Mastodawn

#PhantasticsPrompts 2025.24.03.: What kind of fantasy creatures do you particularly like and why?

Um, dragons? Cut my teeth on Dragon Riders of Pern (not Tolkien, never Tolkien). But, right, cliché, a trope. So. I write this fantasy story and a secondary character is? You guessed it, a dragon. Hackneyed? Well, when the Red Dragon is shows up it has the flu. A fever means it's warm blooded. It walks on rear legs and wings, so a wyvern? It breathes fire so when it sneezes that's a problem. It's furry, pretty ugly, too. Well, maybe a giant bat? People don't know the difference; still a dragon. But it eats an orchard when hungry, so… a fruit bat?

I have a bit of fun with this.

They show up in an SF story, but that's a different prompt.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Mar 13

#ScribesAndMakers 2026.03.12 —Our featured creator has an em dash key on his keyboard. Do you do any customizations for your creativity?

I found the Scrivener .scriv project files and put Mac aliases on my desktop that I can double-click to open. Not only that, I made icons that represent my cover art mockups for each. I also made special Scrivener collections that do RegEx searches that highlight all the weasel words, mistaken positive words, or most confused words in documents. As far as creatively participating in Mastodon hashtag games, such as #ScribesAndMakers, I used the new-file templating system in Scrivener to let me use specific template files that include all the month's prompts, a QUESTION line for me to replace with one of the said prompts, a TEXT line to replace with a reply, copyright line, and (numerous) hashtags. That makes replying, like now, a snap. The image shows Scrivener and the #AltText explains my customizations.

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photographer chef cooking
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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Mar 7

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.06 —Is there a local writing community near you? Do you participate in it?

You can't get closer than Mastodon (🐘) on my very own computer!!! Too shy to look elsewhere…

I participate in:

#EroticMusings
#PennedPossibilites
#ScribesandMakers
#WordWeavers
#WritersCoffeeClub
#Writephant
#Writever

As well as:

#WritingCommunity
#WritersOfMastodon

#BoostingIsSharing
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Feb 27

#ScribesAndMakers ☼ 2026.02.27 — Splat?

Imagine a world where light can act as a liquid and you create a rainbow just before someone startles you? I wrote that. A scene in a three-story atrium. At a school. Splattering the person who did the startling (drenching them in a rainbow) and splattering the school banners hanging down in the atrium, the banisters, floors, and stairs. All the way down to the basement level. Splat! Plenty of students on said stairs, some with open lockers, all splattered—and a few humorless teachers who immediately give chase! It was a funny outbound scene employed to end an epilogue of a fairly heavy and serious novel.

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photographer chef cooking
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#RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Feb 24

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.02.24 — What’s your greatest challenge in fleshing out your setting?

Since I am careful to write about what I know or can imagine, the challenge is the in-writing. Despite how loquacious I think I am, I write rather concisely, skipping to the next action. Fleshing out the setting happens when I iterate during composition (reading/revising the pages before where I continue writing) or during revision. It's there that I change passive declarative passages to integrate description with action, to make the setting more palpable to the reader. Some detail pops up as I imagine or reimagine. It takes time. That's a challenge. Sometimes it increases the length of the passage; detouring away from the core action is also a challenge to overcome. Yet, when I read other's work, mine seems more concise, so I can't give a definitive answer to this one.

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Feb 18

#WordWeavers 2026.02.18 — Can your MC carry a tune?

Of the four titles that could reasonably be considered "in production", none of Bolt, Streak, or Thorn Rose have any reason to be tone deaf, nor particularly talented. Given a shower, or a drink or two, they could passably sing or do karaoke. The devil-girl is the daughter of a theatre and pop music star (think Streisand or Julie Andrews). She has her mother's voice, if not her training. She sings only in the shower, however. Wintereyes from Inklings was raised by wolves. She can howl very well. Musically? Dunno.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Feb 10

#ScribesAndMakers ☼ 2026.02.10 — What is the most out of character creative thing you enjoy? That thing that never matches the assumptions about you.

I come off as mousey, quiet, strait-laced, not very dynamic.I am far outshone by the joyful glow of the spouse. Most people are surprised when they discover I am an author, that I even have the emotional depth to do that. Now, were they to read what I wrote, they'd definitely find my uncensored uninhibited authorial voice very much out-of-character. They might even blush.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Feb 5

#WordWeavers 2026.02.05 — If you found out that someone had to live your MC’s life (like in the “Stranger than Fiction” movie), would you change the story?

I've watched some Isekai anime recently about people reincarnated (or teleported) into a fantasy world or a game world they are familiar with, and in one case wrote. It's a horrifying concept, deeply disturbing, would be horrifying to experience. However, I subscribe to the crucible theory when living my life: I can imagine how I would act in situations (the essence of writing fiction), but when I'm in those situations (burning in the crucible) I rarely act as I imagined due to the situation, you know, actually being REAL.

I can't make this question real. It feels like a test of empathy, but I'd have to feel the danger is realistic to say, yes, I'll change what I wrote. I can't get from here to there. Besides which, isn't all fiction about putting someone through relative hell to see how they might grow or wither?

Would I want anybody to live Lightning Bolt's life, as an ordinary high school jock being forced to work for the mob? Would I want anybody not the devil-girl forced to live the devil-girl's life? It's her philosophy of life that makes her a survivor and no random person would manage that. Would I want anybody to live like Wintereyes, giving up part of their humanity to speak to wolves (and dragons, and other creatures), and to live amongst them? Nobody has the innate kindness she possesses, and as a result would have the kindness necessary to deal with subsequently being forced to live amongst humans who are both alien to her and who covet her ability to the extent they feel threatened.

Would I want people to live these lives? Other than vicariously?

No.

But that isn't the point, either.

There is a certain synchronicity with this question and and that of another hashtag game I wrote a post for today: #ScribesAndMakers https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/116016731035153232.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (@[email protected])

## #ScribesAndMakers 2026.02.05 — You now have the same occupation as the main character of your current WIP (or book you are reading/last read) What job are you doing? I am running orders between a mob boss and his lieutenants, reminding clients that they need to pay their insurance bill (protection money) or collecting interest (on a loan shark loan), tailing a mark to learn about their habits (I'm stealthy), or accepting delivery of herbs (to be made into contraband). I'm a courier for the mob. Even though I've been blackmailed, I'm still a criminal. [Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.] #BoostingIsSharing #gender #fiction #writer #author photographer chef cooking #cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers #RSdiscussion #RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

Eldritch Café

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Jan 4

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.01.03 — How do you come up with the titles for your works?

Usually, something about the story pops up that feels right.

For example, I named Inklings by serendipity. The POV does magic that leaves picture-like scars that resemble tattoos, and she meets a Pacific Islander (LI) who is covered with tattoos, rare where the story takes place. He's surprised upon noticing one of her scars (blue feathers) and tells her she has "ink." At some point in the story, I wrote the word inkling in the sense of a thought. Hearing the word, my mind shot to a new meaning for the word: a person who had "ink," thus the romance story between the two characters became the titled Inklings."

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Dec 25

#WordWeavers 2025.12.24 — What is the gift your antagonist brings to the world?

Three antagonists, three brief answers.

Pigeon the Pilfer:

Nothing really, he's a punk gangster. Fast food sellers maybe consider him a gift because he eats their food at every meal. He's partial to fried breaded fish sandwiches with a side of fried onions. Sometimes, and only at breakfast, he has kippers and onions. He always adds extra garlic.

Boss Mead:

His gift really waits for a sequel as the current WIP is an inciting incident for him. He does keep the Home City underworld mostly under control, lowering the violence level and upping the organizational level, and he takes some pride in that. He likes profit since he is a mob boss, and likes it when people voluntarily pay rather than having to be roughed up. He'd rather be accepted into high society, but that's not happening as he's also nouveau riche.

Director Rain Days:

Literally the gift she brings to the world is the world. When she was a teenager, she realized she could do one thing spectacularly well. The fact that there were wars because of her, and civilizations perished, is incidental to the fact that without her, the world would have become uninhabitable within decades. Neither she nor the author know how long ago that was, but it was more than a millennium ago.

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