A while ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of reading One Night Only, a Doctor Who novella featuring Fela Kuti, written by Tade Thompson.

You can now read my spoiler-free review over on the blog.

https://www.julietemckenna.com/one-night-only-a-doctor-who-novella-from-tade-thompson/

You know, our collective leaders' response to #covid and the implications for long-term population health have long reminded me (somewhat) of the chilling #SF #scifi short story, The Screwfly Solution, by #JamesTiptreeJr

And likely thanks to present day decisions by Canada's southern neighbours, screwflies might be coming northwards again!

Video on prevention and protection by ER doc, YouTube handle #ChubbyEmu

https://youtube.com/shorts/fIObp-XBo0U

If you zoom in, you’ll see a tiny squiggle of green — it’s the #GreenFlash at sunset. Surprised I got it given the fog layer at the horizon from my perspective here near Ocean Beach.

#sunsetdistrict #SF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash

So there’s a new San Francisco Treasure Hunt!! https://treasure.sfwalk.org/

Sunset in the #Sunset. #SF
Seems like SF summer has arrived. Note the lack of fog on the Pacific. This view is just amazing.

While walking through the neighborhood, we discovered The Box SF, an absolute treasure filled with old printed books, objects, papers, and even working printing presses #SF

Happy Bell Riots day.

#WordWeavers 2025.08.30 — Is your MC more of a beach, mountains, or city person?

Bolt is a day angel. Her people are people of the air, of the treetops, of the cliffside forests. In the cities, the angelic (there are different kinds) live in apartments in the upper stories of the buildings built like towers (we'd call them skyscrapers or tall conventional buildings) not domes, and populate their roofs with their food culture and schools as an active minority. Trapped in a life in the city by her misdeeds and by being framed for other's misdeeds, she's become accustomed to that life, but she would much prefer (and at this point appreciate) the forest town she grew up in and from which she fled.

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

#BoostingIsSharing

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#FantasticPromptsEnglish August 30: To plot or not to plot? What's your path?

I've begun to question my path with the current WiP. My usual course is to have an idea that I follow to a predetermined probable end. So too it was to be with Bolt's story, Reluctant Courier. I knew she'd been blackmailed and that her life was difficult and lonely, as depicted from the outside as an empathetic supporting character in another completed story. However, I wanted to approach her POV of those times as more of a cozy mystery SF tale, as slice-of-life rather than adventure. I know how the parallel stories tie together in half-a-year—a ticking clock if you will—but I chose different earlier endpoints for Bolt so my series main character doesn't overshadow her new friend.

So, to the point. I've been imagining as I write the story various "beats" along the way. Really, it's more like I am writing parts of the story in my head as they occur to me, never quite in order. The mob boss will do X. The devil-girl will do Y. The neighbor will do Z. Mentally, I am left with a saw blade full of missing teeth. Some scenes I've written immediately, some remain vague as things I will write.

When I think of the process of writing what was visualized as a novella but is already around 25K half-written, it feels like I am plotting out the story! I am creating the chapters in my head, writing them non-linearly, but as I decide I like this or that, it fills in her life and leads to elucidating the main mystery in her story.

What do you think? Am I plotting?

Certainly I am NOT writing an outline!

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

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#PennedPossibilities 770 — What is your MC’s greatest weakness, and do other characters know what it is?

Bolt has lost confidence in herself and her ability to make her life better. Being blackmailed to work for the mob can do that type of thing to a person, but now she doesn't even want to try to improve her life. She seems to be forgetting portions of her life; she's okay with that as she suspects she's forgetting the really bad parts. She pushes potential friends away, worried that she might get them tangled in her mess. Everybody gets that she's apathetic. Because she has a few stellar qualities, it annoys them that she's pushing them away for their benefit. Really, she's protecting them from the mob, which she doesn't let on. Her weakness is that if people push hard enough, her resolve caves because she craves having a normal life denied her, and simple friendship. Others push her to do things for her own benefit. Two people take advantage of her weakness sexually, one because he actually feels for her and thinks he can bring her joy. The other manipulates her.

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

#BoostingIsSharing

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#RSdiscussion
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#EroticMusings 2025.24.03 — Week 13 (August 24-30) Studio: How important is it that an audience experiences your work? How much interaction do you want?

Wow, tough question! How important? As a shy person, I write to freely communicate what is important to me—and the erotic is slice of life between work and adventures as far as I am concerned. Since my special scenes require a certain amount of innuendo and indirection in language, without the traditional explicit language, I hope they set the mood and fire the imagination, optionally firing other things. Having just written one such scene this morning, having earlier laid down plenty of tinder for one character with (for their culture innocuous) nickname of Hardboy Slim, and placed the firewood appropriately having the characters discuss his interesting major at university (which I'm leaving a mystery for you folk), the action ignited rather nicely with the tiniest of sparks.

Does what I work for others? I hope so. I want my stories read and enjoyed.

How much interaction do I want, though?

Well, I'd like to know if people like my style as well as my stories. Having written a fan fiction short story where two characters, who had long been friends with a definite chemistry (an antagonist and her former minion), finally hook up—with three spicy interludes demonstrating the style above interspersed with them talking out their issues and misunderstandings and gratitude for the other being there—I do have a track record of comments. One such I remember was purely trashy (the story wasn't, well, not trashy in the Danielle Steel sense). Another wanted to commission me to write an erotic short for free….

Both a bit overpowering for me. Because I write the stuff doesn't mean the author is comfortable talking to strangers in that voice!

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

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#WordWeavers 2025.08.29 — SC POV: What's your favorite color to wear?

[Devil-girl who is a supporting character in Reluctant Courier (for the Mob), the current WiP:] Black, midnight blue, midnight red, dark purple, mauve. I never grew out of what you'd call my goth period. I prefer my jewelry silver tarnished black, even though it sometimes irritates my skin. Mind you, having run away from all the responsibility, status signaling, and the clothing thing, I don't have much incentive to dress. These days, clothes and accessories, their quantity or lack of quantity, and quality are more often tools for me, to change my appearance, to blend in, to foster team spirit, to reassure, to distract, or to manipulate and control others. What colors I might prefer matter little. My intended audience's preferences matter far more.

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

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For those it may concern,
My signal chat has reported ICE activity in the Mission today. No links, no videos, idk if it’s true.

EDIT: Source is Scott Weiner’s Instagram, they were at 10th and Harrison

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN6pvDPAA6G/

#FensterFreitag #WindowFriday

The jury's out: Either the bricklayer or the architect were stoned ?

Or: An early example of a Bouldering Wall doomed to attract burglars

#WordWeavers 2025.08.23 — Do you ever worry that your books may offend others or be banned?

My recent work is on the more spicy side, with women choosing partners and what they enjoy, mentions of contraceptives, woman-led decisions about abortion in a society where it's illegal, men in gender reversed roles, and in some cases religion treated as mental illness. The internal censor is fighting back big time!!!

So… maybe?

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

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#fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#RSdiscussion