Los pinceles "pata de pollo" (雞距筆) de China de los siglos IV-V d.C. llegaron a Japón, donde se les llamó "cabeza de gorrión" (雀頭筆). Estos son del periodo Nara (710-792) de Japón. Shōsō-in #china #escritura #writing #japon #japan

Bloom!

Dr. Nnmandi Bello was far from home. If one could ever consider home a place and not the memories? He idly wondered if he'd ever travel far enough to lose the memories.

“This is it. The old Reva ranch.” The driver drew his attention back to the here and now.

Nnmandi had to work to get anyone to remember where the ranch was. Now, after a quarter century of rain, sun, and wind turned it to just another stretch of Mexican scrub lands.

Another place that was just memories.

Hooked by Les Edgerton - an excellent read that covers key factors towards writing openings to hook your readers. Placing it in the same league as Stephen King's On Writing. Edgerton focuses on book openings and includes advice from some prominent Agents/Publishers. Highly recommended read.
#books #writing

#ScribesAndMakers 2504.04 — Can you handle praise well, or do you get embarrassed and play your achievement down? CW: self-analysis

Oddly enough, this devolves to gender roles and the confusion an autistic can discover in any social illogic. As a child, I quickly evolved into a listener, observer, and a pleaser with my shyness providing me an escape route from any confrontative situation—things I worked on (had to!) as I became an adult. Wanting to be an author is not entirely compatible with these personality traits regardless of gender—there is a definite forwardness and egoist nuance to insisting on communicating one's ideas—and I couldn't rely on others to meditate for me.

I got praise growing up, especially when doing well in school. Then again, my mother had me convinced I'd die if I didn't bring home top marks. I mostly got to hide from praise. It's not that I don't, didn't, like it, but I could better process it unobserved and generally make it appropriately and comfortably undeserved. A pleaser can't accept being pleased well!

Yeah, I got help. If you've heard of EST, I did that.

Now my reaction to praise is a Venn diagram of who, what, and where. If it is online, where nobody has to see me physically react, I'm a lot more copacetic with it. In person, it can be uncomfortable. I can still find ways to minimize the input but as I get older I'm better at fairly assessing my abilities. I do remember having this one fan at conventions that would greet me. She really wanted a sequel. Maybe she sensed I was shy, I don't know. But I grew to like her reminder.

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

#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool

#gender #fiction #writer #author #photographer #chef #cooking
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion

Lights, camera, but will there be any action at the Imperial on East 14th Street? Julian George dims the lights in The Movie Lovers.

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/the-movie-lovers-julian-george

Image: Krish Shah

#books #reading #writing #fiction #translation #comics #blog #podcast #bookstodon @bookstodon

Are you in Chicago or Cincinnati? Tomorrow (April 5th) at 11am, the Under Cover Book Club will be hiding copies of my novel THE EXPERT OF SUBTLE REVISION around the city! Check Instagram for clues to the secret location: undercover513 for Cincinnati or undercoverbookclub312 for Chicago. Happy hunting!

https://www.undercover513.com/home

#books #writing #writersofmastodon #WritingCommunity #bookstodon @bookstodon@a.gup.pe @bookstodon@fedigroups.social

Vonnegut's one rule: more important than ever!

**We Need to Do Something About Student Writing**

Liza Libes

“_Most of my students, of course, are not training to create the next Great American Novel. Most of my students will continue on to secure professions in tech, medicine, law, or business. But every one of these students will benefit from good communication skills—and every one of these students is currently being failed by an education system that deemphasizes reading and writing._”

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2025/03/31/we-need-to-do-something-about-student-writing/

#Univeristy #College #Education #Learning #Reading #Writing #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Excellent basic #psychology essay about battling self-doubt: https://writerunboxed.com/2025/04/03/the-rational-irrational-writer/

Although it's written for #writers and #writing, the ABCDE approach it takes can easily be applied to any endeavor. Feeling as if you're trying to succeed in something you can't? Take a break and read this.

"U.S. Copyright Office issues highly anticipated report on copyrightability of AI-generated works"

Detailed and fairly dense, but as the article says early on, "It maintains that human authorship and creativity remain essential in the quest to obtain copyright protection for works involving materials created by artificial intelligence."

https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/us-copyright-office-issues-highly-anticipated-report-copyrightability-ai-2025-04-02/

The #MastoPrompt for Friday 4 April 2025 is:

#lay

The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.

@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.

If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.

dancing in the sky
a lonely kite
broken free

#dailyhaikuprompt - kite
#haiku
#poetry
#poetrycommunity
#writing
#writingcommunity

@dailyhaikuprompt

@poetry

@haiku

'The company has taken our books and used it to make money. It has money, but instead of paying us for our intellectual property instead of licensing a word, it's taking it all for free.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #books #reading #writing #publishing #AI #bookstodon

Meta AI book scraping: 'We nee...

'In my view, to fixate on words misses much of what translation is.'

Michelle Chan Schmidt talks to Matt Reeck about his philosophy of #translation

Just don't call it a #philosophy

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/04/02/the-movement-of-language-matt-reeck-on-the-best-unexpressed

#books #reading #writing #fiction #poetry #publishing #bookstodon @bookstodon

#WordWeavers Apr 4. Whose advice about your writing would you follow?

I listen to all the advice. Some are immediately understandable and comprehensible, which is why I try to take them on board. Others I have to think about for a while to realise how to deal with them. If I'm not sure whether someone's advice makes sense, I ask other (test) readers for their opinion. Sometimes advice would lead me to change something that I don't want to change. Then I ignore the advice.

#ScribesAndMakers April 3: Would you like to form a writers/creative group? Share what you're looking for to see if anyone would like to join you.

I think the idea of writing groups is a good one, and I'd like to set up one myself. However, I have enough other interests for which I already have too little time. So I make do with the hashtag games and the resulting communications on various writing topics.