Jess Mahler

JessMahler@indiepocalypse.social

Jess' weird fish-out-of-water life has left them with an enduring love/hate affair with common tropes. The relationship counselor recommended they break it off, but they just keep coming back to play with tropes (and fuck them up) some more.In between their tropic indulgences, they write queer fantasy with aromantic, neurodivergent, and generally 'weird' characters, take care of their family, argue halakha, and try to do a bit of educational activism on the side.(Some details: adopted, queer, disabled, neurodivergent, white settler, Jewish, writer, parent, anti-capitalist. Learning to be anti-racist and learning about decolonization.)Avatar is a gryphon by @amaranth@weirder.earth Header is same gryphon in the mountains.You are not obligated t

Posts

Post #4212718
#WordWeavers July 11: Would your protagonist rather be loved or feared? Why? Loved. Mildthryth isn&#39;t really interested in being feared, even if it is occasionally useful.
Post #4212717
#PennedPossibilities 1068 — In your WIP, do you have a MMC, FMC, or multiple MCs? For Bound by His Oath I have two MCs. All of my stuff has at least two protagonists and much of my work is ensembles.
Post #4212716
Just checking in to say I&#39;m still alive. Health and life stuff. Hopefully back again soon.
Post #4212715
So writing has taken a very very back seat to family care, including getting ready for the school year. I&#39;m starting to wonder if part of the reason I burnout last year and couldn&#39;t maintain writing schedule/goals is because was doing homeschool for the kids at the same time, and if in the future I can try to give myself gentler goals during the school year and harder &#39;push&#39; goals during the summer. Not trying it this year, but worth thinking about.
Post #4212714
I don&#39;t know why OpenStax wants instructors to &#39;verify&#39; that they are actually teachers before giving us access, but their process does not at all take into account the reality of homeschooling in many places. Very frustrated right now.
Post #2302225
#ScribesAndMakers May 8. Leviathan? Ziz.
Post #2302224
#PennedPossibilities 1008¹⁵. One or more of your characters, of your choice, are about to sneak into &#39;something&#39;. Why are they sneaking and what are they sneaking into, are they successful? Iberto is sneaking into the monks quarters to spy on them. So far, he has been successful every time.
Post #2302221
Some days I REALLY miss Write or Die. Today is one of them. Stimuwrite is awesome, but... not the same.
Post #2302219
Got some writing done today for the first time since March. Not a lot of writing, but that&#39;s okay. I&#39;m finally recovered and back at it.
Post #2179522
Not entirely random -- Please don&#39;t use the term &#39;Judeo-Christian&#39;. It is a supracessionist term that is frequently used to claim a level of similarity between Judaism and Christianity that simply does not exist. As an example, anti-abortion activists will frequently claim that abortion is &#39;against Judeo-Christian values&#39;, but the truth is that Judaism not only allows abortion in many circumstances, but in some cases requires it (to save the life of the...
Post #2136151
#ScribesAndMakers 6 May: Ghoti (fish) is a word created to demonstrate the odd pronunciation variations in the English language. Create a word of your own or share one you&#39;ve created. I didn&#39;t create any new words for A Smear of Blood, but I have done multiple conlangs for other projects. In Planting Life in a Dying City, &#39;lefengawt&#39; means &#39;mud&#39;. &#39;Lefeng&#39; is the root word, and &#39;awt&#39; is the gender marker indicating...
Post #1917286
#ScribesAndMakers May 3. When you see the word 'read', is your first instinct to read it as present tense or past tense? If it's on it's own, I usually read it as past tense, pronounced like 'red'.
Post #1902262
Where to Buy Books Other than Amazon A few years back I had a habit of every six months or so doing a thread on Fedi about options for getting books other than Amazon. Eventually it finally occurred to me that I could write it once, put it up on website, and update as needed, rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. Here’s the updated version for the new site. https://jessmahler.com/where-to-buy-books-other-than-amazon/ #bookstodon #AmReading
Post #1892390
Searching for womanist and queer resources on masculinity for my godkid (Black queer teenager). They are searching for something and keep stumbling on borderline redpill videos. Want to give them better perspectives sooner rather than later. I&#39;m getting him a copy of bell hook&#39;s We Real Cool, but does anyone have other suggestions? YouTube channels would be ideal, but other suggestions are welcome. #Parenting #Feminism #LGBTQ
Post #1823990
#PennedPossibilities 1001. Is your MC confident or not? Tell us why. &quot;[Iberto] carried with him the brash confidence of youth, a certainty that he knew what must be done which had carried him far. But having spoken with him now, Santosh could see cracks in the young Called&#39;s confidence.&quot; Santosh&#39;s PoV of Iberto and his confidence.
Post #1509001
#MutualAid Disabled family needs $30 to make it to the end of the month. Most of that&#39;s for toilet paper and other hygiene stuff. Any help is appreciated. Paypal: jessicaburde@gmail.com 7/30 #MutualAidRequest #TransCrowdFund
Post #1035027
#ScribesAndMakers – 6 Some people have creative work inspired by their dreams. Have you? Oh yeah. Dreams have been a major inspiration for several of my stories, including one I&#39;m working on right now.
Post #1035022
My novella, The Last Lady of Lună, is part of a the Autistic SFF (+ a &#39;lil romance &amp; more) Bundle Now available on Itchio 34 books by autistic authors, with autistic characters, for $30 Lună is a why choose vampire romance novel. The autistic character in Lună is Karen, a mercenary with special interests in knives and timelines. She gets hyperfocused when on the job, and can be a bit scattered and distractable off it. https://itch.io/b/3598/autistic-sff-a-lil-romance-more
Post #1035021
G&#39;morning all. Management is sending exterminator through at [unknown time] today, and it is completely fucking with my head not knowing when we will need to leave the apartment for 2 hours. So nothing is getting done today, yay! Hope y&#39;all are doing well.
Post #1035019
#WordWeavers Apr 6: Can you create a character/place/storyhook/device on the spot, if you need to? If so, share an example. Dennis was a young man done hard by life. He wanted only wanted one thing. It was a simple thing, shouldn&#39;t have been that big an ask. But no, nothing ever went his way. Always had to be something. Today, it was a busted freezer, and the melted remains of his favorite ice pop.
Post #946751
G&#39;morning all. Hope y&#39;all got more sleep than I did. Gonna try to get some writing done. Fingers crossed.
Post #946750
Got the one page synopsis done. It came out closer to two pages, but meh. I&#39;d hoped to get more done today, but family stuff intervened. So... hopefully tomorrow.
Post #946749
*waves* Hi all. Sorry for long silence. Got sick, then Passover, it was a whole thing. Will hopefully be around more now.
Post #946748
G&#39;afternoon all. Brain is not functioning too well today, but it is functioning, which is improvement on this time last week. How are y&#39;all doing?
Post #724586
#scribesandmakers March 17. What’s a creative habit you’ve wanted to adopt but haven’t yet? Dream journaling. I&#39;ve gotten so many good stories from my dreams, you&#39;d think of be writing every one of them down. Doesn&#39;t work with my morning schedule though, so I only write down the ones that A) I wake up from in the middle of the night and B) I remember coherently enough to write the full plot out.