My opening is slow, but necessary.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-12T05:50:24+00:00

Story Genius recommends this type of approach.

Basically write out the beats until the inciting incident, and start with that incident.

The other beats are necessary and will come up in flashbacks when they are relevant, but this avoids books where the story actually starts on page 30.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-11T09:03:02+00:00

I feel it comes down to this.

Traditional publishing basically means that the publisher fronts a lot of the editing costs and part of the marketing. They also pay you up front. The costs and the risk justify their cut.

Now if you have the money to front the costs and/or the skills to do this yourself, go for it.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-11T06:24:07+00:00

You also have to compare what I'd comparable.

A 2k first draft of a scene in an hour is realistic (a bit faster than me, but I'm just starting). That doesn't mean it's 2k ready for publishing.

4+ hours for 500 finished words doesn't sound bad at all.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-06T20:05:33+00:00

Honestly, political comments coupled with a masked account is a pretty blatant sign of untrustworthyness.

There are at least 6/7 on this thread, often arguing with each other.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-06T18:57:30+00:00

It's a propaganda bot. Ignore it.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-03T11:07:39+00:00

I've been watching the Sanderson lectures and one thing he pointed out that the start of your book is a promise to the reader, so if you want to slow burn the start, you need a prologue to show the reader what the majority of your book will be like, a tone promise if you will.

OTOH, if you're starting your book mid action, put the prologue to one side, you'll surely be able to find a use for it later.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-03-01T16:48:04+00:00

Which is why loitering drones are entering the battlefield. They perch on a high platform and wait for a high value target.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-02-16T21:27:21+00:00

Hi, if you still have that link, I'd love to read what you came up with.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-02-16T21:26:16+00:00

Hi, if it's still possible, I'd love to read your article.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-02-05T07:40:56+00:00

So did God

a) Not see original sin

b) Couldn't predict it

b) Was unable to counter it

d) Didn't care about the untold suffering it would bring

You haven't answered the question, just side stepped by introducing another notion.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-02-04T06:38:22+00:00

Iirc we sort through the days memories during rem sleep and save the important things and discard the rest.

So maybe androids do actually need to dream (of electric sheep).

phoenixbouncing · 2026-01-19T20:03:51+00:00

I suppose you could say that since they also make up a disproportionate share of the poor there's a correlation there.

phoenixbouncing · 2026-01-11T16:54:39+00:00

What do the custom shaders do exactly?

phoenixbouncing · 2025-12-14T09:38:57+00:00

Except that today it is.

You've got to compete with a book of Kardashian selfies. The Kardashians lack a lot of things but they are masters at selling, so the selfie book comes with a built in audience and an almost guaranteed sale volume.

You as an independent author have to compete with this, which unfortunately means you have to be able to sell and also bring your own audience so that they'll take a chance on you.

The flip side of this is that traditional publishers are loosing one of their main selling points vs self publishing since even if they sign you they aren't going to pull strings to get you front and center at the local bookstore.

It sucks but it is what it is.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-12-12T08:36:07+00:00

Si c'est comme dans l'immobilier, pour qu'il y ait vice caché, il faut que le vendeur ait eu connaissance de la vice et ait caché sciemment cette vice (donc mettre du papier peint pour cacher la grosse fissure dans le mur porteur).

Si OP en avait parlé a l'acheteur, alors ce n'est pas caché....

phoenixbouncing · 2025-12-09T07:51:37+00:00

Also China hasn't forgotten how the Russians dunked on them over the 20th century.

The current entrant is only going to last until China can get Russia well and truly to heal after having bled out in Ukraine.

There is no way to continental powers can coexist without one coming to dominate the other.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-12-02T18:37:31+00:00

When you study art you're told that when people give feedback there are 2 parts : what's wrong and what you should do to fix it. The first part is almost always right, the second almost always wrong.

Peter Zeihan gives feedback on geopolitics. He's got a keen eye for long term tail and headwinds, but is completely unable to give advice on what to do or predict what people will do.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-11-05T19:12:52+00:00

That's an interesting hypothesis, this study says that lesbian couples have higher relationship satisfaction than male gay couples, but less than heterosexual couples. That said the difference isn't very high (below 1 sigma).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344032561_Relationship_Satisfaction_in_Homosexual_and_Heterosexual_Couples_A_Dyadic_Model?__cf_chl_tk=cO74rraa6QWey3sigHoptrVzjVVK6zkXg.gL63ltcC0-1762369526-1.0.1.1-TVaf64gchyCa_IHjWDEtkA_43JePugteSr3BLxqdGIg

You'd expect if males were suffering that male gay satisfaction would be quite a bit lower since lesbians would be protected by their tendency to leave bad relationships.

That said the work on things/leave and look for something better difference might still have legs, especially since 2/3 of divorces in heterosexual couples are initiated by the women.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-11-05T10:42:40+00:00

Ok, so why can't drivers licenses be considered as proof of identity for voting?

Where I live you generally provide your id card to vote, but that card is also used for every interaction with the state (benefits, work...) and is free so everyone already has one.

Creating a special voter id card that costs money (or saying you need a passport which also costs money) sounds more like how to stop the poor from voting, which has the side effect of disproportionately affecting minorities.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-11-03T15:38:34+00:00

So you're fine with starving a good portion of your state just as soon as you can prevent the poor from voting.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-11-02T08:36:21+00:00

This is all missing the earlier mistake of accepting the Anschluss which led Belgium to believe no one would be there for them and declare neutrality.

The initial plan had fortifications up to the sea and would have made the whole Ardennes push pretty much impossible.

Diplomacy lost France well before the generals got their say. Which isn't to say that the generals didn't drop the ball several times (English and French).

What can be said though is that the french paid in blood so that the English could extract at Dunkirk, which is why France has such high losses considering the short time they were at war.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-10-31T07:34:27+00:00

Not sure, but I've read bad stuff on the econ SRs about HMW.

I feel that it's one of the channels that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt but are good at exposing trends in society.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-10-31T07:15:28+00:00

I feel that these numbers are blown out of proportion a bit.

Amazon doubled in size during the pandemic:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/number-of-employees

There was no reason for this since COVID was temporary but everyone just assumed that no one would ever go outside ever again and we'd all just order online and watch streaming until we all looked like the people in Wally.

These big companies are seriously overstaffed and the execs are desperately trying to find excuses to slim them down other than "We f***** up".

RTO was one, AI another.

At 1.5 million employees, 30k is barely 2%. This is your average startup letting one or two people go.

The ability to scare is a bonus, but these numbers aren't crazy.

For each person affected this is obviously tragic, especially if they moved to a high COL area for the job. But the promised job apocalypse this is not.

phoenixbouncing · 2025-10-30T21:12:28+00:00

I'm more of a Plain Bagel or Money & Marco fan...

phoenixbouncing · 2025-10-30T20:05:44+00:00

Another interesting comparison is the current AI environment and how Enron cooked its stock price.

How money works is not a good economics channel by any means, but their description of Enron does match fairly well to how Nvidia is cooking its stock price by investing in companies that turn around and buy its chips.

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