#PennedPossibilities 649 — What research did you conduct for your WIP, and did you uncover anything surprising or fascinating?

When you are writing 31 chapters in 31 days and posting a chapter a day, having only come up with the idea and character the day before starting, research is a concept dealt with by quick and dirty searches. I did have one interesting factino in my pocket, though. I'd found an article about growing fungus to make building blocks for construction on Mars, and knew the blocks might help repel radiation. Another recent article spoke about inflating a balloon for a habitat. I combined both ideas in the 4th chapter titled Glue. Beyond that, I spent quite a bit of time Googling things about 16 Psyche (an asteroid) and learned that Martian dust is poisonous, and like moon dust, pernicious. Recent NASA tests lofted by a private company to the moon proves that electostatic grids can capture or repel dust. I used that. Much of the rest of the technology I punted on. I realized green minerals on Mars might be rare, so I backtracked on some red-green-black ferric metaphors. Yesterday, I read up on planetary transfer orbits and made changes to the revised novel. I also learned about the Lunar Gateway space station concept, and will revise that concept when I get to revising the relevant chapter.

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If you are in the group of men who think gender equality has “gone too far”, please punch yourself in the neck and disappear into a dark cave where you belong.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-21/men-and-women-are-more-divided-and-it-could-sway-the-election/105188052

#auspol #gender #equality

#WordWeavers 2504.20 — If someone gave you a million dollars (or equivalent) to never write again, would you take it?

I spent a lifetime scrimping, saving, investing, and being frugal to get to this point. Retirement. Now they offer me a million dollars? Sheesh. Gonna have to make me a better offer to stop me from doing what I like to do. [Sticks out tongue, makes raspberry.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.20 — What rôle does religion play in your writing?

Religiosity is important in many of my stories, even when it is as prominent as vacuum by its absence. Usually, I don't write in the point of view of the religious, but I did write an SF novel in the point of view of a shaman. I'd lived in Bali for awhile, and having studied the culture and theatre of the island during college, felt I had a feel for animism. At university, I studied religions and non-western cultures as part of my degree, as well as folklore and mythology. I find it fascinating. At least as far as my writing goes my degree has proved useful.

More often I write about how people wield religion to abuse society. My latest novel (now in revision) pits a fictional religion and a theocratic plutocracy (where our world is headed) against one woman's quest for freedom. It is the background main antagonist. For the people in the other WIP, the concept of a supernatural or the divine is absurd; they don't even have words for it in their vocabulary. Nevertheless, the MCs are destined to face people who bear unusual ideas about how reality actually functions, who might react badly when upon meeting a woman with bull horns and a man with ruby-edged white feathered wings.

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

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So, my friend coming out as plural has resulted in my concept of what a human is to spiral.

To be clear, I am supportive of her, but plurality is something I haven't considered up till now.

That being said, anyone have any resources where I can learn more. I'd be especially interested in a book on the topic (that I can understand lol).

Other comments appreciated.

Edit: fixed spelling

#plural #help #gender

Are cute #children's #books teaching #kids about #gender and #sexuality? #SupremeCourt to weigh in

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/20/supreme-court-lgbtq-storybooks-religion/83123106007/

For me, a woman is someone who was born with the primary female sexual characteristics, everything else is classified as trans.

I am not against trans people or their human rights or their right to free development, I am only interested in the definition, for me!

Putting up with a different opinion is part of freedom of expression.

#gender #female #woman #trans #opinion #freedomOfexpression

#PennedPossibilities 648 — MC POV: Tell us about your home.

[Streak:] I live in an apartment building near the edge of the better part of town. It's remarkable for being in a neighborhood populated by day angels because it's not a village tree nor built into a hill, but a conventional building. I live there with my sisters and my mother, and I'm the middle child. My room is little better than a small pantry or a large closet, but I'm happy for it. My sisters hate me because I had to raise them and set rules (long story), so I'm thankful for a window I can fly in and out of, a black lacquer floor desk, where I keep my books, and a place to unroll a sleeping mat. Baskets and hampers hold my things. You would call the place a boarding house where you live. The apartment is only three bed rooms and a kitchen. The rain room (showers) are on the shared entry floor at the end of the hall, opposite the entry with the post boxes, next to the squats. Both utility rooms are unisex, so you'd better knock before entering.

[Thorn:] I'm a daemon, but live in what many consider a bad neighborhood populated by day angels. It's a village tree house my mother bought because she feels safer there than amongst people who look like us but refuse to accept us as their equals. Our entire nest is called an aerie, and it once belonged to a famous day angel who rebelled against the government a century and a half ago. It requires us to climb ladders to enter it and to levitate provisions to stock it.

My room is a chamber grown from a flattened lateral branch, in a crotch between an auxiliary trunk and uprights. The floor slopes upward and my bedstead is in a hammock across what amounts to a raised dias. I've a nightstand that is a cut-off stump. It's opposite from the casement windows installed at the lower end of the space. I'm thankful for the door like crank windows because they're convenient for when Streak comes to visit—when Mother isn't home, obviously! They provide light despite the tree's heavy canopy, and are enough that foliage forms an interior ceiling and I can culture moss and lichen as carpeting so I don't have to wear slippers to protect my feet from the bark. Smaller windows with rainbow-stained wedged rock glass also provide light to fill in shadowy corners during day light, and can be tilted to encourage convective circulation.

My desk is a form of wood ear mushroom, the top of which is polished to a glassy sheen. The shelves scattered up and down the walls for my hundreds of books are a combination of the same myco-archeculture and woven smaller branches.

I've hung posters by red ribbons, so as not to hurt the living tree, including a grand one Mother bought me of an exploded diagram of the structure of the crystal spheres. After our adventures with Rainy Days, I've also hung enlargements of pictures the woman gave us of her and Streak, though I know he finds them embarrassing. I can't help but admire my boyfriend's best attributes.

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