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#Writephant Q4. What change do you want to make?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM

#Writephant A3. What event or milestone are you looking forward to?

My dark, cozy fantasy, *A Familiar Problem* is coming out this spring. "Becoming a powerful demon's familiar might just be the best thing ever. But what's the catch?"

I'm also hoping that my sapphic, romantasy road story, *Lady Cecelia's Journey,* will get serialized this year.

#Writephant A2. If you could have any super power, what would it be?

From A Familiar Problem

"Can you teach me how to transform?" Rory asked hopefully.
"Sorry," Tseluna said, patting his face. "I can transform because I'm a magical creature — I exist separately from the body I construct. You're a biological creature so it doesn't work for you: you *are* your body. You could learn body modification and, say, grow horns. But you'd still have to grow them the old-fashioned way." Rory was crushed.

#Writephant A1. What goal would you like to accomplish this year?

I wrote a blog post about this. https://stevendbrewer.com/toward-a-successful-new-year/

On top of having fun, working on my writing projects, and giving back to my writing communities, I identified the goal of trying to improve my efforts toward publicity.

#Writephant Introduction

I had a busy day today, with zoom meetings, errands, and email. But a big part of it was hanging out with my son's boxer dog and tussling on the couch, so it wasn't all bad.

She hissed through her teeth, as it opened the jagged wound on her side. She grabbed it anyway and shook one out.
"I have called for the doctor, Madam," a guard said, lighting the cigarette for her.
She took a puff and breathed out.
"Would you kick him for me?"
"By your leave, Madam." (2/2) #wss366

She leaned back against the wall and studied her assailant. The man was dead, his neck canted at an odd angle. She had been running from him. He had grabbed her. They had tumbled over the balcony. Now he was dead.
A pack of cigarettes had fallen out of his pocket. She leaned forward to take it. (1/2)

I attended the SFWA Writing Date this evening and got my current project unstuck. I have a tendency when I introduce tension to start trying to resolve it instantly. When that happens, I just back up a few lines, insert some carriage returns, and start writing again, so I can let the tension build.

#SilentSunday

"Try! Try!" The toddler pulled at the old lady's hand.
"Oh, no. Grandma's too old to #run," she said.
"You can run just a little!" he asserted confidently.
She remembered herself as a girl, sprinting across the playground. She looked sadly down at her thin, spindly legs.
"Well, I can't run, but I can do this." She spoke a few words and her feet lifted a few inches off the ground. "Now, run as hard as you can!" she said.
"Yay!" the boy cried, as he towed his grandma along like a balloon.

#wss366

*A Familiar Problem* was originally scheduled for January, but was delayed. If you subscribe to my monthly mailing list, you can receive updates when it appears. https://author-sdbrewer.micro.blog/subscribe/

#WritersCoffeeClub asks if characters use word not in the language we write in.

In *A Familiar Problem*, coming out this spring, the protagonist is a young man who is made the familiar of a demon. He lives on a world seeded with organisms from earth during the ice ages. But he has never been to earth. The demon, however, has visited Japan for thousands of years and knows it intimately. She uses Japanese now and again. The fun is having the inhuman demon know people better than the person.

#EngenderedWriting How do your stories treat jealousy? Positively? Do you demonize it? Something in between?

Lidja started, then looked at him.
"You're… You're *jealous*, aren't you?"
"Um… Well… Yes. Yes, I am," Revin admitted, defeated. "I have to be gone so much of the time and… And… You can always see right through me."
"You don't need to feel jealous, dear," she said, taking his arm.
"But… But he's all… muscley."
"His head is all muscley too." She giggled.

(from Campshire!)

@tobadzistsini @asakiyume @philipbrewer Welcome to @extraspecialbitter our new @wss366 curator!

"I came prepared." He tossed in a pack of smokes.
Later, the Angels were enjoying themselves while the bear quietly circled.
Two men, sneaking in, were shocked when he stood up.
"Growl. Roar," he said. "Beat it."
The men took to their heels, terrified.
The bear resumed his silent vigil. (2/2)

The bear rolled over in his cave when the Ranger called.
"Hey, Stogie! You awake?"
"What's up?"
"The Better Angels are coming again," he said. "I need you to discretely #escort them, to keep the paparazzi away."
"Hmph," grumbled the bear. "It's gonna cost you." (1/2) #wss366

#WritersCoffeeClub Do you use dream sequences in your work?

Using the familiar bond, Tseluna closed her eyes and slipped into Rory's dreaming mind. She found herself standing in a freshly plowed field where he was sitting on the ground rowing with a pair of oars while birds wheeled overhead making raucous cries.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"The miner said the alcohol was too long," he mumbled. "I'm going to catch a rock in the water barrel."
Tseluna snorted with laughter.

With the recent change in Meta's moderation policy I feel I can no longer use Facebook, Instagram, or Threads: https://stevendbrewer.com/meta-takes-a-huge-step-back/

The two boys trudged home after the soccer match, utterly defeated. Their team had gotten skunked: four nothing.
"Whatcha gonna do?" asked one.
"Nothin'…" said the other.
When they turned the corner onto their street, one looked up and said, "Hey! Is that the light in Sally Bustinger's bedroom?"
Sally sometimes left the curtains open when she came back from the shower.
They grinned at one another, spirits renewed. They raced each other to climb the tree across the street from her house.

#wss366

I couldn't get the Bluesky icon to show up using Font Awesome in Wordpress, and when I went to the settings page of the plugin it was just blank. It's nice to know I've still got the chops to track down and work around a problem like this. https://github.com/FortAwesome/wordpress-fontawesome/issues/233