From: @Mastodon
https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon@mastodon.social/111166379692730026

Mastodon, I love ya. You've created a space where an outsider like me can gather with other outsiders and be our geeky and wonderful selves. We've stumbled into this space after years of birdsite chaos to find respite, fascinating people, and all the cat pictures we could ever want. We have a good thing here if we can keep it. 💜

@matt Just wondering if there's any news on implementing full text search now we're on 4.2. I've ticked the box to allow my own posts to be searched, but I'm not sure 'ElasticSearch' or whatever it's called has been properly set up since the server updated.

Is this something you're looking into already?

Pixelfed users!

For safety reasons, Pixelfed will block DMs from people you don't follow. However, this is just a default option, you can change it if you prefer.

If you use Pixelfed and want to receive DMs from anyone:

1. Log into your account on your Pixelfed server's website
2. Go to Account Settings
3. Go to Privacy
4. Tick the box marked "Receive Direct Messages from anyone"
5. Click the "Submit" button below

#FediTips #PixelfedTips #PixelTips #Pixelfed #Fediverse #Privacy

This gave me one. (also, let's start the #glimmer to tell mastodon something nice you noticed today)

#MentalHealth #chill #SundayThoughts

Let’s sneak another new season coming soon your way, shall we? Like, it is #AudioFictionSunday, after all!

Season 2 of either, a dramatized #scifi #weird fiction / #romance from Open Doors, Closed Doors, started dropping episodes today. There are 10 episodes in Season 1, for nearly 5 hours of weird fun.🌕🦆❤️‍🩹

http://linktr.ee/opendoorscloseddoors

"Aster and Only are VERY different people, brought together by very different circumstances.

When things start going wrong, they must overcome their many differences to navigate two crumbling worlds- and their own relationship. A relationship that will end in a decision."

Get more info about this show and more at https://theend.fyi, and subscribe to the companion podcast at https://theend.fyi/podcast

#AudioDrama #FictionPodcast #AudioFicion #RadioTheater #RadioPlay #Audiobook #Podcast @AudioFiction @FinalesandCompletions

@Emmacox Good luck!

TROUT
TROUT
LET IT ALL OUT
THESE ARE THE FISH I COULD DO WITHOUT
SALMON
I'M TALKING TO YOU
SALMON

Let’s take the brakes off #ClimateChange , act 57: #Sunak vows to end 'hare-brain' #road schemes that reduce #deaths #AirPollution & #greenhousegas emissions. This is a ruthless act of #sadopopulism https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66965714

Realisation that she hated him dawned slowly. If he didn't put spent matches back in the box, it might never have happened.
#writing #AmWritng #iamwriting

:drake_dislike: 🛣️
:drake_like: 🚲

My son's making his own card game. He's 13.
He just started doing it. No doubt. No existential crisis. No faffing around for years just thinking and never starting. He just did it.

He's kinda my hero now.

https://youtu.be/elSwj9znHNY?si=GJ5IUPMBTd7rEYcq