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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

(and as I have joked privately before now, my grand ambition for my pseudonym's fantasy romance series is for it to be Discworld but horny instead of funny :P)

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

But I've come to the answer recently: it's because - like Le Guin - I want to bake humanist values into my work without being didactic, to care for the world and have these ideas arrive at the reader's heart and mind not so much like a revelation but like, of course that's how the world should be!🧵

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

I was lucky enough to find Terry Pratchett in my teens, and for the longest time, I found it really hard to explain my relationship to his work. Why did I want to claim Discworld as an inspiration for my fantasy writing, when tonally it was nothing alike?

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

I love her fiction, but actually the thing that really connects with me is her non-fiction. Reading The Wave in the Mind feels like we're just chatting. I laughed out loud several times, and I felt driven to make the world better in some small way with my contribution to the written canon.

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

There's two, #pretendpanel.

I didn't find Ursula K. Le Guin until just before she died, and that's a huge shame, but like my other author I'm going to mention, it feels like a bit of an honour to have existed on Earth at the same time, however briefly.

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

#pretendpanel I can't wait to catch up with your responses! Life is super busy here - I'm at a fundraising dinner right now - but let me know...

October 11th: Is there a deceased author, writer, or poet that you've really connected with?

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts

#pretendpanel
A prompt tag hosted by @hiriadunning.bsky.social
October 11th: Is there a deceased author, writer, or poet that you've really connected with?
~ please support your fellow #pretendpanelists with replies, likes and reposts ~
New #pretendpanel questions every Friday and Saturday. Hop in any time!

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 13h

#pretendpanel I can't wait to catch up with your responses! Life is super busy here - I'm at a fundraising dinner right now - but let me know...

October 11th: Is there a deceased author, writer, or poet that you've really connected with?

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 1d

than what happened in real life (if there indeed was anything to inspire the story from my own life). So there is a bit of soul-keeping going on with my writing, for sure.

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 1d

#pretendpanel, I wear my heart on my sleeve as I write. I think people are genuinely getting a piece of me when they read my work. I mean, don't take that too literally: I definitely take things to extremes for characters, or I tidy things up so they're neater in the story
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 1d

#pretendpanel, I'm at a retreat over the next few days so I am incorrigibly absent! However, tell me...

October 10th: Writing and reading are kinds of necromancy. How do you hope your writing will hold/reflect your ghost after you're gone?

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts

#pretendpanel
a daily prompt tag hosted by @hiriadunning.bsky.social
October 10th: Writing and reading are kinds of necromancy. How do you hope your writing will hold/reflect your ghost after you're gone?
Please support your fellow #pretentpanel posters with replies, likes and reposts
New #pretendpanel questions every Friday and Saturday. Hop in any time!

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 1d

#pretendpanel, I'm at a retreat over the next few days so I am incorrigibly absent! However, tell me...

October 10th: Writing and reading are kinds of necromancy. How do you hope your writing will hold/reflect your ghost after you're gone?

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

Seriously enjoyed reading this ahead of release, folks. Best sum of the experience I can come up with is: it's like if Douglas Adams wrote Good Omens.

MechaniChris @chrisakins.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t mean to alarm anyone but my book GRIM PORTENTS releases in less than 24 hours!!!

Available on my personal website: www.christianakins.com/grimportents

Or you can search for it anywhere books are sold. Seriously! Isn’t that cool?

#writingcommunity #Writesky #booksky

Grim Portents banner ad featuring a skeleton hand holding a feather and emerging from an open book. The title is on a burning banner that envelops the feather and a large beast looms over it all. At the top, the tagline reads: Welcome to the first day of the end of your life…

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Reposted by Hiria Dunning

MechaniChris @chrisakins.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t mean to alarm anyone but my book GRIM PORTENTS releases in less than 24 hours!!!

Available on my personal website: www.christianakins.com/grimportents

Or you can search for it anywhere books are sold. Seriously! Isn’t that cool?

#writingcommunity #Writesky #booksky

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

territory for her. She finds herself a bit more lost than she would otherwise expect at age 35.
- Halfway through the book, we hit a major shift in status quo. This will force Iona to confront what she's been putting on hold while focussing on The Cause.

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

- She was sent out from Erapetra at 17 to try to change things before they got this bad, so when she returns home she has to deal with her feelings of guilt and not belonging anymore
- She also has usually been quite casual about relationships in the past, so when she falls for Daphne it's new
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

- Iona has been feeling secretly guilty about all the pushing she's been doing in this direction, encouraging Kallista's reputation as the Pirate Queen. She half wonders if she's going to get her best friend killed, but also feels like she should give everything to the cause, even her friend.
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

So a lot of that feeds into why Daphne hasn't been able to look for her father, or find community outside of the dryads.

As for Iona:
- Captain Audax has, rightfully perhaps, been reluctant to emancipate Iona's home island Erapetra, because she doesn't believe they have the necessary force
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

so she hasn't even been able to leave the holy grove
- she is a weathermage, and her mother knows that if this becomes well known, the mages in Nairu will demand Daphne attend the far distant university
- there's also Iunia trying to do a colonisation out in the Isles, making travel unsafe
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

#PlotTober
Daphne has been trapped on her island by her mother for the first 28 years of her life because:
- her mother is an ancient dryad who is terrified of her mortal daughter perishing
- her father ran away from her mother, and the humans on the island don't acknowledge her as one of theirs,
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Ange @gunsmile.bsky.social · 3d

#PlotTober Day 8: Conflicts for the MC

Answer the prompt on the card by quoting this post. Remember, answering a prompt is always optional. Even if you don't share it publicly, I hope the prompt encourages you to think about it privately.

#WritingCommunity #WritingPrompt #WriteSky

#PlotTober - a WIP plotting game by @gunsmile.bsky.social

8. What are some potential reasons the main character(s) haven't, couldn't, and/or can't pursue these goals yet? Consider other characters, backstory events, circumstances, environmental factors, etc.

Remember: Use the #PlotTober hashtag, engage with others, and have fun!

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks for this yapportunity 🙏💖

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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

And like I said, there are other things happening in the same world, in 3 other written manuscripts currently drawered and 2 which are only planned for now, and I have lots more ideas besides.

But yeah hopefully that gives you some idea of the context of Kallista and Geni, and Ao Rakona generally
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

A Prayer for the Charybdian League will be the sequel, and then I'll cap it all off with a third book... (A Prayer for Iunia? Dunno, it's too far away) which will be the story of the big struggle to redeem Iunia, and will always focus on Kallista and Geni as they survive(?) and thrive(?)
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

plot of that and extending a little further after the end. It's all about Iona and Daphne's romance, and their struggles as indigenous islanders to deal with the struggles of these times.

Beyond that, there will be two more books directly following A Prayer for the Pirate Queen:
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

I had the backstories in mind for my girls while writing Prayer, but I found I just HAD to explore them in full in novel-length form, so that's what I'm doing right now.

Or...
The First Mate and the Dryad's Daughter🦜💚🌴
Which is an interquel, coming in alongside Prayer, almost halfway through the
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

as well as more colourful characters in the crew, islanders, nuns, other ship's crews, etc.

Technology level is age of sail minus gunpowder, plus magic.

You will also see me spout titles like...
Before Queens and Saints ⚓️💜🕊 which is my current 1st draft WIP, a prequel set 10 years prior
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

that's trying to subjugate the Isles and women, amongst others

Other key chacarters include First Mate Iona, Sister Adelpha who is in charge of the secret clinic, Daphne the dryad's daughter and weathermage, Geni's teenage kids Sophia and Timon, and Kallista's sworn rival Captain Nikos Heliodorus
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Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 3d

Kallista and Geni fall for each other. The obstacle, at least to start with, is that Kallista doesn't sleep with crew members, so when Geni becomes the ship's doctor, a relationship is off the table. But we also of course have the wider big stakes obstacles of resisting a tyrannical government
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