#ScribesAndMakers 2: Do you have any annual traditions not tied to holidays?

Not ones that aren't tied to any holidays, no. Although, one of the holy days I celebrate isn't on any calendar I've ever seen and another one I celebrate more for my ancestor's appreciation of the day than for any tie to the particular saint whose day it is. 

#ScribesAndMakers 4: Our next featured creator is a comic artist. Tell us about a comic strip or web comic you enjoy.

Keeping in theme with the sorts of stories I talk about here, one of my favorite webcomics is Curvy (link is to the first episode). Of Curvy, TV Trops says:

Anaïs Phalèse is an Ordinary High-School Student, who plays softball and worries about passing her Physics class. One day she meets Fauna Lokjom, Despoina (Princess) of Candy World. Anaïs helps Fauna flee from the bad guys who are chasing her. They flee from reality to reality. They are chased by the minions of Prince Boglox of Stupid World, and by Fervid Wexler, a Federal Agent who believes that Anaïs and Fauna are terrorists.

At least in the beginning, it's Adults Only mainly for art and themes. It's a lot of fun. The original run ended in 2019 but apparently there have been updates since then.

#ScribesAndMakers 5: 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?

Office worker.  Largely inferred by the fact that she's able to take a tropical vacation once a year.

#ScribesAndMakers 8: How do you define a book? Do audio books and graphic novels fit your definition?

Thanks to the goofball way that ebook stores work, I presently define a book as something I can sell on an ebook store. Plus some things I can't. Which basically means a story that's 4K or longer can be a book regardless of its format. I'm not sure what the minimum length is for a graphic novel or children's picture book.

To be clear, the part of this that I resent is the part where a 4-5K story is a 'book' rather than a short story. Which it definitely is when I'm publishing it as a 'short' book. (I also resent the fact that pricing policies on #Amazon and #Draft2Digital mean I more or less have to price a short at $2.99 USD.)

Kind of off in the weeds here at this point. Getting more to a point, I'm generally not accepting of gatekeeping definitions. I will happily define book as broadly as possible. I would just like to be able to to call a short story a short story.

#ScribesAndMakers 9: Is one really the loneliest number?

Nah, but it is one hell of a Harry Nilsson song.

#ScribesAndMakers 10: What is the most out of character creative thing you enjoy? That thing that never matches the assumptions about you.

I don't know. I'm pretty open about most forms of creativity I engage with. When it comes to the smut, I generally don't tell people I know IRL that I'm writing smut. Just that some of the things I write are things I'm not going to tell them about.

#ScribesAndMakers 11: Aside from the official birthday song and the ubiquitous Beatles song, is there a song about birthdays you like?

I double checked and It's My Party is definitely a birthday song and I do like it. Although I'm also particularly fond of this cover of the same song.

#ScribesAndMakers 12: Guffaw?

The sound of sweaty, sock'd feet slipping unevenly over the warm linoleum floor.

#ScribesAndMakers 13: How well do you sing? If you don't consider yourself a good singer, do you sing anyway?

I used to be. Not doing long commutes any more, my voice is out of practice and I can't hit notes like I used to. I'm working on it.

#ScribesAndMakers 14: How are things going for you this month, creatively or otherwise?

It's a rough and stressful month all around. Creativity itself is going alright considering.

#ScribesAndMakers 15: Today is SAM's first birthday. Let's celebrate with cake. Share a description, photo, art, short fiction, or other creative portrayal of cake. Or just mash a piece into the cake drive of your PC so we can all try a bite.

On January 8, I got annoyed with Financial Times for their shit and created this graphic based on a thing I had written previously and a public domain illustration.

Edit: clarified that I didn't create the illustration but did color it.

#ScribesAndMakers 16: Do you have a favorite decade of music? Which one(s)?

If forced to pick one, I'd say the 1980s. Synths and FM synthesis fully integrated into the medium. Hip hop really started to take off. It became really and truly feasible for musicians to record and distribute their music locally because of the prevalence and relative low cost of audio cassettes.

Culture and technology are always developing but there were a lot of really cool things happening in the 80s ... in the midst of the horrors of Thatcherism and Reaganism.

A lot of those same kinds of factors are here in spirit. Producing and distributing your own music has never been so feasible. Computers, phones, and tablets make composing and recording music easier than it has ever been before. We even have our own queer hating, authoritarian assholes to fight.

Although, the same can be said of the 90s, the 00s, and the 10s. The empire never ended. (Fair warning / standard disclaimer: I'm not 100% in agreement with Everything2's interpretation or exegesis of PKD's phrase.)

#ScribesAndMakers 17: Share a fun memory from a past SAM prompt.

I think I have to go with the one truth and two lies post from May 21 the follow-up.

#ScribesAndMakers 18: Our next featured creator has done her own book covers. Have you ever or would you ever do your own cover?

To date, I've made all my own covers (sometimes with public domain art). I don't think I'm very good at it yet but it's what I can afford at the moment.

#ScribesAndMakers 20: The alpha male is a misconception perpetuated in popular media that our featured creator works against in her wolf books. What's a misconception that bothers you in popular media?

Keeping to the types of fiction associated with the pens I talk about here ... average bodies.

#ScribesAndMakers 24: What's something you learned about one of our community member's creativity from the hashtag games?

I think I've mostly learned that there are a lot more people pantsing or plantsing than I had thought there would be before I played them.

#ScribesAndMakers 25: Would you stream your creative process / the creation of your work? Why or why not?

The threads I have for writing / publishing progres on stories are the closest I would do on the writing itself. Streaming the process of making the promo prep work would probably work out alright for me.

I need as little distraction as possible while actually drafting / editing fiction. The other bits are things where I could potentially deal with the distraction.

#ScribesAndMakers 26: Do you abandon creative projects?

Technically? Yes.

If so, how do you determine when to abandon them?

I don't. I notice that they became abandoned and decide to either not pick them up again or deferring them until the next time I think about them.

Generally, stalled projects happen because I reach some kind of stopper on them or get more inspired / motivated to work on something else. This happens to me pretty regularly because I run project in parallel to avoid getting nothing done due to personal or story issues.

Beware Of Fangs! was stalled for like 6 months because of work I was doing on other projects. I'm a day or two of writing out from finishing it now.

#ScribesAndMakers 27: Splat?

The infamous gameshow for teens and tweens, Splat aired between 4PM and 5PM Eastern and Central on the Spitoon channel in the late 90s and early 00s. Contestants were splatted with mudpies when they lost. Legend has it that no one ever won the gameshow, which operated on modified Fizzbin rules. This is not correct, however. One teen did win but the episode wasn't aired and significant NDAs protect the details of the episode.

Occasionally, people say that they have seen the NDA'd episode. There is no corroborating proof of this idea. The studio itself admits the episode occurs but indicates that all copies have been destroyed.

(In case it is unclear in any capacity, none of this is true ... in this universe at least.)

#ScribesAndMakers 28: How did your month go?

From a word count and general output perspective, pretty good. In most other ways, not so great. I'm a queer, nonbinary, unemployed/self-employed person living in the U.S. Things could be worse ... and they're bound to be worse soon.