@stevendbrewer@wandering.shop

I always said Obama should have shut down the Guantanamo Bay naval base and given it back to Cuba. The US should never have been there in the first place. And as long as the US has it, it will remain a temptation for the government to use it for extrajudicial action.

Feeling like a grumpy old man… https://stevendbrewer.com/grumpy-old-men/

As usual.

#WritersCoffeeClub How’s your writing progress so far this year? What are you working on?

To be honest, my writing progress has been only middling. There's (waves hands) all this going on. I've been working on the third novella sequel to *Revin's Heart*, which is shaping up to be an exciting ride. And I don't worry too much about uneven productivity. As I've said elsewhere, my creative output has always been uneven. Having fun with it is more important that hitting some arbitrary word count.

*Lady Cecelia's Flowers* is Part 1 of *Lady Cecelia's Journey*, a sapphic romantasy road story. It has not yet been scheduled for release, but if you subscribe to my monthly mailing list, you can receive updates when it appears. https://author-sdbrewer.micro.blog/subscribe/

#LesFicFri #heart from *Lady Cecelia's Flowers*.

I found some Ektachrome slides of Sunny, my family's boxer dog, from December 1982. #DogsofMastodon

"So whadaya wanna #play t'day?" she asked.
"Pirates," her little brother said.
"Do you want to be the captain and I'll be the first mate?"
He looked down and mumbled something.
"What did you say?"
"Prisoner."
"What? You want me to be your prisoner?
"You, captain," he said. "Me, prisoner."
"Didn't we do that last time?"
He mumbled again and looked down.
"Avast, ye lubber!" she cried striking a pose. "Are ye ready to walk the plank?"
The little boy looked up shyly and smiled.

#wss366

Another secondary character, Lady Cecelia, has become the protagonist of her own sapphic, romantasy, road-story series, *Lady Cecelia's Journey*, which I hope will be released this year.

#WritersCoffeeClub Do secondary characters sometimes get promoted to main characters?

In *Revin's Heart*, I wrote "side quests" that provide back story for some of the secondary characters. The first, *Where There's a Will* describes how the pirate captain and his first mate meet and fall in love. The second, *Curtains Rise*, describes how the pirate captain, as a young man, met the first mate's father. It was fun exploring the history of the characters. Readers have told me they enjoy them.

On Laugh-in in 1969:
Henry Gibson says, "Hey, Goldy! I've become a writer!"
"Have you sold anything?"
"Yeah! My hat. And my watch…"

I made feijoada for lunch today. It turned out really well.

*Lady Cecelia's Knowledge* is Part 4 of *Lady Cecelia's Journey*, a sapphic romantasy road story. It has not yet been scheduled for release, but if you subscribe to my monthly mailing list, you can receive updates when it appears. https://author-sdbrewer.micro.blog/subscribe/

She could hear Kelli sobbing in the dark beyond a chicken coop at the far corner of the barnyard.
Cecelia found her crouching in the grass, crying her eyes out. She crouched down with her and put a hand on her back.
"I hate him," Kelli sobbed. "I hate him so much."
"What he said was cruel," Cecelia said.
"But… What if it's true?" Kelli groaned.
Cecelia was silent while she tried to think of what to say. Finally, she said, "If it's true, then you need to be honest with yourself."

#wss366

#WritersCoffeeClub How do you format your drafts? Is it the same as the final manuscript?

For manuscripts, I tend to use Shunn classic https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/ Unless the submission guidelines say to do something different. Manuscripts don't look right to me unless they're in a non-proportionally-spaced font.

I do a lot of my early drafting using a text editor (I use Pulsar) which looks similar but is functionally unformatted. As I tell my students, write the words first and format later.

I wonder if people would boost more if they got a notification when someone else boosted something because they saw the boosted post in their feed.

The list of participants is up for #Boskone! It looks like it's going to be a great time! https://boskone.org/guests/program-participants/

Practically the first thing I did when I became a faculty member was to join the union. Some scientists don't because they believe their work is of inherent, indisputable value. Look at what the current political leadership is saying about science now and see if you still think that.

It's not too late to join the union. Unions can say and do things that Universities can't. And you're legally protected from retaliation when you work on things together with the union.

The "Gulf of America" is this year's "Freedom Fries."

The little boy sniffed at the enticing odor.
"Whatcha makin', Grandma?" he said.
She had three pots on the stove. She was stirring one that bubbled gently. In the back, a big pot was boiling hard. The last was set to low with a tin can set in it.
"I'm makin' Blackberry jam in this one," she said. "And I'm sterilizing the jars and melting the wax to pour on top."
"Whatcha gonna use it with? Toast? Biscuits?"
"Bourbon," she replied, tweaking his nose. "But you can lick the spoon first."

#wss366

Getting to watch other people finding out is half the fun…