HMH Murray
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nillcord.bsky.social
HMH Murray
@nillcord.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.8K following 2.7K posts
Writer of space opera and fanfiction
NYC Midnight Finalist SS 2024
Futurescapes 2022
Codexian SFWA

http://hmhmurray.substack.com

https://books2read.com/u/47LkkR
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nillcord.bsky.social
How do I make typos like this?? Sometimes I swear it's the software.
smuggler’s history, I hope you don’t mind if I drive.” Numbly, I let him set me atop the long seat. The roads were deserted now, but bore signs of recent panic—abandoned possessions, hovercars, discarded debris. He’d left his shuttle near the Ottrava farm, Nate said. He’d gone there looking for me but met Polla, and her mother—left them unharmed—he added when my grip tightened, recounting pieces of a tale to me while the wind tore away my responses—and my terror, that he’d been so close to them—his head craning back as the the autosteer to handled the road. His body felt like a furnace. I clung to him like a limpet. A part of me simply wanted to see
December 13, 2025 at 9:34 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
In the end, reading it out loud beats everything, doesn't it? I just caught some extremely minor things on Chapter 5 doing it..

hmhmurray.substack.com/p/chapter-5-...

This is a pretty terrible rendition, talking way too fast, mumbling, door opening and closing, heater kicking on...
Nate, the god with goat legs, atop a pillar with Beya the dryad beside him
December 9, 2025 at 5:28 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Drafting action scene, writing sentences like those highlighted below, while painful, is part of the process.
expected. My hand shot out and sent it into his face—which annoyingly smiled, as the flames guttered, dying out where they touched his skin. "Careful," he warned, which made me do it again, but weaker, as if my own doubt had infected the kamn. His staff was a dagger now, small as it deflected my thrusts, some wielded by raw kamn, and some by my own blade. He advanced back up the hill. Some part of me knew I was ceding higher ground, and objected, but a smuggler's thoughts prevailed. He loomed above, impossibly tall— —which put his vulnerable legs, the weakest part of him weaker, in reach of my blade. My navhand swung forward with the gir in its grasp, now scythe-shaped and I hamstrung the krovlord across the back of both ankles. With a scream, he fell on top of me, which had not been in my original plan. We rolled back down the hill, entangled. His withered hand held a bone knife
December 8, 2025 at 1:10 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
books2read.com/u/47LkkR

PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!

A failed smuggler takes a job she's not allowed to refuse: pilot a living ship for a trio out to save the galaxy.

She knows they're liars, but they're so stinking charming...

& she's a liar too.
Navvy Dreams Star Warsian space opera Scheming aristocrats, murderous twins, and a pregnant farmgirl. Charming war criminals out for redemption
December 7, 2025 at 1:33 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Today's edits: backfilling a scene out of its white room.

The highlights are paragraph breaks mostly. And at least one wrong comma.

In this section I tried to change Our Heroine's voice to be a lot less... Feldelroyan, and a lot more something colder.
Now I had a sinking feeling the Feldelroyan Rapture was nigh. I’m not sure how long I walked. Hours, for my feet grew sore and I became thirsty—but time had ceased to matter. I walked long enough to get over being surprised when folks took one look at me and ran. I walked long enough that the crowds fleeing from me grew fewer, until finally it had been ages since I'd seen anyone in a uniform, or anyone trying to shoot me. The few remaining bore their own burdens: looters or the faithful, too caught up with their own lives to worry about anything as minor as the most wanted woman in the Milk walking unescorted through the Derra City streets. Over my head, the roar of evacuating traffic from the spaceport—nearly constant for the first few hours—had long since stopped. I walked long enough that the tears finally dried on my cheeks. I walked in a haze, and in hindsight, I'm not entirely sure I was always conscious or if there was lost time, sure as a deepriver fugue. For a coldness had come to the core of me, heavy as lead. That coldness understood a great deal more than I ever could. Inside me, the ghost of Ledas Starfire had coiled like a serpent under ice, for quite some time. Now, her coils tightened. There’s a section of Derra City called the Maze, full of notells and nightclubs and notaries. Polla had been coming to the Maze ever since she was old enough to sneak out of the house. I ended up there with no idea how. The Empty Turnip Emporium where I'd loved to buy sweets looked looted; its transparencies were all cracked. The Fall Pavilion Bar and Grill was shuttered, metal grates painted with sol-signs to ward off evil.
December 4, 2025 at 8:45 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Today's editing tip or agony: remember, all that snappy dialogue?

You can always write more. Sometimes there's a stoploss point when you're trying to bring in a new action beat where it's probably worth getting rid of the old snappy dialogue.
“Davad and his concubine leashed you with a smuggler’s memories, but even your smuggler wanted more… Don’t you?” “Yes,” I said, for who doesn’t? He smiled. “There are injustices you would right on this NewBern. And a man… one you would see pay.” Yes.” Therion’s dead, Polla had told me. “There’s a Syndicate boss. His name is Brahz. He killed my partner. He… did things. Other things. H-he deserves—” “I see it all, my love.” "Then send them!" I waved a hand. "Send your ships!" "Okay!" And then he does. And I need to write this good. He guided me down the street of my own city, and I kept talking. At times, fear and something I refused to identify made my voice falter, and at those times he paused and let me finish. For he was oddly soft with me, in a way that still makes something in me ache. Ache and seethe, for to this day, I have no idea
December 4, 2025 at 7:35 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
Polla, in her own words.

I'm sure there's more mistakes than that errant comma still, but... This section makes me laugh, at least. Even if it is about the apocalypse. An apocalypse.

Maybe.
December 1, 2025 at 5:41 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
This morning's adventure's in edits...

How did I even write that sentence??

I don't know.

Both hands of the figures(no apostrophe) hands were gloved....

I think that comma is wrong, too.
here: a sunny flightsuit stamped with port officer symbols. Both hands of the figures hands were gloved all the way to the shoulders, and the fabric shimmered, bending in the light. Two pistols hung, one on each hip. The bubble helmet made the face a featureless oval. “Yoloha?” I said cautiously. I didn’t see Bedalia, but my voice barely trembled as I finally tread upon familiar ground. I’d half expected a Kamen Circle or a battalion of Space Marines lying in wait for me. A single uniformed official surprising me solo? A mere Thirdday in the life of a registered smuggler. My breath hitched at the sheer ordinariness of
November 30, 2025 at 12:14 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
And in grayscale. Again, art by George Patsouras @cgmythology.bsky.social
Grayscale image of a centaur, a muscular faun and a dryad: virmarr, Nate, and beya
November 28, 2025 at 3:46 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Here first, in their debut holopik...

Team Villain in the #navvyverse. Although I use the term villain loosely, as I'm not really sure who the good guys are.

Teapot? Nik?

Art by the fabulous @cgmythology.bsky.social

From left to right: Virmarr, Nate, and Beya post-krov Shaping.
A scarred centaur, a very fit man with goat legs and a cybernetic arm, and a dryad all pose by some ruins while eldritch krov energies twist the very fabric of reality around them. Virmarr, Nate, and Beya: from Navvy Dreams and Navvies' Flight
November 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Stupid error I keep seeing and not fixing. I mean, yes, you can still tell someone is redhaired even if they have bleached their hair, but...

Again the weeds, ugh.
with more underclad nobles and their overdressed help. The glow from Celestean’s anchoring gas giant cast a cold light that made everyone appear vaguely cyanotic. So many red-haired princelings. The light washed out their bright plumage, making them ghosts. “The Young Lord shall have whatever she wants. Of course!” The android bent its legs like a curtsy. ’Twas blocklike and nothing like Tea at all. “Anything?” I realized my drawl wasn’t right and nearly bit my own lip when I tried again to clip the word with a hard ending. “Anythingg?” “Of course! Your inspection is being arranged.” “Just looking for factory workers. Little hands, you know. To clean the igniter tubes.” I realized I was looming when its metal legs took a creaking step back. The plan was, we’d run to our respective ships, Faris with the nephew and me with eight grateful urchins. I hadn’t worked out where we’d take ’em, but my friends had good hearts—usually—and they owed me. I was explaining this all to Mureen when the unmasked redhead approached us. A shock to see a younger version of Davad’s exact features below bleached white hair. A frown wrinkled that flawless mien before the man’s eyes went above my head. I flashed a hesitant smile beneath the silicate wings that covered the top half of mine—and he spat on the floor. Insults seemed to be a local custom, so I spat, too. The man sniffed. “Never. I wouldn’t give you the pleasure of my death.”
November 28, 2025 at 9:07 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
books2read.com/u/47LkkR

Navvy is free on the zon this week!

If you've ever experienced that age-old struggle of taking a job, falling in love, and trying not to blow up any suns, you may relate to Polla's tribulations.

The struggle is real!

Well, some of it is. Probably

#booksky 🪐📚💙
#sff
Cover of navvy dreams. A woman has a stone dagger and is standing on a ship in front of a castle.
November 26, 2025 at 12:57 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Sorry, I swear, this last snippet I share.
“Bedalia will fly for you,” he said, although the ship had just not. “If you avoid the chair and command her—” “I was! She grabbed me in! And I saw things, things in her—” I shuddered. “I think they were memories.” “What?” I swallowed. “You lot worked for Kaygaz, but then you didn’t. You turned on him. Why?” His eyes had locked on my face. “My sister discovered he was manufacturing biological weapons. And worse.” I realized I’d collected all of my limbs into a ball, so that none of me touched anything but the metal deckplates. “What’s worse?” “Why do you want to know?” His brow creased. “That’s where she got Starfire, isn’t it? From starflier. That boy meant a lot to her. Did you know him too?” His mouth went white. “What boy?” “Oeri,” I said. “Or Oerin? I think I saw him—” But Davad didn’t know about our Aemercy expedition. “It doesn’t matter. There was a kid she knew—Oeri. Kaygaz’s son?” “Yes.” That expression was undefinable. “You remember his son—” “Did you know her memories were in the ship?” “No.” He barely breathed the word. “What else did you see?” “I don’t like her,” I said. He laughed sharply. “Oh, but she’d like you.” “What?” Rathe butted in, crouching beside me. “Let me handle this, Arkan. Sexy says you’re upsetting her.” “Rathe, please—” Mureen began. “What?” My copilot's voice flattened. “You keep pushing us, Mureen, and it keeps going wrong. This should be my call.” “I didn’t know.” Davad’s throat bobbed when he swallowed, and I had the alien thought that Dee looked so vulnerable, that I’d knocked him completely off guard—that in this state, I could ask for a moon and he’d bring it out of orbit. “What else did you see?” “I think Nate has hooves,” I muttered. “Saw 'em yesterday morning when I was brushing my teeth. Or else I’m losing my mind.”
November 26, 2025 at 12:02 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
My other big project of the day... This experiment with formatting flashbacks. I think it works.

I'm not sure if keeping them in talics is overkill.
“—NewLaramie’s where they’re hiding their command base!” My voice rang across the command board. “If we cut off the head, their entire expansion into this sector should collapse—Kaygaz will have no recourse but retreat.” Xao hesitated, but the rest were won. Even Vadim gave the nod— “—used to go to NewLaramie with Therion.” I finished, weakly. In truth, I’d spent most of my time on Neskey with Hana Stubblefield. Scratching an itch that Therion couldn’t slake and I— —I drew back from the water while Nate splashed ahead. Life screamed in my senses. Perhaps he was still deaf to the danger of this place. Or perhaps he really was the true revolutionary—the one willing to sacrifice everything— “Polla?” Rathe leveled an arm beneath my shoulders. I didn’t want to seem weak. “Just ghosts,” I said, rubbing my temples. (You think I was blind? You’re right. But we humans tell ourselves stories when faced with the black. We make up tales about “Pilot Heaven” and gods. We call for the saints and say the blessed aliens descended to save humankind—but the truth is worse. The truth is, we were always alone. All we’ve ever had of gods are bones, the skins of their forgotten children.) It took a while to work the kinks from my limbs. I hadn’t been wearing a flightsuit, and soft parts of me had been pressed into hard places. My teeth chattered,
November 25, 2025 at 11:40 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Not quite landed, as per highlights, but close.

Welcome to the cult, Virmarr. I do love him.
November 25, 2025 at 11:30 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Aside from misallocating my commas, this is my most common kind of typo.

I call it: the edit without the delete.

My brain just stutters and doesn't finish the process.
November 23, 2025 at 9:07 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
The point in editing when you wonder if you should cut action. Attempted assassination? Needed or not? It makes sense to me, and it shows a Kamen skill that becomes important later...

Anyway, the highlighted text is mostly full of notes with me going ugh ugh no. Cut this sentence.
November 20, 2025 at 1:08 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
I am most assuredly the only person avidly following the evolution of the first page of Navvies' Flight's prologue, but here it is.
Prologue Mureen of Glos Fifteen Standard Months Ago, UNITY ASCENDANT, Feldelroy Orbital Ring Thanks to Admiral Vadim’s rather dubious good will, the Kamen Elders had been assigned quarters in the Ascendant’s petty officer cabins, located in the hinterlands of the octune deck below the bridge and near the dreadnaught’s stern. Since the junior Ken’ri they supervised were bunked on the opposite end of the ship—tucked into a converted maintenance corridor off the forward bow—Mureen had to pass through four checkpoints to reach her mentor's cabin. The Unity commandos assigned to those checkpoints had been expecting a lot more action on this historic mission, and being demoted to reviewing credentials in a secured hallway made their restlessness show. Mureen thought she could have learned a lot about Vadim’s plans in a few moments’ gossip with those bored soldiers, but she couldn’t spare the time. Her mentor’s summons had been the first thing she’d seen returning to her bunk that morning. A handwritten, SEE ME IMMEDIATELY tucked on her pillow, which meant Ells had traversed the entire length of the ship to find her himself. Sixteen years of his training had taught Mureen that such effort from her normally staid mentor required a quick response. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there…” she began from the door. “I spent the night in Medical.”
November 19, 2025 at 3:50 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
Today's editing tale is about tightening narrative lines. Cutting extraneous detail.

It does make sense that Mureen and Rathe would have some way of tracking each other. There was a point in drafting when this was major...

But it's not now.

I think the detail about Polla's tracker is cool, but
November 16, 2025 at 9:30 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Today's pass at the opener. Today I don't hate it.

And I really like the space font I found.
November 16, 2025 at 12:29 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
Bane of editorial existence. Those times you introduce something, cut the line later, and then don't see that you refer to it more in the pages.

Copyeditors can catch some of those, but sometimes they're too subtle, or just hard to see. *I* just found one that I'd read like fifteen times...
“Not since I was a child.” Davad had slouched against the side of an unoccupied navchair, a half-drunk glass of whiskey dangling in hand. He looked so bored that I suspected he was doing it to annoy me. “But every major House keeps places like this—to facilitate free trade with Fringer space.” “Illegal trade,” I said. “You 12Fam can’t even keep the laws you set for yourselves.” He snorted. “These markets provide liquidity. Goods that are too scarce or dangerous or morally suspect change hands here, without Unity restrictions.” “Like addictive drugs? Illegal mods?” I feigned a yawn. “You know, I’ve never heard you mention your mother before. Wasn’t sure you had one.” “A Fringer smuggler can hardly complain about free markets.” “Met many of us, have you?” “A few.” His tone hardened. “For our purposes, Pilot, Moonbase Celestean is a port where no one will ask questions about a ship carrying Arkan executive codes. Leave it at that.” “Yeah? Say, how come your ma didn’t greet us in the family bath back on Earff? Does she not like looking at your father either?” “Mother’s dead.” I saw a muscle in his cheek jump. “For sixteen
November 15, 2025 at 4:03 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
The weeds are taking over, even with a paragraph break at the highlight.
November 14, 2025 at 9:41 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Good to know... It's still a wip.

Thanks to Admiral Vadim's rather dubious generosity, the Kamen Elders had been assigned to the Ascendant's petty officer cabins, which were located in the hinterlands of the octune deck, below the bridge and near the dreadnaught's stern.

Generosity? Good will?
November 13, 2025 at 11:19 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
This is what happens when you try to rewrite your opener with more detail. This is not the final version. This is a mess of very long sentences.

But I will argue that sometimes you need to write all the points out to figure out what needs to be said and when.
November 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
books2read.com/u/4DpyXr

Preorder for Navvies' Flight is live, and beta reviews are in.

"MAGNIFICENT."
"The stakes are about as high as they could be for Polla... she might be causing destruction and death... And she might be disappearing into Ledas, losing her very self..."
"DUNE"
November 9, 2025 at 12:18 PM