Toots for slott56@fosstodon.org account

Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-21 at 00:58

[#]CardGames #cribbage #cards

Worked out as a nice opener. Rocketed me to the end of 2nd street. But. Couldn’t pull out the victory.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-21 at 00:55

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/20. Do you feel the Covid pandemic has affected your writing or stories? If so, how?

Not really. I was already working from home. It ended airline travel for me. I’ve since retired.

Few real changes; I still work from home and avoid airplanes.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-19 at 22:00

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/19. How honest is your MC when honesty will get them into trouble?

The MCs dislike lying. But they tend to be pragmatic and temper their actions with scrutiny of the broader consequences: who is hurt? What alternatives do we have? A little light burglary is not outside the realm of possibilities. Murder in self-defense can be necessary.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-18 at 23:39

[#]cardgames #cards #cribbage

Opponent gets this. Exactly what they needed. Didn’t have to count the crib and hope.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-18 at 17:25

[#]sailing #boating #boatlife

2 ½ hrs of grunting and sweating. It weighs almost 100 lbs.

The current in the Myakka River put the wind on our beam. Sail was luffing out to starboard, making each step awkwardly complicated in a “don’t fall overboard” kind of way.

One down. Three to go. They’re all lighter and somewhat easier to deal with.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-18 at 16:54

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/18. Have you ever wanted to write a story but lacked the skills for it? What skill would you need?

I struggle to keep things short. There are too many important consequences of bad decisions to focus on one or two.

This goes for fiction and non-fiction. Programming drama stems from suboptimal designs.

The skill I lack is tightly-focused writing. Super-short stories are a delight to read, but difficult for me to write.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-17 at 22:31

[#]boating #boatlife #sailing

Anchored in the Myakka River.

Tried to get through the South Gulf Cove lock with a tide of only 0.9’ or so. Impassible. Took 45 minutes to grind through about 0.25 nm of shallows.

Lesson learned. Only at highest tide.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-17 at 13:30

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/17. Do you prefer long or short works? What’s your sweet spot?

Crazy long. 150,000 words or more. I love gritty, immersive detail.

I sent 100’s of queries for one of these. Of those, one response suggested it was large. From the two word response, I concluded “too large for a debut novel.” I’m trying to scale back to 50k words and landing near 64k.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-16 at 14:43

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/16. How long is your shortest work?

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Unlearning_SQL_When_your_only_tool_is_a_hammer_eve?id=23WAEAAAQBAJ&hl=en-US&pli=1

My western horror MSS tend around 65,000 words. Short for me.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-15 at 20:45

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/15. How long is your longest work?

Published? The Modern Python Cookbook. Over 600 pages IIRC. Close to the publisher’s limit of 750.

Manuscript? I’ve got something like 300,000 words of epic fantasy trilogy.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-14 at 19:24

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

11/14. What was the weather like in the last scene you wrote? Did it play a role in the story?

The last scene I touched was night in a shallow cave in the desert. Weather was late summer, early fall.

Weather has little relevance in the story. Phase of the moon? Yes.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-14 at 19:23

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

11/13. If you met a person like your antagonist in real life, what would you do?

Avoid them. Possibly make snarky comments about them from a safe distance. In both books they are the kinds of pompous blow-hards I encountered too often as a technology consultant.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-14 at 14:24

Database Migration, Part III https://slott56.github.io/2025-01-14_database_migration_part_iii.html

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-12 at 16:31

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/12. If you needed companions to start a rebellion, which of your characters would you choose?

Amy (from book I) to write the manifesto. Geraldine (from book II) to inspire people. Diane (from book I) to act as personal muscle. Antonia (from book II) to organize people. While organizing is not Antonia’s core skill, she was part of a larger organization and understands the essentials.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-11 at 16:11

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/11. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn? How does your MC react to danger?

Book I. Diane pulls her gun, The Beast, at every provocation. Every one. Sometimes Amy can prevent further bloodshed. Diane never runs. Freezing would only reinforce her own self-hatred. She does placate—once—and even then she did it by humiliating him without resorting to violence.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-11 at 00:24

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/10. Antagonist POV: Do you have any flaws?

Book I. Aufteilen would say he tolerates too much slackness in the mercenaries. Stone — in particular— practices the utmost in disrespect, always pulling up just shy of plain insubordination.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-10 at 13:09

We wanted to leave today. Weather will be fair. Rising tide and wind from the S to make it easier to transit the South Gulf Cove lock.

Our “anchor out and live cheap” agenda doesn’t work without a dinghy.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-10 at 13:00

[#]sailing #Sailboats #boatlife

Truck wrapped so we can leave the dock for a few months.

One job left to do: find the leak in the inflatable dinghy. Ugh.

Last summer I had it off the boat to work on it. Pumped it up. The port tube held air for over a week before getting soft.

Now it decides to leak the air in less than an hour. The hole(s) should be findable.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-09 at 12:12

[#]WordWeavers #western #horror

1/9. What’s the most impressive thing about your SC? Would they agree?

I have several SCs. From book I, Mr Corcoran pulls strings in town through influences folks can’t readily see. Amy has suspicions, but, for a time, she’s deeply impressed. Then she breaks into Palaky’s store to uncover the details.

He would not agree. He styles himself as an investor and entrepreneur. A capitalist and man of business.

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Written by S. Lott on 2025-01-08 at 11:36

If only rich douche-bags buy cuber*ucks, then, is it a douche-box?

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