@storyflint.com I've just managed to complete a plot outline using your notes on structure. I have never managed to get to this point before. Are my pantsing days over? Undoubtedly not. But now I know where we're GOING... tralalalala.

Evening Womble! I'm reading Elizabeth Goldring's luxurious biography of Nicholas Hilliard which has the most amazing paintings of Gloriana.

Runalong Womble@runalongwomble.bsky.social · 23h ago

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading Pretenders to the Throne by Adrian Tchaikovsky. What are you reading at the moment?

Just started Christmas card shopping. Seemed like a good cause. shop.rnli.org/collections/...

Christmas Cards | RNLI Shop

Every purchase of our charity Christmas cards from the RNLI makes a lifesaving difference. The profits will help to prevent tragedies at sea for years to come.

shop.rnli.org

What a life!

Neglected Books@neglectedbooks.com · 2d ago

“Darling, are you sure it won't be too much for you?” Mabel Lethbridge’s husband asks when she is pregnant and his father cuts him off without a penny. “Nothing is too much for me,” she replies. Fortune Grass (1934) is the memoir of a woman for whom nothing seemed too much. neglectedbooks.com/?...

Last day for Barnes & Noble customers to get 25% off the Riven Kingdom in all formats - along with a great many other splendid titles - by using the code PREORDER25 with online pre-orders. #BookSky

Need to harness the power of Bluesky, so reposts are appreciated. If anyone here, or anyone you know attends Bangor University (the Welsh one) and needs a room for the upcoming year, get in touch. One of my son's housemates has dropped out at the last minute, so their house is one short.

Blue Sky doesn’t get much better than this. 😂😂

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 5d ago

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People.” Bertie Wooster

Publicise, publicise! If writers don't post on social media incessantly our readers and customers will evade their eyes! Selling my books in Birmingham tomorrow! Come and see me and many others at the Bookstravaganza, Uffculme Centre, Sat 12th Sept, 10.30-4pm.

Got botsplained last night. Someone pasted a long quote from Claude as a reply in a Slack conversation, and it told me I was wrong. Which I wasn't. The condescension was astonishing for a LLM trained on my uncompensated words. Just like being mansplained by an American tech bro half my age.

“It’s murder. Broad daylight murder.” An @aljazeera.com doc on Trump & Hegseth’s boat bombings. 220+ people killed. No names released. Many (all?) were fishermen… their families speak out 👇🏽 How is this pro-life? Why did 🇺🇸 media stop covering it? Full: youtu.be/Y57CfGFCf3U?...

I got a Maths O-grade. I ran a business. Numbers can reduce me to tears sometimes. When trying to understand them in French, fast, loudly, aggressively. When having to understand car tyre pressures and EV charging plans. Not innumeracy, just rabbit-freezing-in-headlight terror and bafflement.

Bill Bryson’s words seem appropriate to post right now

📝 We have new editors at SH Reviews! @kateem.bsky.social will be curating a monthly strand of reviews focusing on SFF at least 50 years old. Novelty bias begone! And @ajodasso.bsky.social is moonlighting from Poetry as our new Media Reviews Editor, ensuring films, TV, games get their regular due.

A Note From Reviews

We’re especially happy to announce some new appointments at the Reviews Department.

strangehorizons.com

Intimidation by social media against the RNLI.

Louis 〓〓@louishenwood.bsky.social · 7d ago

Over on X, the far-right British Patriots have launched a hate campaign against the RNLI They are recording RNLI volunteers in order to dox them, reveal their identities and publish details of where they and their families live These men are dangerous

RT if you’ve never had a tab of ChatGPT open, ever. (Or Claude and certainly not Grok)

Andrew S. 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🌈 🏳️‍⚧️@parallax2112.bsky.social · 7d ago

AIn't no AI here.

Looking for reviewers of Vintage #SFF! Do read the Strange Horizons announcement and get in touch if you have ideas for a review, a book, or both. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

A Note From Reviews

We are both proud and humbled that Strange Horizons remains one of the places where readers of SFF still know they can go to find regular, in-depth, and hopefully entertaining reviews of all kinds …

strangehorizons.com

This is a REALLY good issue. I backed a crowdsourcer after finding it in here.

Senet magazine@senetmagazine.bsky.social · 7d ago

Issue 24 is out now! Want to subscribe to Senet? It’s £36 for four issues a year, including p&p if you’re in the UK. Head to senetmagazine.com, where you can also buy the issue, pre-order Issue 25 or pick up back issues. #boardgamesarebeautiful

Read this and tell me it's not a lazy AI-generated 'review' of my novel sent to me by a #NetGalley freeloader who downloaded it and can't be bothered reading it. Nothing in it is specific to my novel. I curse her with disappointment for all the books she tries reading for the next, ooh, ten weeks?

Me! I'll be there! On TWO panels! Also selling my books The Shetland Witch, Stories from The Shetland Witch and Radical magic. And ... I'll have copies of Dilman Dila's The Blossoming of the Big Tree to sell! Fresh from Uganda.

PictCon@pictcon.bsky.social · last wk.

We have 99 people coming to PictCon2 the SF convention in Scotland (Perth) about Scottish Science Fiction. Do you have your ticket yet? We will be releasing the programme this weekend. Date: October 17th; Guest: @neilwilliamson.bsky.social

And here's the team photo from Old Meg Morris after dancing (and playing) at #Stonehenge today!

Next up in my writing procrastination session, these amazing candles! jdandkateindustries.com/products/lba

Late Bronze Age Collapse-Scented Candle

Finally, someone (us) has made a candle commemorating everyone’s favorite late 13th century widespread societal collapse.

jdandkateindustries.com

BBC report on the radio makes a point of saying the mood was “intimidating but not hostile” in Dover this morning, right before describing the massed men wearing balaclavas and blocking key infrastructure as shouting “Whose streets? Our streets.” I dunno, lads: sounds intimidating AND hostile to me

I was up the hill this morning. It was quite steep. We start with Bredon Hill, then the Worcestershire Beacon, then British Camp aka the Herefordshire Beacon.

Hi again @westmidlandspolice.bsky.social Is this the same man hitting another woman with his walking stick yesterday at the Birmingham NEC where Reform are having their conference?

Snigdha@snig.bsky.social · last wk.

Hi @westmidlandspolice.bsky.social, A physical assault was committed yesterday at the NEC Birmingham at the Reform party conference. Perhaps someone in your force should find this perpetrator?

Wonderful advice. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Losing a parent is a bewildering, lonely experience. Here are the things I wish I had known before | Gaby Hinsliff

There’ll be exhaustion, love tinged with occasional rage, even moments of black humour. But my mum would want me to tell you: don’t be afraid, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

theguardian.com

“Protecting our women” This footage is genuinely distressing

Dave Vetter@davidrvetter.bsky.social · last wk.

Content warning: Multiple men violently assault a female protester at Reform's conference at the Birmingham NEC, to the visible delight of Nigel Farage.

Pears.

What it's like trying to find a holiday cottage location in Shetland. And this just the main isle!

Well yes, it's all true. We admit it. #genius #storyteller

Elle Cordova@ellecordova.bsky.social · 2w ago

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

How a book cover evolves! See how Jane developed the cover for my novel RADICAL MAGIC, step by step!

Jane's Studio@janes-studio.bsky.social · 2w ago

1. The story of a book cover: Radical Magic by Kate Macdonald. It is a brilliant story. The brief: a simple line art and block colour illustration, using a colour palette to complement Kate's Shetland Witch novels. Unlike my dog, I'm not telepathic, so Kate sent a sketch to help me get it right.