https://stephencox.substack.com/p/the-crooked-mediums-guide-to-murder

A Spooky Victorian Mystery

London 1881. Two older women, lovers living off their spiritualist scam; a beautiful young Lady lost in grief; and a powerful man concealing a hideous crime. Can this outsider couple stop a murder?

Joyful news. I started on this book in 2021 and THE CROOKED MEDIUM’s GUIDE TO MURDER now exists as a final text. I will self-publish in the autumn and this feels massive. And the first advance comments are excellent.

#bookstodon #books# writing #sapphic #Victorian

#WordWeavers June 25. Do any of your characters value being well-dressed?

Mrs Ashton is a medium, a performer and confidence trickster, and she performs as wealthier and more socially connected than she truly is. As such how she dresses, speaks and even acts are essential to her life. She also has to wear disguises which need to be done well to work.

She dabbles with the Aesthetic movement, for the right audience.

#amwriting #writingcommunity #writing

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

#writersCoffeeClub 6/26: How much of the finished work do you need to have in mind before you start writing?

I often write a beginning before I know whether it is a novel, then I have to figure out an ending and stakes. That's enough to keep writing.

By beginning main characters, setting, some drama

Please share widely! Midsummer Madness Clearance sale

Acclaimed Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds, - save 20-40% post free (UK)

"Riveting, compelling, and emotionally charged = a page-turner I loved"

Reclaim the dining room for the new book!

#SFF #books #bookstodon #amwriting

available in other formats, and outside UK. This is my personal stock clearance

https://stephencox.co.uk/buy-the-books/

@thatwriterguy.com

Friend I know swears by it. I'll ask her

https://stephencox.co.uk/buy-the-books/

Please share widely! Midsummer Madness Clearance sale

Acclaimed Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds, - save 20-40% post free (UK)

"Riveting, compelling, and emotionally charged = a page-turner I loved"

Reclaim the dining room for the new book!

#SFF #books #bookstodon #amwriting

available in other formats, and outside UK. This is my personal stock clearance

#WordWeavers June 25. Do any of your characters value being well-dressed?

Mrs Ashton is a medium, a performer and confidence trickster, and she performs as wealthier and more socially connected than she truly is. As such how she dresses, speaks and even acts are essential to her life. She also has to wear disguises which need to be done well to work.

She dabbles with the Aesthetic movement, for the right audience.

#amwriting #writingcommunity #writing

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

Lets be clear; changes to tax laws do not 'force' the wealthy to leave the country.

The wealthy are choosing not to increase their contribution to the country they are (currently at least) living in.

Sure that is a choice they are free to make, but its their choice; no-one is forcing them into anything.

They already have enough money, so refusing to pay higher taxes is a choice about what they wish to support in their (for now) home country!

They are not victims!

#taxes #politics

"When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus" -- Adapted by Elizabeth Bangs from a Turkish proverb

(Attribution edited)

Coming soon to the blog - rites, awards, weirdness, flowers, buffalo and bees

#PennedPossibilities 707 — Do you have any characters that you can relate to on a personal level?

All the protags, i.e. POV characters. I couldn't write them as intimately as I do if I couldn't relate.

#NMPP #NMPrompts

@RunalongWomble

I am reading the latest Fission from the
@bsfa.bsky.social
and enjoying all the stories in it which are not by me. Immortality, death, human modification seem big themes, as well as climate disaster.

Shows the strength of the form, where ideas can be played with at modest length.

#SFFH #bookstodon #SF

@cstross

There was no shortage of Gestapo and SS officers who had no problem switching between brutalizing their victims during their day jobs, and into the role of "loving family man" in the evenings and on weekends.

Their kids only started asking: "What did you do during the Third Reich" when they became adults, studied at universities, and were exposed to more diverse points of views. This was a huge part of what fueled the student protests in Germany in the 1960s.

Until then, most children will probably believe that their ICE father is a "good man" who "stops bad people".

@RunalongWomble

I am reading the latest Fission from the
@bsfa.bsky.social
and enjoying all the stories in it which are not by me. Immortality, death, human modification seem big themes, as well as climate disaster.

Shows the strength of the form, where ideas can be played with at modest length.

#SFFH #bookstodon #SF

I did write a transhumanism story involving a group of humans and aliens who became a group consciousness and I did stop the story at that point because I was not sure I wanted to go further.

#PennedPossibilities 707 — Do you have any characters that you can relate to on a personal level?

Hard to write a character that you don't relate to in some manner. Certainly I need to understand my antagonists. I mean, when I wrote hivemind killer robots from space, I didn't relate to them because they were a force not a person.

#amwriting #writingcommunity #writing

#writerscoffeeclub June 21: Which facets of your writing only work in the language in which it was written?

I have schoolboy French otherwise I think speak and write in English, and it's hard for me to see what in my work would be tricky to translate.

I can tell a bad translation of Je Ne Regret Rien from a good one though.