Toots for cstross@wandering.shop account

Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-02-02 at 17:28

This feels curiously topical right now …

https://mstdn.social/@ComicContext/113934060973629971

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-02-02 at 17:25

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Feb 2: Do you analyze structure and technique in other writer’s work?

I'm an autodidact at literature—no formal education in it beyond O-level exams circa 1980—but I pay attention to what I'm reading: as an SF author I tend to focus more on ideas and characters than other folks' deep structure, but recurrent tropes are always of interest (I enjoy subverting or inverting them to hit the reader with the sense of alienation that's a central objective of my chosen genre).

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-02-02 at 10:47

FLASH: Elon Musk reveals latest SpaceX rocket:

(Shamelessly lifted from @hedgehog1963.bsky.social — https://bsky.app/profile/hedgehog1963.bsky.social/post/3lgaqzitcr22r)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-02-01 at 16:58

Why Charlie can't work, incident 431 (it's @Menhit)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-31 at 10:35

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 31Jan—How’s your writing progress so far this year? What are you working on?

So far: finished the final draft of "The Regicide Report" (Laundry Files book … 14?) and it's with the editors at Tor/Orbit.

Ploughing through the third and final draft of "Ghost Engine", a space opera. (About 50K words remaining to write, 112K words in the can.)

In the planning stages for "Starter Pack", a swords and planets romance, shared setting with "Ghost Engine". Aim to finish it this year.

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-30 at 10:21

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 30: Do secondary characters sometimes get promoted to main characters?

In a long enough work, yes—for me it only happens in a series of >3 novels. (Examples abound in the Laundry Files where minor characters in books 1-5 end up with entire novels of their own later on. Arguably, it also happens in the Empire Games follow-on trilogy in the Merchant Princes setting.)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-29 at 15:39

Trying not to pay attention to US politics this past fortnight (and failing) and I have to say, you guys should have voted for Cthulhu, he'd DEFINITELY be the lesser evil right now.

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-29 at 12:28

"Not sure what would stop the Europeans from spying on you …"

GDPR.

https://social.alexschroeder.ch/@alex/statuses/01JJQ2NCEN80TEFP01CYNR5EFV

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-29 at 10:55

This map is wrong, North Mexico is mislabelled as "Texas".

https://mastodon.au/@Heliograph/113910948377718682

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-29 at 10:54

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan 29: How do you format your drafts? Is it the same as the final manuscript?

I write in Scrivener. I've got a theme setup that works well given my poor eyesight, and when it's time to submit the final MS I have compile options set to convert the MS into standard manuscript format. (Which is well-nigh unreadable by me given my visual defects.)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-28 at 11:24

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 1/28—Would anything stop you from writing, or do you have the bug for life?

Burnout is a problem when you write full time for a living—but if you can save up words you can send off for a sabbatical: I've tried to take six month long breaks once a decade (with mixed success—real life emergencies tend to interrupt them).

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-28 at 09:36

No, Amazon, I know my delivery number blah last Friday did not go as expected, but I'm not going to update my delivery preferences with instructions for what to do in event of a 50 year storm so bad you cancelled all your deliveries that day because the bridge connecting my city to your main warehouse in Fife was closed due to high winds!

It's your problem, deal with it /s

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-27 at 10:32

What-if battered deep-fried haggis (a chip shop staple) only done a la Chicken Kiev with a delicious goopy melty Fry's Turkish Delight filling? Served with salt'n'sauce on top of a bed of deep fried onion rings ...?

Wouldn't that be SPLENDID?

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-26 at 22:00

"I'm sorry sir, you're definitely pregnant.'

(NB: yes, I'm aware of mpreg fic and also transmen and a bunch of other edge cases: but this is definitely a horror story for readers who are cishet conservative males.)

https://wandering.shop/@cstross/113896804145865201

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-26 at 21:35

HORROR STORY IN SIX WORDS:

Tool-using murder hornets discover fire.

(Your turn …)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-26 at 12:15

Incidentally, an answer I've always WANTED to give but never had the stones to is, "really? I've always wanted to drive a taxi, too!"

(Because taxi drivers. Are the worst. For asking what you do. Then offering ill-informed Opinions.)

https://wandering.shop/@cstross/113894487727104127

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-26 at 11:46

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 26th January 2025. If people tell you they've always wanted to write, what do you say to them?

"What's stopping you?"

(Most often, this leaves them flailing because declaring "I've ALWAYS WANTED to write" is an apology for inaction. There are very real, valid, obstacles to writing but people who are overwhelmed by them generally don't feel the need to apologize.)

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2025-01-25 at 10:53

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 01/25—Do you have a worked-out magical system (or advanced technology in sci-fi)? Or do you make it up as you go?

Magic and/or tech in fiction need to make sense as tools that enable the protagonists to achieve ends, and which also have plausible side-effects and second-order consequences. But trying to work out everything in advance is a fool's errand: could Rudolf Diesel have anticipated the VW diesel exhaust emissions scandal, a century after his death?

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