C Alexandra
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nerdcactus.bsky.social
C Alexandra
@nerdcactus.bsky.social
510 followers 310 following 1.1K posts
I'm a #writer of the three Gs: gods, ghosts, and (usually magical) girls.

She/Her. Neurodivergent. Ace. Unapologetically leftist. I even write with my left hand.

Say nice things about Detroit!

#writingcommunity #amwriting #writesky
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nerdcactus.bsky.social
I know it's not en vogue that I write the antithesis of shadow daddies, but I just can't help it. Alex isn't blonde, though, if that helps. He's Burmese. Also, at this point, they're just friends. The novel doesn't end that way. #WIPSnips #writingcommunity #writesky
“So… so you’re not mad I hid all this?” Beren sank into Alex’s chest, the knots in her stomach loosening. Gods, what had she done to deserve him? Alex shook his head. “Nope. You don’t owe me your innermost secrets. Plus, you weren’t really hiding things; this is a part of your life that doesn’t just belong to you.” He pulled out of the hug and looked down at her, hands like anchors on her shoulders, keeping her tethered to the earth. “What can you do, then? Is it like the tv shows where each of you has some special gift?” “Kind of.” Beren wiped her nose with her sleeve, not having any other options. “I draw sigils. Spells in ink. When I figure out the proper form for it to take, I draw it and… activate it. It’s like I can feel the intent and focus it into action. My specialty is tattoo spells.” “I had a feeling some of those tattoos were special. Some people just left the store… kind of glowing. Never said anything because, well, some people just really love tattoos, and you know what I think of your abilities.” Alex kept her close, sharing his warmth with her. “Listen, would it have been awesome to know earlier? Yes. Would I have enjoyed being part of this part of your life? Hell yeah. But I’m not going to freak out and run in the other direction if you need my help.”
November 20, 2025 at 7:54 PM
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20. My biggest inspirations (and I know I sound like a broken clock) are history and mythology. But when I have a problem that needs a solution, especially in mechanics, I've found that anime is actually pretty decent. Sometimes a bit outlandish but helpful. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 20 is Where do you find inspiration?
November 20, 2025 at 6:58 PM
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20. I don't typically read anything that gets shelved under "Fiction" at B&N. If it's not genre (or the classics), I don't usually feel the pull. But I made an exception for this one because I love female rage, sisterhood, and getting one over on the menfolk. #Bookvember #writingcommunity #writesky
The cover of the book The Bandit Queens: A Novel by Parini Shroff. The cover is back with the title in colorful letters and pears of eyes with eye shadow. One has a bindi and the other has a nose ring, both meant to evoke the Indian setting of the novel.
November 20, 2025 at 6:56 PM
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19. I'm probably the weird one here, but I struggle the most with drafting. I have to know exactly where I'm going or I completely shut down and write at a trickle. I'm a much better editor because my brain loves parameters. Craves them, in fact. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 19 is Parts of writing that challenge you.
November 19, 2025 at 8:45 PM
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18. You're not supposed to have a favorite kid! That being said: Mia Godwin, who started out as my Princess Leia in a SW pastiche some friends decided to write together. She grew into such an amazing character and woman totally separate from her origins. I adore her. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 18 is Favorite characters you've created.
November 18, 2025 at 10:50 PM
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17. Gosh, I wish I had time for hobbies. Can I list watching Jeopardy as a hobby? I put it on in the background while I work. I guess, as I'm not paid for it, writing is my actual hobby. I also enjoy researching anything that catches my fancy. #FantasyIndiesMarch #writesky #writingcommunity
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 17 is Your hobbies.
November 17, 2025 at 9:04 PM
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16. *glances at the novel-length outline that isn't even halfway through the story yet* Are there options OTHER than writing a 50k outline for a 100k novel? What do you mean just making shit up and fixing it in post is an option? That's terrifying. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 16 is Are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser?
November 17, 2025 at 4:21 AM
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15. I have so little written for Dreams in Mosaic (which has to be book two, now that I think about it), but I do have some character studies. Here's something from the MC's POV. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 15 is Saturday snippet. A small hand brushed against hers. The thief child. "Will there be food where we're going? I'm starving." Rei smiled softly in response and handed the child her bag. The poor girl was a slip of a thing, no more than twelve, with rudely chopped brown hair and green eyes that seemed to take up half of her pointed face. "I have food in here. Take what you want, Kell." Kell lit up and dove in, pulling a hunk of bread from the inner pocket and grasping it in both hands like a squirrel. She took bites like a wolf, though, great chunks she swallowed almost before she'd chewed. "I haven't decided if I like the soldier much," she said after a moment, voice little more than a whisper. "But I like the lady. She saved that woman's life in the fundi, didn't she?" Rei thought back to the tiny room, no bigger than the bed on which the pregnant woman had lain, blood and screams pouring from her body in waves. The child was born dead, and the mother had almost followed. Rei wasn't sure what Zorai had done, but she'd felt the old woman's magic in her bones. "She did save the woman's life, yes." "You don't think... you don't think Shade stole the baby?" Rei shook her head. Ever since her bargain with Shade, she could always feel the gods' power. Most of the time, she could even taste it and know whose it was. Not with the Maga, whose power was too ancient to know, but enough to know Shade had not taken the child. It had felt to her senses as though life had simply... declined to show up. It was a child of the fundi; why would the gods bother noticing it? "No." "Oh. I prayed he'd stay away. That he didn't send the Bride to take the baby away to his castle." Rei stiffened. Had the stories grown so wild she was now the thief of infants, as well? "He wasn't there today, Kell. I promise."
November 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
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Did I have to do boat loads of research to get this novel written? Yes. Is Alex basically me at this point? Yes. #WIPSnips #writingcommunity #writesky
Beren shivered. “He’s waiting for me to consent,” she muttered. Alex, who hadn’t looked up from his phone, shrugged, seemingly not having heard her at all. “Well, whatever it is, we need to figure out what to do with it sooner rather than later because once the initiation is dealt with—whomever ends up doing it—things are going to progress pretty quickly. All of these rituals are about the process of winemaking, you see? But if you accept that Dionysus is the grape, then…” “We’re killing him, rending and consuming his flesh, burying his bones, and cultivating his rebirth.” Beren exhaled hard, cheeks puffing with the force. “Jesus.” “Literally. There’s a lot of cool stuff in here about the parallels, you know. Birthdays, sacrifice, eating and drinking of flesh and blood. Early Roman Christians were not a creative bunch. It’s actually fascinating.” Alex stopped as Beren cleared her throat as meaningfully as she could. “Right. Focus. Sorry, I get excited about research.”
November 15, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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14. I have many pets! The 1st pic has my two idiot dog sons. Brown is Dogberry, white is Bingley. The 2nd is my girl, Phoebe, and my baby, Miles. The final is my fave pic of my orange and white kitten, Oliver, who is now eight. I just love this pic. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Day 14 of Fantasy Indies November writing game. Prompt is Free Friday or post your pets Two idiot dogs forming a canine yin yang. Top left is a brown brindle Pittie named Dogberry and bottom right is a white and tan-striped Pittie named Bingley. A picture of a tan mutt pupper named Phoebe lying in the foreground. In the background is a black and white cat staring directly at the camera. His name is Miles Morales. A tiny baby boy with perfect pink toe beans, a even more perfect pink nose, and the cutest little tum tum. He is orange and white and sleeping on his back with his paws in the air.
November 15, 2025 at 4:31 AM
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13. I have a home office where I'm meant to write, but it's so disorganized and in need of work right now that I can't do it. So I do my best writing at cafes, where my brain can sit at a less formal place than work and a less comfy place than home. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 13 is Where do you write?
November 14, 2025 at 4:46 AM
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13. There's way too many books that have given me that insight. I read a ton of NF as it is, so I'm always learning something new. But the books that stuck with me were the ones from my Black History class. I'll choose the three that really stuck. #Bookvember #writingcommunity #writesky
Cover of the book The Betrayal of the Negro: from Rutherford B Hayes to Woodrow Wilson by Rayford W Logan. It is a sepia color with black letthering and a sepia picture of white men hanging a black man on a wooden scaffold. The cover of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. It is a black and white photo with a tan cast and white lettering featuring a arge group of black people. Most are in front of the front door, on the steps, while others are in upstairs balconies and windows. The cover of the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. It features a close-up of jail cell bars with a black man's hands wrapped around two of the bars. The lettering is in white.
November 13, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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I didn't like any of the options for 'build', so you get 'building'. I feel like everyone has experienced this kind of room at least once in their life. #WIPSnips #writingcommunity #writesky
The Glaucaster Business Council met in a building that made Brutalism look kind. It had the sort of 1970s office complex charm that had not and would never turn the corner to chic, choosing rather to actively make everyone wish they could pluck out their eyes and marry their own mother. Everyone except Edith Wainwright, who thrived on the flickering fluorescent bulbs and cardboard ceiling tiles. The dredged-up memories of school-aged misery. Everyone was always miserable, their feet stuck to the ancient carpet Beren was pretty sure had once been green but had since committed seppuku out of shame, the beleaguered groaning of the air conditioning setting their teeth on edge. No wonder Edith loved it. She could live out her Nurse Rached dreams on them all, controlling and ominous in the soul sucking environs of Meeting Room C.
November 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM
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12. I'm of the school that any advice kindly given is of immense use, even if not in the way it was intended. If it gets someone to think critically at all, it's useful. That said, the worst advice is prescriptive while the best encourages critical engagement. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 12 is Good and bad writing advice
November 12, 2025 at 10:20 PM
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12. I'm going to go with Native American voices. Our local art museum is doing an amazing exibit on Modern Anishinaabe art, so it's been on my mind lately. The anthology Don't Whistle At NIght isn't my usual fare, but it was haunting. #Bookvember #writingcommunity #writesky
The cover of the Indigenous horror anthology Never Whistle At NIght. It has a black background with extremely colorful stylized flora and fauny, including flowers with eyes for centers, floating eyeballs, a death's head moth, and a snake.
November 12, 2025 at 9:56 PM
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11. I write fantasy and fantasy-adjacent stuff, with varying levels of myth and history influence. But what I read is another matter. I used to read TONS of fantasy, but I've been having trouble finding ones I like lately, so now I read a lot of NF and Jane Austen fanfic. #FantasyIndiesNovember
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 11 is What genres do you write and read?
November 12, 2025 at 12:42 AM
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10. Well, this is difficult. My favorite changes depending on my mood. I do enjoy an exchange between friends that reads like a Gilmore girls scene. The one in Killing Mercutio where Mercutio, Romeo, and Benvolio quip about the four humours always amuses me. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 10 is Favorite line you've written.
November 11, 2025 at 1:28 AM
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7. Relaxation? What is this nebulous myth you speak of? I feel like I haven't been able to really relax in months. Travel helps. Places where I don't have to worry about work, day-to-day survival, or anything but satisfying my need for novelty. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 7 is Free Friday or what helps you relax
November 7, 2025 at 11:54 PM
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6. My favorite writing tool is a Tarot deck. I break it out whenever I have questions. The act of interpreting the cards helps get the gears turning, and focuing on the particulars of the spread provides parameters for my very neurodivergent brain. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 6 Helpful writing tools.
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 AM
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6. My entire life, I've had a copy of Hans Christian Andersen stories from 1920, and they have the most amazing illustrations by Edmund Dulac. My favorites are from The Little Mermaid, but this one from The Snow Queen is also beautiful. #Bookvember #writingcommunity #writesky
A picture from The Snow Queen drawn by Edmund Dulac. It features a snowy scene with evergreens and grasses. In the foreground is a little girl in a blue dress with orange hair kissing the nose of a reindeer. The wind is blowing her hair and dress back, as well as the chest beard of the reindeer.
November 7, 2025 at 1:08 AM
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5. I've been woeful on my reading lately. I think my last read was a Mansfield Park retelling, my current is a cookbook based on Gothic literature, and my next is probably a compendium of folklore monsters from around the world. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 5 is Last, current, and next reads.
November 5, 2025 at 8:21 PM
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A day off equals a chance to play! Eli would have shanked them Pinks if they'd tried to stop his fight against Abraham Whittaker. #WIPSnips #writingcommunity #writesky
“Whittaker was rich as Croesus because he owned the mining prospects and the land, but instead of using the profit he dug from the soil to improve the place, he tossed it all in his vault and milked us dry.” The bed sprung back up, and Will felt Eli pacing the room, tracing his path in the goosebumps on her skin. “It was a damned outrage! Clara came out here to help people, but everyone besides Abraham’s pet sycophants was too damn poor to afford it. She went without meals some nights to ensure the women got the care they needed. All so that devil incarnate could turn himself into American royalty.”   Will nodded, not sure if she was agreeing or falling asleep. The more she talked with Eli, the heavier her limbs got, her thoughts slowing to a trickle. “It wasn’t uncommon.”   “Didn’t make it right. If Abraham wanted the railroad, he could invest the money he made off the people’s hard work. We had already contributed our part.”   “Power to the people, comrade,” Will said, raising a fist that immediately went to covering a huge yawn. “So you stole the silver. Except there’s the problem of not knowing where the hell it is. And I need to find it, because I sort of told Abraham he could kill me if he found it first.”
November 5, 2025 at 8:13 PM
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4. My biggest inspiration turned out to be an abusive dick, so I can no longer acknowledge his influence without breaking out in hives, and as much as I love Austen, I can't say she's a big influence on my writing. So... alas. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 4 is Inspiring authors.
November 5, 2025 at 3:12 AM
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3. Fine. Fine! I'll add "create a playlist" to my list of tasks for this month. Right now, the only thing I've got is Medieval music of the High Middle Ages, which isn't specific enough. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 3 is WIP Playlist
November 4, 2025 at 1:34 AM
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2. I've been writing since before I could physically write things down, but the first one I remember getting on the page was a play about a witch when I was eight. I later developed a much longer sequel, but a hurricane fried the laptop it was on. #FantasyIndiesNovember #writingcommunity #writesky
Prompts for the Fantasy Indies November writing game. Day 2 is When did you start writing?
November 3, 2025 at 6:05 AM