Today's partial harvest of strawberries. Heavy producing. Likely two baskets. 15 pots, but 4 are new and not producing much. More than we can eat in a sitting, and if experience shows, probably this will be daily through August.
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#PennedPossibilities 680 — MC POV: Tell us how you feel about death. Do you fear it? CW: Fictional character talking about death and violence,
[Devil-girl:] Funny question, but you are paying for my professional services as a troubleshooter, so I'm game: As far as I am concerned, I've already died—
No, I won't say more than I had run away and was old enough to pass as an adult—and he noticed. I died as far as I'm concerned. That I even woke after the attack was pure chance (or miscalculation on the part of my attacker) being dragged through the mud to be disposed of. He was bigger than me, more massive, had a longer reach, and I suspect experience.
I had had a sense of invulnerability.
Shattered.
In the moment, it wasn't about fearing death. It was instinct to stay alive that allowed me to plan, to resist with what I had: Mud, gravity, a thunderstorm, rain, and night. I obviously escaped. I may have killed him; I saw him on fire, but I didn't check. At that moment I learned I could fight, that I need not ever be made chattel again, and… I liked it. A lot.
As a bodyguard, and later revealed as a personage someone decided to assassinate, I died twice more. Both times I saved people, the last time my lover and the assassin, but not myself. Through more chance than skill, I got revived both times. Obviously. I have a limp that shows up when I'm tired. I can show you scars.
I don't think I am capable of fearing death anymore. Doesn't mean I lack survival instinct, or that I don't panic, or do things to put myself in unnecessary danger. Not stupid.
However, I understand death. (For the record, I was a goth girl way before I ran away.) That first time, and the subsequent times, I realized something. I was there, and present. I saw my first attacker before he sucker-punched me out. I was there, then nothing.
Disconnect.
Then present again.
One time it will be a disconnect. I won't even know, or care by that measure. It's not substantially different than falling asleep and not dreaming:
Bedtime, then morning.
Obviously, what's to fear? I fear more not being able to save people who might depend on me not to die.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.05.25 — How does photography shape your perception of the world? What subjects or moments do you find most captivating to capture?
Taking a few semesters of drawing shaped my photography and my perception of the world. When you need to manufacture the illusion of depth in a flat medium by hand on blank paper, you learn to see shadows and highlight, not just the subject. In my sketch and drawing class, working with pencil and charcoal, I learned to focus on the shadows and darkness in rendering volume and a 3D effect. In my color class, I learned I could do a similar thing using color, creating "color contrast" between the tonal qualities of the colors. I worked in pastels, chalks, and with colored pencils.
It was when I used my first digital camera, that I finally got to tie it all together in my photography, which was poor and snap-shoddy before. See the image of my Nikon Coolpix 950. A beast for the time. See #AltText for more details.
When I could take a picture and immediately see the 2D effects of color, shadow, highlight, aperture, and shutter speed, it changed my perception of the world. Whilst that camera was rudimentary, later digital cameras and then DSLRs allowed me full and simple manual control, to learn to see the picture I might capture before even lifting the camera, or even reaching for it. Not any Hollywood shtick where I see photo frames superimposed on the world, but my subconscious does draw me to focus here, there, and over there. Experience. Playing with the controls. Being able to delete any number of failures rather than paying for rolls of film and processing 36 images having forgotten what I had done to capture the good ones.
Don't read me wrong. I still post-process most images. And. I shoot RAW. If you're a serious photographer, it is a must.
I am attracted, as you might guess, to color contrast. I admit to taking lots of pictures of flowers and trees, but old buildings are also my thing. I am complemented on my portraiture all the time. Oh, right, and... Recently, I've been taking lots of pictures of the meals I've cooked, doing both in-process documentation and, having paid special attention to plating, the final result.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.05.21 /2 — Tell us one truth and two lies about your creative work
I told two lies about my photography, and here's the results, and the truth.
50% —I meticulously catalog and keyword my image captures.
This is false. I don't have the patience. When I do photo shoots, I download into a directory named with the date and the name of the photo shoot. If it's important, I will pick some favorites and process those into a WIP or a Final directory. That's about it.
50% — I rarely do any post-processing of images. The only way to become skilled is by capturing photos right in the first place.
Gah! This is absolutely false. Not only that, it's not professional, and moreover a recipe for missing the shot you really wanted. I take the National Geographic approach. I shoot the heck out of it, capturing hundreds and hundreds of pictures, then meticulously post process the few that I captured what I was trying to express.
83% — I use specialized and expensive camera for my creative work.
Most people thought this the lie. Nope. It's true.
I have a Canon R Mirrorless and a Canon 5D Mark III DSLR. Neither are "Professional," but a step down full-frame prosumer model. Add to this a 100-400 telephoto and an 85 portrait lens, plus a bunch of lesser but premium glass, and it's quite a specialized and expensive kit!
And. I rarely use it!
For the majority of my photography, I now use an iPhone Pro Max. Yes. Expensive. Not as good resolution-wise or auto-focus-wise, but for my purposes it captures shots I can't get with the Canon, especially low light and high contrast situations where in-camera processing works real miracles. HDR on tap. Yes, I shoot RAW. (Do it. It's worth it.) Night portraits capture the stars and the subject, hand-held! The flapping STARS!
I have a thing for stereoscopic wigglegrams. There is a built-in feature called Live Photos (Harry Potter photos). A sub-feature is Bounce. If I take a shot while moving the camera parallel to the ground a few centimeters, bounce creates a 3D illusion of depth. My Trees project uses this technique. I recently discovered the Long Exposure feature, which makes the water in coastal images misty while retaining the sharpness of the rocks and plants. Again, hand-held. No tripod required. Nice.
There are so many camera features and post-processing options on the iPhone, it's hard to find a reason to take out the heavy glass. Were I hired for a shoot, I'd would use the R and the iPhone.
But, wait, there's more!
I recently bought a Insta360 X5 that lets me take spherical 360º still photos. It has dual 210º fish eye lenses; the internal camera stitches to make 72 MP images that allow you to look in any and all directions after the fact.
No, there's no web player. AFAIK. You need their app to view that, but you can edit out slices, remove distortion, and create photo montages from the same capture. It is an action camera, meant for video capture, which I'm not into, but that's useful at times. I've done hyperlapses with it. There is something called Bullet Time (like the technique pioneered in The Matrix with dozens of cameras), but that's a future project. Early days for me. Took it on my recent vacation.Also expensive, though not as much as the Canon equipment. Definitely specialized.
The biggest annoyance is some editing features might be tied to paying for their cloud service, but I'm not sure, yet. So far, I've been able to export plenty of "flat" movies and photos. It may be where the web viewer is because it allows "sharing." Yep. Make money by selling something expensive and requiring a subscription. It's how our world works.
Two sample photos had further details in the #AltText.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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I editing is by far the worst part of the writing experience... 😂
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New garden window hobby. Scented geraniums. Lightly rub the leaves and you get a scent. The nutmeg one is my fav.
Edit: I purchased these from Taylor Greenhouse via post. I bought ten to take advantage of their free shipping. They all arrived intact and with sufficient moisture for about four days. The plants did look a bit sad, with plenty of dead leaves, not what I'd pick were I at the nursery, BUT they are otherwise all healthy and bug-free. I expect all will grow nicely. To a one, even the scrawny ones, have a nice scent with rubbed.
https://www.taylorgreenhouses.com/pesge.html
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.24 — What in your writing ‘dates’ you?
When I look at casual writing in sms, toots, and whatnot, I am tempted to say my use of correct punctuation and sentence capitalization. what dates me ain't grammar or vocabulary. i work to keep that contemporary, and my embracing Grammar B seems very modern.
Worrisome, however, is that I can't embrace the modern mystique of stupid being sexy or attractive. They can still get into plenty of trouble using every faculty and wile to the best of their abilities. My characters read books and tend to be educated and brainy, even when brawny. They don't get drunk. They don't follow trends. They aren't gamers. They didn't have parents that treated them as if they were delicate china and insulated them from the world and maybe falling down and scraping a knee. They walk home from school. They had adventures growing up, without adult supervision. They are not thrill seekers, though considering the stories they get depicted in, you'd think differently.
All-in-all, it feels very not modern.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#PennedPossibilities 679 — What was your SC’s childhood like? How has their upbringing affected them as they’ve aged?
She wasn't the type to listen and didn't agree with her parents that she should study and aim for college. Her parents were kind and strict, but when she told them essentially that she wanted to become what they saw as a menial laborer, they grounded her, got her tutors, and left her no choice but to rebel.
Later in life, blackmailed and working for the mob, she understood she'd been stupid and could recognize it in others, or simply empathize. Be there. Listen. Say the right thing that might make a difference. It's what led her to think she could be friends with the devil girl, who was far smarter than the rest, and in her quietness more dangerous. But her reflection on her childhood made the difference; when it counted, the devil girl took her along when she broke free from the mob.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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So, I took the bait and watched #murderbot. It feels like early #drWho meets Andre Norton's eerie Galatic Survey novels. No spoilers. It's fun. It's weird. It's cringy. This unselfconscious line quoted from the TV show watching MC in episode 3 sums it up:
Strife is the Galaxy is an inferior show filled with implausible plot lines.
There's plenty of Hollywood scifi, where the implications of the tech is ignored, for example how radio works and using drones to look where it is hard (or dangerous) for a human to go, etc. etc. etc.. Also, keep in mind dead animals stink and the MC has a nose.
I'll give it another episode chance…
#review #author #writer #WritersOfMastodon #WritingCommunity #appletv
#PennedPossibilities 678 — How important to your SC is their hometown or where they came from? (For example, are they proud of it, or are they considered a hometown hero?)
Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. She was born there, but never graduated high school. She was one of those girls who was interested in boys (with muscles) far more than studies, and had her eye on a trade. It was constraining. She was discriminated against because of who she was. She hated the place; felt it constraining; knew everyone wanted her to do things she would hate doing. Later, she broke some windows and rolled a moving van (not hers, but one of those that wouldn't hire her) down a hill. Whether anyone figured out she was the guilty party and whether she's wanted by the constables, who knows? She's certainly not a hometown hero! She ran. In another city, she got tangled up with the mob.
Now that she's been offered (and has accepted) a place in the praetorian guard (not Roman, but otherwise the same idea) and is training, she might get some press in her hometown. She's certainly not going to tell anyone back home. Definitely not her disapproving parents, for starters, even if they might finally be proud of her.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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Ham-fisted construction is my favourite 😂
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.22 /2 — How do you make a location you’ve never visited feel ‘real’ for the reader?
How?
I have the character interact with their environment. They encounter a green newspaper machine, put in a coin, hear the machine clank, smell the newsprint, then the coffee from the cart down the street, then salivating until it hurts, smelling a frosted donut then biting into the crispy oily maple goodness while talking to the pretty purveyor with blonde hair, before putting the back of their hands to their ears (with the sticky pastry in one and a cup of coffee in the other that splatters drops on a black sweater) as a fire truck with a clanging brass bell clatters down the cobblestone street pulled by a team of six white work horses with blinders.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#WordWeavers 2025.05.23 — Have you made up any swears or unique sayings for your characters? CW: Crude Language, duh.
There is almost never an opportunity to use conventional or "modern" foul-mouthed language in any of my stories because there is no connection to 19th-21st century Earth. In Mars Needed Women, one character just uses the word asshole; his using it comes off as very quaint since he's a rough character now in his early fifties (but still sexy), talking about how awful he was when young. There are plenty of other made up or repurposed words, but no defined martian "swears." Instead, here is May Ri listening to her daughter:
The teenager, her green eyes sparkling with the same fire her father's eyes often evidenced, explained what she meant in great unvarnished detail. The words "hypocrites" and "misogynists" featured along side martian swear words that made May Ri's ears burn. Mari had studied her father's "situational" rhetoric thoroughly.
In the Reluctance Series, I make up "words." But first, for those who have followed me long enough to have learned about the devil girl, she's funny in that if someone is about to swear, she warns, "Language!" In most contexts (mob, prizefighter, "princess"), whomever she says this to abides, or regrets it if they don't.
The following words may seem like cheats, but give them a moment to sink in before you conclude that. It's amazing how quickly a reader can get used to even nonsense when it has a definite context.
While these are day angel slang, Thorn Rose uses them without much situational awareness (she's a daemon). Day angels have feathered wings and control surfaces, double-shoulders and extra joints to make it work, and use reluctant forces to let them fly. There's also night angels—too many spoilers there—but day angels so far are portrayed as lower class. These "swears" come from them; bear in mind, these people are very human.
Flap v. as in, "Are you flapping crazy?" or intr. "Flap it all!" Not a synonym for sexual intercourse, but it does imply getting hit up side the head with a feathered wing. It serves the purpose.
I originally used in a teen-rated YA!
Flap and fluff n., NSFW originally involving wings and someone male, but you can use it generally for what's implied. Yes, the novel is "racy."
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.23 — Do you prefer to write urban or rural settings? Why?
Since I write SF and SF-style fantasy, it's usually in places with lots of people. It could be in a spaceship, it could be a city. One early story was rural, where the main character was trying to escape the farm by pretending to be a boy; later scenes take place in a coastal town. The latest novel takes place inside arcologies on Earth (cities inside giant buildings) and dome cities on the surface of Mars, connected by high speed monorail. It's not only "urban" but always "inside." The novel where the MC deals with the mafia, becomes a bodyguard, and ends up as a championship prizefighter takes place in a city modeled after Baltimore.
Why urban? Besides where the idea takes place or where the character lives, I know urban settings better.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
Had a sandwich for breakfast.
#BoostingIsSharing and #AltText.
#funny #food #photo #Photography #humor
#writer #author #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon
#ScribesAndMakers 2025.05.21 — Tell us one truth and two lies about your creative work
I am a fine art photographer as well as an author. I've shot events, a couple weddings, and am good at candid shots.
Check mark the two lies about my photography below.
Please boost for a greater sample size.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#photographer
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See reply for copyrighted fine art example.
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.22 — How do you make a location you’ve never visited feel ‘real’ for the reader?
If by location, you mean real places? Easy. I don't write that. Whatever possesses people to write about places that exist that people might actually criticize them about not depicting right (oh, that crossroads isn't *there!), I cannot understand what-so-ever. Too much work, too little writing story. 🤪 Horses for courses. 🐴
I will admit that one of the ways that I make fantasy city settings more real is that I use Street View for a real city that I model the fantasy world city after. He's a tip: I stick to the real world map, which causes the characters to deal with things like bad city planning, their destination being across bridges, having to take mass transit (I had gangsters taking a bus and dealing with a rival gang on a subway), and tidbits like not finding a coffee shop when you really really REALLY need it. Tip #2: Mention or describe the restaurants, government buildings, newsstands, streetlights, dead-end alley, etc. that you discover following that map (in moderation). Remember places stink. Works wonders.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
#WordWeavers 2025.05.22 — If you could magically write a new genre really well, which genre would you choose?
It's not that I don't think I could write Gothic Romance now, but I don't think I could give it the panache of someone like Phyllis A. Whitney. Yet. If I had the extra oomph, I'd be writing it, also. I may write it one day, anyway. Of course, I'd have to switch up the genders of the main players, with the poorly understood dashing yet tragic role being a noble woman or a dashing war heroine with emotional and battle scars, with the caring, sensitive role going to a young man that doesn't know what he's doing but will do what he can to save her, having no intention of falling in love what so ever. For shits and giggles, let's have him raised in a seminary.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSdiscussion
#PennedPossibilities 677 — What is your MC’s greatest skill?
The Impossible Miracle. Not entirely impossible since Rainy Days can do it. Her brother wrote the revelation. It requires singularity maths.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
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#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
We NEED more sci-fi like Firefly in the shelves... 😁 If you have recommendations I'm looking 😊
@bookstodon
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