Charlotte Francis

Oh, I don't know about that. You should be able to go see whatever you like! But if you can arrange going with your granddaughter, I'm sure that would make it more special. Good luck!

You're so right, and we did have a lot of fun.

Silly pictures of me and my girls in a Photo Booth

Should have been writing this afternoon, but took two of my tiny people to see Wicked 2 today at the cinema instead, then somehow ended up in this predicament. I have no regrets.

🤞 Manifesting a Full Request Friday for you!!!! ✨✨✨✨

😂 *hangs sign on the door* Shenanigans welcome, but be mindful of the neighbours. Yes, Scruffy—we mean you.

It's rough out there. Keep fighting, keep plugging away, you *will* make it. Know you have a special book and it's only a matter of time before someone falls in love with it 🫂

Whoop! Cupcakes for all! I hear we do all you can eat buffets for successful heist crews.

Yes! This is the exact problem, especially if you write in first or very close third person. Imagine having to stop the story to explain what a Smurnininnyset or Harchpungelfork is? 😂 (Okay... maybe a good thing I don't write full 2nd world planet-based things)

It is super hard! Could you use colloquial names for things, like hound, steer, etc. and attach new words? Like Sanderson’s Axehounds?
Side note: this always made me laugh in Star Trek, how they’d just attach human things to alien species I.e. Klingon brandy, that kinda thing. It was so silly.

Bet those 500 words are much higher in quality though! I write fast, but there’s a reason editing takes three times as long as drafting for me.

Finally hitting my stride with my November book. Over 8000 words yesterday. It’s been hard going, seeing as I’m a highly character-driven storyteller, but the book needed a lot of plot, tech, and intrigue. Into the 2nd act now, and I’m diving deeper into these characters. Feels like safer territory!

Whooo!!! Amazing news, Sam!! Fantastic. I can’t wait to read it. 🎉🎉🎉

references are not that common, thankfully. It is very hard though! Sanderson is a good one to read for someone who invents basically everything natural world (in Stormlight Archive, certainly).

This is legit what made me put The Last Sky as an alternative future for planet Earth. In that universe, Terra is but one of hundreds of human worlds, but for Isaac’s voice to work, it’s needed real references. With Dark, I’m full secondary universe, but it’s fully based on a ship, so animal/nature

What is with the scourge of AI animal videos all of a sudden? I'm skeptical of everything I see now. Who knew 1984's "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears" (because everything is fake as F) would become my guiding principle of 2025? We're through the looking glass.

Ah, didn't spot this was from yesterday. Glad to hear you're doing better. 💜

Hope you're okay 🫂

Wow! This is so awesome! Love the trio! And @professoremily.bsky.social this is just stunning artwork! Love this!

Oscar regularly records us having random conversations, so I'm quite used to having my disembodied voice drifting through the house (usually talking utter bollocks). And I still cringe every time I hear it.

How about Chekhov's Schrodinger's Ex? 🫣

One of my POVs wakes up with a photo of a woman (and a child) in his hand. Seeing as he has no memory, she is simultaneously his wife/partner and just some woman in a photo he found in the tool box he's next to. "Hey, who's this—" *loses memories*

Classy!

Thank you 💜

A photo of my mum when she was around 20, with beautiful long brown hair and a genuine smile.

Yesterday marked 2 years since I lost the most important woman in my life. Not a day that goes by that I don't wish she was still here, but I'm glad to be past the raw, aching stage of grief. Now, I can remember her not as her awful illness, but as the wonderful woman she was. I miss you, Mum.

💜

It's such a brilliant concept, and I love (and hate!—because of what it says about that pocket of humanity) that it's based on real beliefs about predeterminism.

Awesome progress!

I'm a really visual person, so from the very start, I've had these moments from key scenes in my head rolling like they're a movie. The aesthetic is very much inspired by the claustrophobic 'trapped in a freaky space box' feel of Alien. But the hard sci-fi tech is inspired by the Expanse books.

In terms of what inspired this book? I can't remember now, actually. I got the idea a year or more ago, and the whole premise sort of landed in my head at the same time. Disabled ship, dark and spooky, dead captain, crew don't remember the crime, twists stacked on twists stacked on twists.

Maybe Trigger was onto something. Folks had responded to this crisis in just about every way possible. Even though no one could remember their own name, they were all still different. Personalities remarkably intact, even without the lifetime of experience to scaffold them. Grey was a leader. Red a problem solver—and quite possibly insane. Fetch was a dick. Aegis an even bigger dick. Trigger defied every label he tried to pin to her. Inappropriate, flirtatious, intriguing, none of them fit quite right. And Bull? He stroked his jaw, the bristles of his beard catching under his nails. He wasn’t sure who Bull was yet. Maybe a murderer. Maybe not.

But when the characters also don't know themselves? That's proved much harder than I anticipated. The first chapters will need serious edits.

I've finally got into some sort of groove now, where I'm more familiar with the characters. And they've come to this realisation. (Warning: VERY 1st drafty)

Getting into the head of a character always takes a chunk of the first act. Getting used to their voice, their ticks, the first thing they notice when they walk into a room. Weird as it sounds, I tend to enter this passive state, trying to let them take charge until they reveal their secrets to me.

I'm finding this book really hard to write in many ways. It's not just the fact it's hard sci-fi (which involves hours of research); it's also the fact my characters have amnesia. In any given book, I always find it hard to find my groove.