#writing

See tagged statuses in the local bookrastinating.com community

There a man named Tim Boucher who gets for . He AI .

But then when I try to write and publish my own books with my own , no one seems to buy them. How does he get published, but I can't. He wrote about over 100 books.

2025.12.15 — What’s a non-literary artistic tradition which inspires you?

Not sure what an "artistic tradition" is, even when the adjective "literary" is applied to it, but with that clue I'm going to posit that I can blithely state that works of the Impressionist Movement inspire me—Monet and Van Gogh and others—especially in their fractal nature that takes them from, up close, meaningless blobs and dots of color to near photographic clarity at a distance, not to mention how the best of artworks abstract and distill the nature of the scene to its essentials. It's what authors do with words. It's how I write.

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




Ugh. Cut two scenes (might add them back in later, or at least, parts of them) and started the bar scene.

The 'ugh' is because I have been avoiding the bar scene for...a year? sure. Because I know it's gonna be crap until I rewrite it a thousand times. Also, it introduces a new setting, two new critical characters, and a new conflict. It brings together two people's stories into overlap. It's so much to try and it needs to not suck.

Starting it is progress!

How come people who like jaywalking always seem to be the slowest walking people on planet Earth?

They'll amble across four lanes of traffic and almost die because they're too impatient to wait for the sign, but then clearly aren't in a rush to go anywhere.

So they risked their life and cut several people off just to..... Assert dominance?

I don't get it. It's almost always men too.

They're being an idiot just for the sake of it.

There's no easy way to pick a project from the writing pile is there? Have all of these idea and stories started but I don't know which on to focus on.

50% off @ : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1795512

Nicole’s brain is slowly being taken over by a magic city. She seeks a cure, before the city can destroy her sanity and then eventually, take her life by replacing her mind. Racing against time, she gathers pieces of the city, hoping to find an answer among them.

@bookstodon

(Left) The cover of Jigsaw City, by Owen Tyme. The background is a futuristic city of sky scrapers covered in greenery, with water ways in place of some streets. The background has been divided by dark lines that cut it up, into a jigsaw puzzle. The foreground is a hexagonal coin with an indentation in the center that follows the same shape, with raised lines forming a hexagram in the center, which has a smaller one turned at a ninety-degree angle inside the hexagon at the center of it. The smaller hexagram has another inside it, a pattern that repeats until the lines become so fine and indistinct, they blend together. (Right) There's a pool of lava at the base of a rocky slope, with some sharp rocks sticking upward out of it and the following text over the top: “I’m immune to heat and fire. I can easily carry and protect one of you…” “That’s suicide! Ye’d need to deliver an army to make a difference, not one person!” “I *am* an army.” (Bottom) https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

The latest news about Amazon's book summarizing "AI" leaves writers in a tough spot. Today, I talk about the problem and what options I see independent authors taking. I've also got suggestions for what readers can do.

https://jallbarret.writeas.com/amazons-ai-leaves-writers-in-a-tough-spot

My is genuinely stable and good now.

It's strange, my mind almost doesn't know what to do with the stability and I always have a low grade nagging at me, wondering when it's all gonna fall apart.

Then it never does, and I start planning for my future with plans and a part time job that pays me more than I need, and then I wonder if I actually deserve it.

I remind myself that I always did. It was others who made me think otherwise.

So I'm now on winter break. Classes are over for the year, I just did my last market and the bookstore will shortly be in hibernation for a few weeks, there's no family drama on the horizon, and we've decided not to host ANY holiday get togethers this year.

Which means....

Yes!...

It's time to WRITE!!!

A dining room table covered in notes and maps for a writing project in progress.

Day 15 : How much profanity do you include in your story, and why?

Some, and most of the swear words are specific to the culture my characters live in (swearing by specific Gods, for example). A lot depends on the character. Some don't swear at all, others swear a LOT.

December 15. What’s a non-literary artistic tradition which inspires you?

Impressionism.

It's just a bunch of splotches of color. But if you squint enough it turns into a landscape.

Question because I can't find a clear answer online: is it Found Family if the bond was formed *before* the events of the book? Or if the bond is broken yet gets fixed during the course of the story?

I want to describe my book using tropes but don't want to mislead readers by listing the wrong ones.

2025.12.15 — How much profanity do you include in your story, and why? CW: Um, you can probably guess there might be questionable language in this post. You've been warned!

For those who've read my excerpts, or are aware of the grittiness of my stories, this might be surprising, but… if by profanity you mean use of the f-bomb or other unimaginative insults of the ilk, I don't. I don't use them. That doesn't mean my characters don't hurl epithets or use foul language. They do! They are human, after all. It simply means that they use their own words. (I typically write far future SF and magical fantasy.)

For example, Bolt from Reluctant Courier (for the Mob) is a day angel. She flies and she has wings. She uses the word "flap," which for her people is a crude masturbatory reference. It helps that it …