Notices by Sandra Bond (klepsydra@wandering.shop)

@cstross "Okay, Jimmy. You can whack the rubber stamp across this yin. Full conversion to Scottishness achieved."

@cstross For sale: baby shoes, zombie baby.

@cstross The four words of the headline alone were quite sufficient to make me shudder and for my right hand, unbidden, to click away.

@cstross it *is* safe to click on this and find out why you're so vexed... right?

@cstross Grody to the max, dude!

@cstross There is, mind, a certain element of "SF predicts the future despite itself" in the charts.

"Apart from accidents Earth would still have been habitable."

@cstross There are, gordelpus, exceptions to every rule. (But I must admit that I'm a philistine and found Last and First Men a terrible slog. If I were to reread Stapledon nowadays, it'd probably be Sirius.)

#WritersCoffeeClub 12/7. What do you think is the most critical element in storytelling?

Characterisation. If you don't have characters who feel plausible and about whom the reader can care -- positively or negatively -- the best plot in history will go to waste.

@cstross Badenoch. For every voter who thinks Margaret Thatcher was too kind, too gentle, too wishy-washy.

@ZachWeinersmith most writers who write a very large amount of essentially similar books develop a deck of cards which they become adept at shuffling and dealing in a slightly different way every time -- similar enough to previous ones to keep their fans happy but different enough to keep them from complaining. Agatha Christie is another example of this technique.