Hot take: Christianity exists on a continuum from Dolly Parton Christians to David Duke Christians. The world needs more Dolly Parton Christians. In the US, the David Duke Christians have successfully taken control of the Christian brand.

Authors/editors/publishers! Got a batch of ISBNs from Bowker. Used one for a book. Amazon and Ingram bounced it claiming the ISBN had been used for another book (I checked, it hadn’t). Anyone ever see this before? Any solution other than using a different ISBN?

It’s 1:30 AM. I should be in bed, but I’ve been working on the sequel to London Under Veil all night and the words are just pouring forth, so I’m still hammering away. #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

“Erotica gives people unrealistic ideas about sex and relationships.” Star Trek gives people unrealistic ideas about people coming together like mature adults to solve problems. Fiction is make-believe, you wall-mounted wankbangle.

Blog post: A tutorial on how to spot romance scammers. Adapted from a Quora answer, this lengthy how-to will help prevent you (and those around you) from being burned by romance scams. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/09/tuto...

Tutorial: How to Spot Romance Scammers - Franklin Veaux's Journal

Image: minervastock on Depositphotos A short while back, I wrote an answer on Quora, the Q&A site, about how to spot romance scammers, the sourge of the internet. Briefly: Romance scammers are people,...

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One thing that always blows my mind: developers who don’t really believe their products will ever become successful. They test only on tiny data sets because deep down, they don’t think people will seriously use their products. 1/4

Welp, it’s gonna be one of those days. The More Than Two site is currently under heavy, sustained attack. The attacks started at around noon, and are currently coming in at the rate of about one every three and a half seconds. The site may be slow to load for a while.

Went to an author and publisher meetup last week, where I was told point-blank that literary fiction is basically an impossible sell right now. My Talespinner and I spent the afternoon re-writing our query for Spin as low fantasy rather than a magical realism literary novel. We’ll see if that helps!

One raspberry jelly donut is the correct number of raspberry jelly donuts. Two raspberry jelly donuts are too many raspberry jelly donuts. Three raspberry jelly donuts are a ruination of raspberry jelly donuts. In unrelated news, my tummy hurts.

Had a marvelous coffee date with a lovely woman who asked me out, and discovered she’s the only other person I’ve ever met who also lost her virginity in a threesome. We had an absolutely delightful time, and left with the mutual desire to see each other again.

Blog post: Writer beware: If you want to be a published author, be aware of the cloud of parasites, scammers, and unscrupulous “publishers” surrounding the industry like a cloud of bloodsucking insects. Here are some things to watch for. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/09/writ...

Writers Beware: Scam scam scammity scam - Franklin Veaux's Journal

The world is filled with people who want to be writers. The world is even more filled with people who don’t want to be writers but want to have written a book, which isn’t the same thing, though that’...

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Blog post: Scaling the Glass Mountain: Masterful liars can lie without uttering a single technical falsehood. This form of deception is called “paltering,” and it reveals itself like a linguistic glass mountain. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/09/scal...

Scaling the Glass Mountain - Franklin Veaux's Journal

I’ve been spending some time lately thinking about what I’m calling “glass mountain theory.” Most people like to think of themselves as honest. Most people don’t like to lie directly, even when they w...

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Went out for a walk. Came home to find this by my door. I have not even the tiniest speck of an iota of a shred of a fraction of a clue wtf this is about. Nor do I recognize the handwriting. 🤷‍♂️

I will not stop using the em-dash simply because people with a sixth-grade education think that only AI chatbots use em-dashes. I refuse to compromise proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation to appease people who can’t write and can’t spot AI writing. I will die on this hill.

Back in the mid-90s, I ran a hard SF tabletop role-playing game for six years. Players had a “terminal,” a networked device with access to an always-on global information network that could also access databases and run software. Had a huge fight with one of my players…

Writing a story about an archaeologist possessed by the spirit of a Hittite priestess who inspires her to seduce her grad student, then the grad student gets her Ph.D. My fave part is they call each other “Dr. Sands” and “Dr. Davis” while doing the FILTHIEST things to each other.

Got a very angry email from my “BDSM for Nice Guys” page, typical sex-negative “all BDSM is abuse, all guys into kink are rapists” stuff. The woman who sent it said if women were into BDSM, why don’t you have a BDSM for nice girls page? 1/2

Couple days ago, I got an email from Sync saying my Sync account had been improperly accessed (confirmed, not a phish). That evening I tried to log on to WhatsApp and my phone number on the account had been changed. Maybe unconnected, but it’s hard not to take it personally.

The dragon swallows the moon. Soon chaos magic will spread across the land, and the doorway will open once more. Anyone got popcorn?

I’m querying a nonfiction book on social justice. Once it’s done and out the door, I’m considering writing a book about using the internet safely: how to spot romance scams and 419 fraud and pig butchering scams, how trolls manipulate you, etc. Not sure if it’d find a market tho.

Aaah fuck. Came home to find my RAID NAS in a critical state. And hard drive prices are utterly insane rn.

TFW writing a porn story leads you to learning a LOT about Hittite architecture.

Holy hell, y’all, I just sat down and banged out 2,173 words on this novel in two hours without stopping. Our protagonist is about to be well and truly In The Shit. #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Portland writing. A woman just walked down the street carrying an antique SPARCstation-20, an old-school Sun workstation, with a carnation on top of it, and you know, that’s only, like, the fifth or sixth oddest thing I’ve seen this week.

After an epic 3-hour chat, my Talespinner and I hashed out the rest of our novel. Our protagonist is about to end up with a concussion and sepsis while being hunted by police, internal security, a corrupt politician, and an assassin from her own organized crime kongsi. #AmWriting

Seen on a walk in downtown Portland, randomly sitting on the sidewalk.

Blog post: AI Enshittification Comes Home: Got a hard drive that’s failed under warranty? Good luck getting it replaced. Vendors like GoHardDrive are refusing to honor warranties as they grab cash in the AI price gouging boom. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/08/ai-e...

AI Enshittification Comes Home - Franklin Veaux's Journal

Okay, so, this is not going to be a rant about how terrible AI art is, or how LLMs have stolen all our creative output (though I’m still waiting for thousands of dollars from the Anthropic settlement,...

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Hot take: Buttons and controls in software UIs that do something different if you press and hold than they do on a quick press are intrinsically terrible. This is a catastrophic UI fail that hides functionality and inhibits discoverability. I will die on this hill.

My co-author and I are doing new author photos for our books, which will be released by a new publisher soon. Somehow, she always looks suave, sexy, charming, cultured, and gorgeous, whereas I look like I’m auditioning for a big-budget remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Blog post: Kink-shaming and policing the boundaries of acceptability: In which I rant about how purity culture has created an environment where safe, sane kink between consenting adults is now policed (with plenty of gaslighting) within the BDSM scene. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/08/kink...

Kink-shaming and policing the boundaries of acceptability - Franklin Veaux's Journal

Image: Nina Hill Okay, hold onto your hat, because ima get a bit ranty. There’s a thing I’m seeing in the kink scene these days that’s making me a bit mental. Specifically, I’m seeing a shift away fro...

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