@neve
Have I ever taken a real historical event and worked it into your fiction?

More than once--I specialize in Alternate History.

In the story "O-Rings" in Alternate Peace, I explore what could have happened to Christa McAuliffe and Challenger.

In the story "Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln..." in ZNB Presents Part II, you find out who really shot the president.

I could go on . . .

@Rozzychan
Legal isn't the issue. "Is it constitutional?" is the question. Trump is making laws. That's a legislative function, Congress' prerogative. Trump is supposed to enforce only those laws, but if he refuses to do so, what's left?

The federal justice system is constitutionally under the executive branch and uses his delegated power, but he IS NOT faithfully upholding the laws. The justice system is made of tens of thousands of people who invidually want to keep their jobs. They have a constitutional right to refuse, and be fired.

They won't do that, because they are just people.

This happened in Germany in the 1930s.

That's the dimension of what's happening. Nothing can be more un-American than this.

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@crcollins

What is your favorite thing you've written & why?

You b evil!

My main characters tend to get sorely abused and pummeled by reality. Twice as much work for half the credit, right? All so the moment of victory can be bittersweet and worth it. There's this one scene; I'll endeavor to minimize spoilers.

The setup: She had finally found friendship and love. Previously injured, she still ends up saving her lover (okay, one of her two lovers), and saving the life of her assassin, too, and died. Thought she had, only to wake, barely healed, to find the other antagonist had had them arrested and undone the good she'd done to prevent a foreseeable war.

The denouement: Though wit and persuasion, and the loyalty of the people she's protected, she proves everything she's said is right, literally causing the antagonist to throw her helmet on the ground in frustrated resignation. Clang! It does mean she reveals she's pregnant, because that's one of the keys, and has to agree to bare the child…

It's the intensity of the emotions and the integrity this cynical character displays that grips me. I can hardly believe I wrote it.

That goes equally for a more recent work. One of the MCs is male, and I usually can't relate enough to men to make them work as male in the story. He's different, as is the world he lives in. How he ends up noticing the woman antagonist's hidden anguish and solves the problem, in an albeit naïve but heartfelt uniquely male manner, has left me beside myself. It's one of the few times a male character might be carrying the story instead of his female co-MC.

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#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr @saposcat

Did 'Laugh In' contribute to the imaginary play at all, or was it just background? Do you still like some sort of background noise when you're creating?

I was maybe 7 when I played in front of the TV with LaughIn while playing with my… were they dolls or action figures? I used to have a unique skill at multitasking, so I probably followed the comedy, but I was unlikely playing pretend with Artie Johnson on a tricycle annoying Ruth Buzzi.

When I was a teenager, all through high school, I always had the TV on, especially when doing my homework. When you've seen all the reruns of Doctor Who, Speed Racer, Kimba, Green Acres, F-Troop, Gilligan's Island, and Star Trek, it's easy to use it as background and still enjoy the best parts!

More recently, I love electronica, house, and progressive music. While programming. While writing. The beat can accelerating my heartbeat and my thinking. But it becomes truly background to a point that I forget to turn it on unless I need it to block out noise.

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RS as (Audi) RennSport or as Renault Sport ?

Disambiguation: RennSport (game) vs. Renault Sport (car).

/// M Sport IRL

Not much of a gamer these days. All that damn writing going on!

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@gahlearner @saposcat

1. When do you write your cookbook?

Probably never. However, if you follow me I show photos of my cooking, and sometime share enough of a recipe for those who cook to follow. When I get my act together and make an author website, I may have a RS Cooks section with this stuff. Remember, you need to keep people returning to your website over years so they remain aware of your new books!

1. Do you bake (like that) too? I mean, I'm a lousy cook but when I cook I often improvise too. But never with baking.

I used to bake. I had two breadmaker machines! But I am very much low-carb now. (It's why I substitute cauliflower for rice in my paella, for example.) I have to watch my salt intake, too. My pork chop on the bed of kale, onions, butter, pecorino, and edamame linguine was low-carb. The edamame pasta has 1/5th the carbs of regular pasta, much of them as fiber instead. It has a better taste and a similar mouth feel, too.

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#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr @willelm

How are you trying to keep from burning out in the future? Any tips or tricks to share for others when they get burned out?

My incessant answering prompts on Mastodon surely helps! Especially this one thing I learned here, which reaffirmed something I knew:

Write stories you want to read. For crafters or artists, craft what you want to use (I love what I cook) or paint what's beautiful to you. I love my photos. Be your first audience.

But it's up to you whether you are your only audience. Is that okay for you?

For me, sadly, no. That's why I burnt out. I was failing to communicate. Getting my ideas into other people's heads was very important. Worse, I was writing in the way publishers and my agents insisted I must. It made made my efforts harder and my lack of success more sour.

However, you asked for tips to prevent it:

• I found that writing fan fiction solved my not-communicating problem. I found the right fandom for me and couldn't avoid the feedback. I wasn't writing SF (except in stealth mode), it wasn't commercial, but it did satisfy, and I did communicate with readers.
• Whilst not for me, joining a writer's group does help others. Make sure they understand the Clarion critique ethic where you consider the work and never attack the writer, you give constructive suggestions, and most importantly, only the author gets to decide if the advice is relevant. Keep it social and professional at the same time.
• I stop writing, crafting, painting, whatever, when it isn't fun at some level. I do something else. This goes hand-and-hand with not expecting to make a living doing what I love, which means I can pick it up some another day or another year. If becoming a bestselling author as soon as possible is what drives you, this might not work. Sadly, in my first career, I wanted being an author to be my actual career. Maybe not hard enough.
• I try to recognize whether I'm being too hard on myself. In the realm of art, nothing is the Right Way™. I've seen plenty of artwork that looks unskilled in museums or as wall art. It's the expression and meaning that counts, and being persistent.
• The other part about being too hard on oneself is something I fight daily. Judging my content by the imagined standards of others. I don't know if my stories will offend, for example, and it can be paralyzing and become unbearably uncomfortable. I constantly have to watch myself for that. I practice a zen thing here. I recognize it, ignore it, and simply write anyway. Revision is always an alternative, but I need to complete the story first.

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@HeliaXyana

[I] fear sending my female MC into the kitchen as it might be considered anti feminist. Are there any key aspects I could keep in mind to avoid this?

It is all about the point you are trying to make.

All cultures cook.

Sure, she could be trapped by her gender role; it can be the only creativity she's allowed; you can emphasize subservience and frustration that leads to a break. That's one story. Or the kitchen could be a solace she escapes into, a place where she can stop fighting and eat by herself where nobody will judge her cooking her mother's recipes as weakness.

For me, feminist writing is about self-determination and agency contrasted against either the gender roles in the story or in those in the reader's head. As a writer, you must entertain. That doesn't mean you can't enlighten.

My current story breaks the rules. She's a fighter, but learns it works better when she works with the system instead of against it. She marries because she has to, but does get the pick of the litter. Gorgeous. She has five children, all girls. She even cooks for her husband, whom she adores, but we get that scene is a special occasion. What's important is she's also escaped being a housewife to become an engineer (her dream) on colonial Mars, and her specific efforts shapes that world's female future (and maybe ours). Along with her woman friends and her girls, the reader watches gender roles melt to insignificance..

To answer your question: Assert what's true for the character in her quest to become more than she's allotted. The fear you feel is you imagining other people's judgement. Feminist writers always make somebody angry.

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