Quote by WriterGirl

Happy Father’s Day weekend to you wonderful dads! ❤️

Thank you! I kind of had mine last weekend. Son was in town so we visited and went out for dinner. These kids are so (bleep)ing busy, it seems. 😊

It's fried egg!! I mean Friday!! TGIF and all that rot!!

I'll put on some Deathwish Dark Roast with Yorkshire Gold and Sunday Tea for teas. And there cookies!!

No real plans this weekend. Maybe write. We'll see.

Quote by verbal
Anyone interested in bailing me out of jail on Saturday?

Do take care. My son's been in some demonstrations (over Gaza) but this being Canada, they tend to be a bit milder. Hope all goes well. And sorry, but I'm not sure a Canadian can even post bail down there. I'll send good vibes, though. Maybe an American member could run a Gofundme?? 😉

And glad to hear your daughter's recovery is still progressing.

Quote by verbal
Ape, I think you have a similar ability to write real humans, with real interactions and emotions. Naturalistic fiction is your wheelhouse.

So I keep hearing on that other site we all frequent. We'll see. I am trying to avoid that site's usual topic and get back to writing something I can share more widely but not sure which of my several storylines to try.

Quote by WriterGirl
Oh, I happily sit alongside the late, great Survivor with the Omnium as of this morning.

Woo hoo!!! Party!! Hot and cold drinks are all refreshed for the occasion. Unfortunately, the only cake I could find was this one. It is festive, at least. 😊

Used to be sci fi but not so sure anymore. Don't read much historical and when I do, it's usually borderline fantasy.

Iced tea sweet or not?

Quote by WriterGirl
Anyone else wonder what kind of writer you should be? I’m pretty sure I’m done with the kind of stuff I’ve tried to write for the last 6 years, but not sure which direction to go or who my reader group is. Maybe just my cat.

LOL. I still think I'm a fantasy and horror writer (maybe split the difference and call it dark fantasy or dark speculative fiction or something) but I seem to be doing a lot of naturalistic fiction anymore so who knows? Maybe I'm just a dude who likes to write and isn't too fussy about what comes out of his keyboard.

Quote by WriterGirl

Thanks, he can message now. Not sure what the issue was. I better ask though. I’ve been telling peeps it was free here.

Just tried signing up one of my dummy test emails and there's no sign of any change so I'm starting to think I dreamt it. My current account does show as "Platinum" though while the dummy account (which I promptly deleted so it wouldn't be seen as a sock) was "member". But I am "Platinum" elsewhere so not sure if that pertains to here or somehow leaked over as sometimes happens.

Warm, somewhat muggy day here. First real summer-y weather but seems like it's not lasting long. Getting settled into my new office office (vs. home office) and, lest I not have mentioned it before, I HAVE A WINDOW!!! Now I can see the outside world from both my offices!!!

Anyhow, good night, folks. See ya!

Quote by WriterGirl

Hey, this site is still free to join, isn’t it? An author has come over from the other site and every time he tries to send a message or reply, he gets message the he needs to upgrade.

There was some talk of a membership of some kind but all existing members were grandfathered in. Not sure where that ultimately landed, though. Ask Molly, I guess.

No AI was involved in making today's coffee, even I feel a bit robotic at times. Apparently the big musical at the Tony awards this weekend was about robots in love. It's a Korean show, originally, so continuing their push into North American entertainment and media.

For coffee, let's have some Don Rey's Private Reserve from Las Chicas. Teas? Hmmm. How about Darjeeling Organic and Black Currant. I've washed and refilled the lemonade and iced tea pitchers. Sodas are stocked up. Happy New Week, folks!!

Yes.😋

Okay, if pressed, Indy is my favourite of the two but I like both and Harrison Ford in general.

Star Wars or Star Trek?

Quote by gillianleeza
I was excited to see that a new adaptation of Salem's Lot was made, and I recently watched it on HBO Max. It wasn't very good.

I have heard of it. I am a fan of the Tobe Hooper mini-series. Scared me something fierce when I made the mistake of watching some of it while babysitting late at night. Which tells you how old it is given that was probably high school and I'm now more than 40 years out of high school. And I love the novel. One of my favourite Kings given that my peak King reading coincided with my fascination with vampires.

Funny thing with me is, if I were every to do fanfic, it would probably be either James Bond or Batman, both action-heavy and highly visual. Though in the case of Bond, I'm actually a fan of Fleming's novels so would target that vibe rather than the movies.

I am very impressed with King. He is still going strong at 77, pumping out new fiction and keeping a finger on the pulse of various media adaptations of his work. And his son Joe (under the pen name of Joe Hill) is possibly even better than him. He has spawned the first family of horror, I would say.

Oo, that's tough. I like both, really. Probably give a slight edge to lobster but it also depends where I am. On my first trip to China to visit/meet my in-laws I swear I had at least half a dozen different varieties of crab. But when my wife lived in Halifax, a walk to a seafood market to get fresh lobster was the thing (though she always mixed up a Chinese crab dip for it).

Watch the movie first or read the novel first?

Quote by WriterGirl
Action was hard because I’m not really an action writer.

Action is hard period nowadays. I find I get these cinematic images of action scenes in my head but, dang, it's hard to make that sing on paper. I think the pulp writers had it easier with action scenes because they only had a decade or two of movies to compete with, not close to a century, so they were drawing on literary sources for inspiration, not visual ones.

Quote by verbal
Her coming out party will be the protests on June 14. Yay!

Have you seen this video yet? Protest song from Dropkick Murphys that cuts to the chase and doesn't hold back.

Forget baseball. We Canucks actually have a team in Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. In fact, its a rematch of last year, with the Edmonton Oilers taking on the Florida Panthers. Last year Florida won in the end but Edmonton took them to the full seven games. This year, with the whole Trump dissing Canada thing, there's some hefty emotional stakes up here. Edmonton took game 1 4-3 on home ice.

Quote by gillianleeza
I've got to figure out what is eating my basil.

Not me. I swear. 😜

Quote by gillianleeza
I can't imagine a summer in VA without AC.

Southern Ontario is getting there, too, though a lot of that is humidity from being tucked in between three large lakes (Huron, Erie, Ontario). But even the temps are getting bad. We hit 32-33 at least once every summer now whereas when I was younger, 30-31 was getting crazy.

Good morning. Did a refresh on the coffee and tea. Cold drinks look good and sound like some of us need them.

Toying around more than serious writing right now but we shall see.

Later, alligators.

Spiders, I think. I'm not phobic about snakes but definitely have a bit of arachnophobia, even if it is well-controlled.

Roomba or other robotic vacuum or do it yourself?

Mountain. Love mountains and not really a beach person (though if the beach is in a nice, quiet spot, I do enjoy being by the ocean).

Vampires or Werewolves?

Supposed to be warmer here for a couple days, but then back down. Though the forecast highs have dropped from what they were forecasting on the weekend. I got the AC ready yesterday but it now seems unlikely that we will need it this time around.

Okay, I think you all know where I get this stuff so I'll drop the name from the titles now. June themed calls are the usual mixed bag. Birds, cryptids, queer mecha vs. kaiju, best dressed, Mina Harker (the character from Dracula), essays on modern love (the NYT of all places), and more. See if something catches your interest.

» 36 Themed Calls and Contests for June 2025

Over the Hills and Far Away - Gary Moore

Prefer burgers but dogs are easier to eat when you're sitting in bleachers, so dog.

Fries with spice/other seasonings or just salted?

Quote by verbal
Avoiding editing the novel today.

I really need to get something new going. I'm just kind of flailing around again. Finished a draft for another site that was sitting idle and I'll probably post it soon. Realized the ending that I kept dancing around really was the right one. Might need to split it, though. It's quite long for me.

Quote by verbal
Daughter is doing very well.

Good to hear. Hope that continues.

Stumbled over this band on the weekend. Lay Of The Autumn are Italian but the lead vocalist hails from Ukraine and has some history as a solo artist as well, including trying out to be Ukraine's Eurovision entry in 2018. She's good but it's the instrumentalists who are the real stars. All terrific players at their positions, esp. the guitarist and keyboardist. Style is basically symphonic metal but with some other elements woven in.

This instrumental may actually be their best work, with all the players at their finest.

And this is a terrific song both vocally and instrumentally.

New day, new week, new month, what's not to like? Weather is nice here for a couple days, too. Might even get a hint of summer, with temps hitting the high 20s Celsius.

Coffee is on, some Fire Roasted St. Drogo. Teas are Scottish Breakfast and Earl Grey Cream. Pitchers are washed and refilled with iced tea and lemonade. Sodas are stocked.

Here's some goodies, too.

I have known for a while that Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, one of the masters of modern gothic and horror (Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water), was doing Frankenstein. The first trailer is out. Looks very very good, but the devil will be in the details.

Good morning. Posted a new Author's Publish piece on climate and environmental fiction in Resources. Hot topic these days so I thought there might be some interest in writing about it around here.

For the weekend, there's Kicking Horse Smart Ass coffee (no further comment) and we've got some Canadian Breakfast and Vinyl Cafe tea for the tea crowd. Fresh lemonade and unsweet iced tea are lurking in the fridge along with our seemingly infinite soda stock.

Hope you're having a nice weekend, all.

Stories about the environment and the mess we are making of it have been staple in s-f for decades now, with climate change being the current hot topic in that field. Of course, that has now spread beyond just s-f, with horror, fantasy, and even general literary fiction about the climate crisis becoming common. These 14 markets are looking for stories on various aspects of the climate crisis from how we might survive to how our world and societies might change as a result. They range from hopeful (Solarpunk magazine, which is named for a fairly new sub-genre focused on being hopeful and upbeat vs. the rather dark feel of a lot of -punk genres) to rather dark sounding (Club Chicxulub, named for the asteroid that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs). See if any might be an option for you.

https://authorspublish.com/14-magazines-accepting-climate-and-environmental-fiction/