#substack fiction

[spacedfictional]

Chapter 12 Subspace Edition Drops Now!

Fear & Loathing In Beldasia-Omega Part 2: Is Tracy Burning…?!

“This is a Grand Prix event! Two-lap standard,The Orbital Section of the track has been cleared by safety officials for use, clear-weather rules! And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for—RACERS, START YOUR ENGINES!” With a turn of the key, the fusion engine beneath me roared to life, vibrations thrumming through the frame, through me. That’s when I noticed them. The Grey mercs. Front row, center stands, all talking on their optics—some even looking right at me. On the comm with your bookies eh fellas? I exhaled. Whatever. They can watch all they want. I had a race to start. Around me, the starting grid came alive—twenty-plus FM pods igniting in a chorus of raw, unfiltered power. The air shimmered with heat distortion, the scent of thruster exhaust was thick, practically enough to taste.

Will I make it out of this race in one piece, or will they be shipping me back to Titan in a box? Find out now on this week's edition of The Edge of Existence & Where to Find It! Only on Subspace and in print via The Quantum Pulse Network—exclusively at Omni-Stop off Orion and the Beldasian Expresslanes

https://open.substack.com/pub/spacedfictional/p/chapter-12?r=1halq0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

[warthogreporter]

I've been looking forward to this, my short story, The Final Mantra, is now up on substack where you can read it for free. This is a story about naga and humanity, a piece of mythology from another world. It would mean a lot to me if you read it and engaged with it.

[katieconrad]

Saffron and Bear is my monthly fiction newsletter about the adventures of a witch and her cat.

In this chapter, Saffron and her sister Sage work on drying herbs for the coming winter.

[official-trainwrecks]

HEY, YOU. Are you a fan of Friends, Community, or Heartbreaker? Do you love romance/romantic plotlines? Do enemies-to-lovers and will-they-won't-they scenarios keep you on the edge of your seat? Are you starving for more diversity and mental health rep?

Then you should read Trainwrecks, a FREE online serial following the lives of six Seattle-adjacent best friends from 2004-2015!

Meet the Cast!

Art by mangomangoj on Instagram.

Luna Cruz: (15) A nerdy and artistic girl who's had enough of being bullied about her weight. Her dream is to become a fashion designer. Or an ASL interpreter. Or both!

Dimitri Hale: (20) The most charming genius-turned-bag-boy you'll ever meet. He likes alcohol a little too much, but better booze than heroin, is he right??

Sebastian Velasquez: (17) The only thing keeping Seb from a life of debauchery is his best friend Dimitri, who he happens to have a crush on. Singing, dancing, and playing the guitar are his hobbies.

Jasmine Nolan: (17) Jasmine had the baddest reputation in her high school until she met Jesus. Now He's forgiven her, but she's having an awfully hard time forgiving herself.

Duke Kingston: (15) Duke might be one of the best friends you'll ever have! But if you're a bully, he's going to beat the shit out of you. No questions asked.

Victoria Hale: (15) Victoria's just moved to the U.S. from London, and she has her sights set on Juilliard. Beware her ADHD rage: She can go from 0 to throwing furniture in seconds.

About the Series

Trainwrecks: Season 1 (2004-2005) is now complete on Substack, and Trainwrecks: Season 2 (2005-2006) premieres March 3, 2025! Each week, subscribers receive both a narrative chapter and a social media chapter in their email inboxes. This entire story is free to read, but paid subscribers will receive four pieces of bonus content a month!

Curious about the characters? You can browse this blog or follow the link in the bio to the official website for bios, Spotify playlists, and more information!

Thanks for reading!

[dandelionjack]

excerpts from a really good article by Margaret Killjoy on her substack today about the power of stories and why some leftist critics can be misguided when using ‘escapism’ as a pejorative. you can read the rest of it down below if you subscribe to her

margaret killjoy is an anarcho-communist author, artist, musician, journalist, podcaster, punk and trans woman; and one of the role models i look up to

[nateconnolly]

This is an excerpt from The Last Epileptic.

Humanity evolved to be persistence hunters. Humans can move slowly, but efficiently, and catch fast prey that exhausts itself with short bursts of energy. The human body was designed to move at a steady pace. Fast, not too fast. There was a reason that humanity was still around after all the rabbits had died. 

Cassel and Alter crouched at the edge of the basin and ate cold canned corn. They left the empty cans where they had stopped, to be crushed and ripped in the storm. Their food packs were almost empty. They would have to raid a shipping container sometime in the next week.

In a world without animals to hunt or plants to harvest, humanity had become a race of scavengers again. The railroad from Juarez to Santa Fe had passed through Portertown, and a train had been on the route when the storms began. The shipping containers were still scattered around the mountain range. Cassel and Alter had been raiding them for years. 

From hunter-gatherers to farmers to industrials, and now, back to gatherers. From inanimate dust to single cells to animals to mammals to humans, and soon, back to inanimate dust. 

You can read the rest on AO3 or Substack

[world-of-iridensia]

Hey there Writeblr folks! Is there anyone on here who uses Substack for their writing and wouldn't mind telling me about their experiences with it?

[papenathys]

SUBSTACK ALERT!

On today's newsletter essay, I speak about nostalgia: its advantages and pitfalls, about memory-making and historical archiving, and about writing inspirations gleaned from my Bengali childhood in Kankurgachi, North Kolkata. Features an old apartment, a baby photo, a grandfather, a mad bull named Gondogol and the titular lake from my 2024 trans sapphic poetry collection, There Used to Be a Lake Here Once.

[benitasroom]

tell me about the dreams you run away from and the home you build because of it.

— what i want to write, benita (published in benita's room)

[benitariums]

benita rosalind, "i hold a wolf by the ears"

[sicksadlit]

An author stole my book idea

What do you do when someone else publishes your book?

I was scrolling on my phone, browsing a selection of soon-to-be-released books when one in particular caught my eye.

I read the blurb and let out an audible gasp. 

The author stole my book idea. 

This man who I’ve never met, somehow managed to reach inside my brain, pluck out my story idea, write the book I am writing right now, and turn it into a fully fledged novel. He beat me to print, and now the novel I’ve been working on for the last few months is headed for the trash because how can I continue to write a story that has already been written?

It feels like my “life's work” has been stolen, cruelly whipped away from me overnight. The story that has been building and percolating inside me for years, preparing itself to arrive in my brain and out onto the page.

An accurate depiction of me discovering someone else is publishing the book I’m writing

Although, it’s possible that he didn’t actually steal my idea. It’s probable even because he couldn’t have. I don’t even know the guy. The far more likely scenario is that it is just an astonishing coincidence. He happened to have the exact same book idea at the same time as me, but the difference is: he’s a well known, successful, professional crime writer who actually managed to finish the story (and probably did a fantastic job), and I am an unpublished novice writer, who punches out a few hundred words here and there when inspiration strikes.

The best theory as to what has happened is that I have become the victim of a phenomena known as “simultaneous invention”.

Simultaneous invention is the concept that inventions and ideas are conceived independently by different creators, but at the same time.

“Rather than being the products of the individual mind, multiples (aka - simultaneous discoveries) are said to prove that creative ideas are the effects of the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times. At a specific instant in the history of a domain, the time becomes ripe for a given idea. The idea is “in the air” for anyone to pick, making its inception inevitable.” - Dean Keith Simonton, creativity researcher

There are mind-boggling cases of simultaneous invention documented throughout history. Here are some of the most famous instances:

1600s: Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both discover calculus.

1770s: Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley discover oxygen.

1800s: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both describe natural selection.

1839: Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot invent the first photographic methods.

1869: Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros present the earliest workable methods of colour photography on the same day.

1876: Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell independently, on the same day, filed patents for invention of the telephone.

1879: British physicist-chemist Joseph Swan independently developed an incandescent light bulb at the same time as American inventor Thomas Edison was independently working on his incandescent light bulb.

1950s: Jonas Salk and Albert Bruce Sabin invent the polio vaccine.

2015: Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald are jointly awarded the Nobel prize for finding that neutrinos have mass.

It sounds like something from a Blake Crouch novel. The idea that two complete strangers, anywhere in the world could come up with the exact idea at the same time. It would be written off as pure science fiction if it weren’t so thoroughly documented. 

It came for Charles Darwin, it came for Alexander Bell, and now, it has come for me.

Since I’ve had a solid 48 hours to walk around the house moaning in despair, I figure it’s probably time to put my big girl pants on and think about what to do next.

What does one do when someone else publishes the book you were going to write?

If there’s one thing this sad experience has taught me, it’s this: Do not sleep on that creative idea.

I thought I had all the time in the world to write my story. Donna Tartt took 9 years to write The Secret History, after all. Maybe I could take 9 years to write my debut novel too. But modern life and our shared experience may lead to someone else coming to the same conclusions – or ideas – as you have, somewhere in the world. 

This doesn’t just apply to writing. It can happen in any field where creativity and imagination are at play. 

Where does this leave me and my manuscript? I think I’ll hold onto it a little longer before sending it to my computer’s trash bin forever. Even though the original premise and core of the story is no longer viable, perhaps there’s something there worth saving. Maybe a shift in perspective or narrative voice. Could it be a white collar crime thriller instead of a murder? Could I set it in a different era? Could I change the genre? Who knows. Maybe this whole saga is a good thing and will force me to pivot. Now, I’m compelled to look at how I can better improve upon what the story was set to become. 

One of the people in my writer's group said that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If his book sells well, publishers will be frothing to produce more of the same. That said, I’m not sure how I feel about being the runner-up for the prize of cool and interesting story ideas. 

So what’s the solution to this confounding mystery of the human mind? How can you ensure your work remains true and original to you when at any point in time, some random person out in the world might be working on the exact same thing? 

Maybe the answer is to simply try and be the first to launch, and to do your best not to let perfectionism hold you back from getting started. Maybe done is better than perfect. Or, if you instead find yourself in the same boat as me, is there room to move and change your approach? Could you see it as an opportunity to pivot and find a fresh, unexpected angle?

The truth is, I was stuck in a bit of a rut anyway. I fell out of love with the story idea a few weeks back. When I started writing months ago, I kicked off with a hiss and a roar, smashing my daily word count goal and picking up steam until I hit a wall. I didn’t like the characters and writing became a slog. Instead of feeling inspired and excited by the story, I felt bored and disillusioned. It became something I thought I simply had to finish to avoid the “sunk cost fallacy”.

This uncanny coincidence has forced me to open doors to new possibilities with the story that I hadn’t allowed myself to consider before. Now that the original plan has gone out the window, the idea of returning to the old draft feels strangely exciting again. Like anything is possible and the book could go in any direction. 

But I guess you’ll just have to wait and see… Maybe I’ve already said too much.

[warthogreporter]

New chapter of Battles Beneath the Stars is up. Fintan prepares to face Eamon in the tournament, but a certain piece of information brings things between them to a boiling point.

[katieconrad]

Saffron and Bear: Chapter 36

An early snow blanketed the ground, crunching softly under Saffron’s feet as she walked through the woods. Bear padded at her side, pausing now and then to shake snow from his paws. 

Despite the cold air nipping at her nose and cheeks, Saffron didn’t mind the long walk. The moon was out, the stars were shining, and there was nowhere she’d rather be. She was still basking in the joy of having the forest back the way it was supposed to be.

She could see their destination long before they reached it. The house was lit up; candles flickered in every window and lanterns hung on the fence and along the path up to the house. The large iron gate was no longer closed; it was propped open to welcome visitors in. As Saffron passed through it and walked up the path, music and laughter spilled out from within the house. 

Saffron and Bear is my monthly serial fiction newsletter about the adventures of a witch and her cat. You can hit the link above to read this chapter or start from the beginning. This is the very last chapter, so it's a great time to start from the beginning and read all the way through.

[official-trainwrecks]

Ahead of tomorrow's premiere, here is the relationship chart for Trainwrecks: Season 2 (2005-2006)!

Tune in Monday, March 3, 2025 on Substack for the story! (And if you haven't read Season 1, please do that first!)

[stacykathryn]

I recently started a substack, and while that is great for my writing I want a place to share my art too. So I think I will start back up here again since everywhere else is just frustrating these days. A book well more of a novella I wrote some time ago is finally in a place to be released. So every week I'm creating art and releasing a chapter over on my substack...check it out here https://stacykathryn.substack.com/p/in-your-dreams-introduction?r=i0t80