A culinary adventure https://thistleandfern.org/p/half-baked-022?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Sarah---Thistle-and-Fern

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#Writephant 2026.03.06 — A5. Bonus question: what is your favorite holiday ritual?

It is a toss up between decorating the Christmas tree or making and eating the Thanksgiving turkey.

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#Writephant 2026.03.16 — A4 . Have you ever made up a holiday for one of your stories? If not, what would you make up?

I won't say it's unique, but I did a variation on Carnival for a story about a shaman—she discovers she lives in an asteroid converted into a generation ship, but thinks the computer she wakes is a spirit. A friend from one of the nations inside the ship wants to get the shaman to loosen up. The holiday is about meat, a nod to the name, but also about the needs of the flesh. It's a crazy sensual and trance inducing celebration, yet as I wrote it not very spicy. The story and the scene were inspired by Natalie Merchant's Carnival.

https://youtu.be/VQ_Wqtnlv4U

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#Writephant 2026.03.16 — A2. Are there holidays in any fictional worlds that you wish were real, say like Grubhog day in Amphibia or Hogswatch in Discworld?

Wish were real? No. Too often it is a relabeling of Christmas or other holidays, a kind of unimaginative whitewashing. However, I will make a shoutout for a holiday called Running of the Leaves. It is perfectly suited for the alien fantasy world as it both highlights their magic while complementing the peculiarities of the people who populate this unique world. The holiday could not translate to ours.

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#Writephant 2026.03.16 — A1 March 16 comes after Pi Day (3/14) and Ides of March (3/15). Do you celebrate either? Why or why not?

I celebrate π day with Pi Stachio cream liqueur. See photo. I didn't think of having Cesar salad on the 15th, though.

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#Writephant 2026.03.09 — Late answers! (Procrastination in Progress.)

• Q1 Do you usually sleep pretty well, or is it sometimes a challenge?
• A1 It is often a challenge. It's when I go to bed that all that was difficult for me to sit down to write during the day floods through my mind. However tired I was, I am no longer. Worse, if I'm intensely writing during the day, I often wake at 3 A.M. Rinse, repeat.

• Q2 The common advice is not to start a story with a dream sequence. Aside from that, do you use dream sequences in your writing?
• A2 Don't think I ever started with a dream sequence. Reluctant Accomplice has a dream sequence with the MC falling towards Earth from orbit, but the other two in the series (still all WIP) have one. It depends on the requirements of the narrative. Its can be useful for info dumping. [Grins sheepishly.]

• Q3 Which feels closer to your writing process: Daydreaming, where you consciously imagine and guide the scene? Or lucid dreaming, where the story unfolds around you and you try to influence it from inside? Neither?
• A3 Daydreaming is what it feels like, though sometimes I am the character and am feeling and seeing what they might. With spicy passages, this can challenging in many ways. I do go ruminate about certain scenes, over and over and over, in my head before writing them.

• Q4 Do your characters ever appear in your dreams?
• A4 Annoyingly, no. During my late teens early twenties, I could lucid dream, could be aware and awake and guide them, but the scenarios remained exactly as other dreams: a random synthesis of events over the last few days, mixed with imagination and frustration, populated with abstractions of people I dealt with or what I free associated them with from my past. It would have been useful if I could have controlled content. Never achieved that. And. I've forgotten how the lucid dream since.

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The study of the subconscious through the lens of dreamwork is a vital part of the human experience. 🏛️📜

I am pleased to share a thoughtful resource by Kenneth K. Gray: "Dreams: The Magic of the Night." For those interested in the profound narrative capacity of the dreaming mind, Kenneth offers a grounded and professional perspective.

Full details here:
🔗 https://www.authorkennethgray.com/book/

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