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#chef

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.05.10 — Have you done collaborative projects? If so, how did you divide the work?

I have. I was the minion. I did what was told. I rather liked it compared to be responsible for the whole project.

Wait... By work, you mean something creative, not work at work type work.

For all my trying, I've not yet enticed someone to work on a project. I have shared cooking together with someone. Does that count. It's easier if the kitchen is big enough, and like we do, we have an extra sink…

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2504.12 — Shameless self-promotion day. Show us what you're proud of. Let's boost away.

Mars Need Women is a hopeful yet deeply dystopian feminist SF web-novel that leans heavily into Women's right's issues thanks to a set of writing prompts on the subject. It is a woman-centric adventure story of overcoming adversity while being female, with all the warts and frustrations, not as a man in disguise.

Our wannabe engineer heroine May Ri escapes a disheartening life, faced with becoming little more than a housewife because she lacks "blessings," to help colonize Mars—if you can call being shanghaied escaping and being contracted to have children a benefit. (She does get to choose the gorgeous supportive guy, though, so that's a positive.) As she learns to make martian machines, she keeps putting herself at the center of a global martian dust storm with her children as power shifts from being male-dominated. As the daughters of the Martian immigrants increasingly control Mars' future (how is spoilers), May Ri together with her five daughters shape a world (Mars) the way unfettered women might imagine it.

When the men of Earth take affront—of course they do—they learn that women don't fight like men, especially when their children's lives are threatened, and their wellbeing is at stake. #RSMarsNeededWomen

It remains free-to-read on Mastodon for a few more days:

eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/11408894.

If you start reading it now, a comment or a private mention will tell me not to delete the posts until the end of next week. I consider it a beta read. I'm already revising an augmenting the original story, tying up loose ends, and might add more chapters along the path to publishing it as a book. Meanwhile, I'm going to start boosting chapters for a last hurrah.

See #alttext for book cover description.

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

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The cover art for Mars Needed Women. The background is of the Mars surface with rover tracks, big rocks, sand, and a greenish sky. There is a triskelion image of Mars, which is a tattoo in the story. Credit NASA and ESA for the photos.
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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2504.06 — Talk To Me Day. Featured creator: Lydia VVinters ( @HeliaXyana ) #TTMD

It's now April 6th in London, so here's my question:

I see a lot of imagery on your website (lydiavvinters.com). How to you characterize yourself as a creator? A poet? An Artist? What do you focus on?

Also, is your last name of your pen name intentionally a double-V so it looks like a W (double-U)?

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Lydia VvintersLydia VvintersEclectic Witch
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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#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.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers ##TTMD @sfwrtr

@gahlearner @saposcat

I think a cooking section on the website is a great idea. Could also be a teaser in a newsletter.

Content is king, but it has to be interesting to keep people coming back for more. Like a restaurant, I suppose…

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#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@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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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@EveHasWords

What's your favorite comfy / cozy ritual? (E.g. curl up with a book and hot beverage?)

This may make me seem much younger than I am, but...

At the end of the day, I watch anime on Crunchyroll. Let's just ignore that I may also be snacking and I shouldn't be. Keep in mind that I am a feminist writer, so some of the series are really offensive, but it is in equal parts really stupid and meaningless, and subversive as to how the male characters get their comeuppance. There are also amazing truly feminist and traditional stories I'd highly recommend. I like slife-of-life stuff the best.

But, to answer your question, anime helps me forget the day.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#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, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@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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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#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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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD @sfwrtr

@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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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2503.27 — Were you ever discouraged by great art of someone else?

Only a practicing artist, author, or crafter would ask such an insightful question, from experience; okay, maybe a psychologist would. I believe it is human to compare oneself and one's creations to those who teach us, whether they know they're our teachers or not. We've learned to simulate in our heads the parents or teachers we've grown up with, who mean well or not, who critique without encouraging, who don't emphasize and collaborate with us on next steps, too. We've learned to hear echoes of their voices.

This is one of my personal flaws. Not the comparison part. The part where I judge my effort lacking, never good. Shit. I just experienced it a few days ago on book recommendation day, having encountered an indie writer so good at writing 3rd person that it felt like 1st, whose first chapter compelled me to buy the book.

I compared.

My energy crashed.

I didn't want to write.

But I'm getting better at this, and if you're empathizing (and face it, if'n you're read'n this up to this point, you are), you are learning how to tell your negativity, "Begone!"

I had a chapter to write and publish that day.

I didn't "feel" it. I did it anyway.

I focused on my unique style and how it entertained me. And the story, which surprised me. And that it was practice, regardless.

When I see others self-deprecate, I tell them to stop (or at least tell them notice how poorly they'd treated themselves). Recently I caught a follower deprecate their web-comic. I saw abstraction, minimalism, and a uniquely primitive style and smiled. I think the artist saw themselves as barely able to draw, but their rendering was strong, it set off the dialogue, and had showed motion. Nobody starts off a Rembrandt, and there was only one, ever. Or ever more than one of us. I tell myself this. The first impressionists were ridiculed as lazy. Picasso... Did cubism hit the first day? It's best not to be dear Vincent, tho. Best to strengthen that of which we're capable.

Just write. Just create. If it pleases me, I vow I'll do it better the next time, or I enjoy the thing I've created and move on. Hard. Yes. Persistence? It's key.

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#ScribesAndMakers 2503.26 — Ask the expert: if you're a specialist in something, would you answer questions for writers/artists regarding your specialty?

I'll answer, but in public threads as one of my things is helping as many people as I can. Jack or Jill of many trades, but an expert in none? Let's see:

  • I've now watched 102 Korean drama series and many more Japanese anime series, so I have some perspective there.
  • If you've followed me, I fancy myself an experimental chef (fancy being a keyword with multiple meanings).
  • I have some insights into oral traditions (folklore). RS has a degree.
  • I take pretty pictures, but went from a professional DSLR to using an iPhone most of the time.
  • I'm am arguably good at storytelling. My agent said that was the best thing about me. I might be convinced to answer questions like "How do you write a fight scene?" or "Is attention to gender all that important?" or "Is grammar good? Or… It's bad, isn't?"
  • What I am is an expert at being shy, what it feels like, and what that means to a person. You may ask me about that.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2503.25 2/2— Describe your workflow if it had to be 100% analog.

Definition of terms first:Analog means not digital as in "without electronic assistance." It also means with my digits; without fingers, creativity ain't happening. So too, electric light, refrigerator, electric ovens and gas stoves (I've never used the WiFi features). Okay, then.

The picture is of last night's dinner. I didn't even have to resort to my bookshelves of recipe books. It wasn't purely ad lib, but variations on a theme from memory.

I sampled the red wine. Twice.

I stuffed the chop in a small Tupperware with freeze-dried garlic, oregano, and thyme, squeezed lemon and turned it every minute while cutting, with chef knives (eschewing the computer controlled food processor), onions, shallots, and green onions. I deveined purple kale then chopped it into little pieces. Along the way, I topped off the Tupperware with red wine and started flipping it. I also grated pecorino Romano.

I put edamame pasta to boil 6 minutes, drained and reserved it.

I melted butter in the skillet and put garlic oil in the small fry pan to brown garlic. Onions mix went in skillet to brown. Pork chop got plopped into the pan along periodically some wine with spices mixture to boil off. Swirling the chop in the pan with tongs coats chop with glaze.

If purely analog, I'd not have used my electronic temperature probe; I have mechanical ones that would serve in a pinch.

After adding kale and stirring, I kept turning chop and deglazing not using up the fluid. I heated the ceramic art bowl dish with boiling water, mixed pasta, Romano, and kale mixture thoroughly, then placed chop on top. I used a wet towel to clean the ceramic and make the food happily photogenic.

I boiled away the last of the wine marinade until thick, deglazing the pan thoroughly before dribbling it over the chop.

I have no analog cameras. You'd not get the picture below.

I'd wash the dishes by hand. My dishwasher is digital!

EDIT: Oops. Thought this was a #ScribesAndMakers reply. Yep, RS is also a chef. 🤪😋

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

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Red wine spiced marinaded pork chop on kale, onion, pecorino Reggiano, butter edamame pasta. It is arranged appetizingly in a pretty art ceramic bowl.
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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

#ScribesAndMakers 2503.22 — Tell us about a book you love by an indie author.

Well, fan fiction seems to me to generally be written by indie authors who rarely get paid (though some make a living), and that's probably not what you meant…

Really, I went from reading and buying books all the time to writing all the time and not reading books. (I had my phone reading my manuscripts or fan fiction to me while exercising.) Previously, I only read conventionally published authors. Now, I'm trying to crack a book now and again. I understand that Indie books offer fresh blood, and please note the fact that you are all promoting on Mastodon is getting me interested in reading your books.

I'd definitely recommend Liana Brooks All I Want for Christmas is a Kiss Gargoyle. (@LianaBrooks) Found it in my feed. Enjoyed it muchly.

barnesandnoble.com/w/all-i-wan

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Barnes & NobleAll I Want For Christmas Is A Gargoyle|PaperbackMeet Iris Muhly, American star of the hit international TV show Shattered.Just kidding. Ingenue Iris definitely acts in the show, but the vibe? Less 'star' and more 'character the fans hate most'. Bad enough on a normal show. But on a show where fans literally vote to control the...
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