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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 12h

#WIPSnips #injury (vibe) #writing #amwriting #horror #fiction Excerpt from #wip Possessions (working title) *Taz returns from a brief investigation of Deidra's room, where an invisible attack has left him physically injured. 🤕

Once Taz’s fat lip stopped bleeding, she gave him a cup of tea and watched him sip it awkwardly and carefully from the opposite side of his mouth. Deidra sat close to him on the couch.
“It was qiet o’er there until the end – when the light went ow and I got shoved. The taffing on the headoard – it was letting ee know. I issed it off.” Taz’s speech impediment, though temporary, annoyed him greatly, his hands moved as he spoke expressing his frustration.
“Oh Taz. I’m so sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you go in there. I knew it was in there.”
“It’s not your ault Deidra.” Taz chuckled, but it sounded like a gurgle with his fat lip. “I’m the orest City Ghost Guy or Christ sakes.”

from the work in progress -- Possessions
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 10h

they remove their masks #clouds part to reveal blue sky all the people #gasp glass eyes can't see #what scalds lungs silent toxins speak #volumes #vss365 #haikufeels #2wordprompt #haiku #tanka #poetry #writing #endtimes #vsshorror

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 12h

#ThingsToWriteAbout #poem #poetry #writing #snow_globe #oldpoem The mountain village trembles A signal in this #habitat a water-world as clear as glass accustomed to a human grasp that shakes then falls the flakes that recreates the snow globe’s past

static.klipy.com

Winter Wonderland Snow Globe

ALT: Winter Wonderland Snow Globe

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 12h

#vss365 #poem #rhymetime #writing #horror #spooky The #cloud rolled low to give the ground a kiss The air grew thick eyes wondered what they missed 'Step into the fog' I heard the voice insist A request that proved my folly for now, I don't exist. Not in the here and now but only in the mist.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 12h

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#WIPSnips #guard #writing #literary #western #action/adventure excerpt from the #novel The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt *the jailhouse requires a new door

“Make it thick and heavy,” I instructed Reggie with a raise to my voice as he commenced to measuring the frame of the door. “So it don’t implode and splinter the next time they comes and start shooting bullets,” I concluded. He glanced at me nervously, not feeling too easy about being so close to one so many seem so eager to kill. Can’t say that I blames him.
Lachey had pulled a chair into my cell and had planted himself across from me sitting on my bunk, both of us sipping some fresh coffee Freddy had just brewed.
The Scotsman smacked his lips, appreciative of Freddy’s skills with the beans. He flipped his head at the Marshal, who’d been hovering around the empty jailhouse door for the better part of an hour, tapping his pistol with his finger and sticking his head out to gawk up and down the road, glaring at the craned necks of those who still wandered by, eager to catch a glimpse of the murderous villain Rosco Pitt, and the courageous lawmen who guard his unworthy soul.
“Oy. Is he always like that?” Lachey whispered, watching the back of Marshal Morrison’s silhouette angled in the light of the empty door frame. “He’s giving me the willies. Like a man waiting for the ‘pale horse,’ so he is.” McTavish shivered at his own reference to death.

From the novel The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt
by Ross McDermott

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

SciFanSat Magazine @scifansat.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

AVAILABLE NOW! Don’t stand for tyranny, fight for liberty! Join the rebellion with Science Fiction, Fantasy, and More by the #SFF authors of today and tomorrow: The September issue of #SciFanSat Magazine is out at scifansat.com! Many thanks to all who contributed, and to our readers, just like you!

SciFanSat: The Monthly Magazine for Science Fiction, Fantasy and More!

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#ThingsToWriteAbout #poem A dark day at the office: Power outage; nine-fifteen Computers crashed; #blank, blue screens The CEO lost his shit Such rage, reception up and quit IT loitered in shadowed halls Warehouse filled with caterwauls While all of us associates calmed ourselves with opiates.

static.klipy.com

Classic Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

ALT: Classic Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#WIPSnips #nation #writing #amwriting #SciFi #dystopian #adventure #wip Spiral Eyes (working title) *the histories and the mysteries of the last world war...

The Arbitrarians had raided this small, blue planet what seemed now eons ago, back when the moon was a battlefield for all nations and the scene of our world’s last war. It was that lunar conflict that had led to our proverbial last stand against the much more advanced raiding horde that war had awakened.
We had, for all intents and purposes, traded one war for another. But those histories were now mysteries for most, though a few of the aged ones, Mariner among them, thought them to rest on the foundation of truth.
He recalled his mother explaining how their downfall progressed at a gradual pace. With the acceptance of defeat, and as the greed of people tends to do, they gradually came to welcome the Arbitrarians, almost as gods.
We surrender ourselves to only our memories, though wise men warned nostalgia was not an option if a revolt was ever to succeed. Too many among us wished things could be the way they were. Cowering amidst the ruins, they bowed to the Arbitrarians, unable translate their thoughts into actions.
“We bowed to their demands, subtle suggestions at first, that slowly slipped to mandatory commands with which we were left with no choice but to follow, as our world had slipped to become their human zoo.” Mariner recalled his mother’s oft-spoken words and most of her stories with clarity, even after her passing and the many years he now watched slip into “Pastime,” as so were those days suitably called by the Rubblers of L’undonetown
“Though that war had lasted decades, in the end, it is said, we fell to the force of the Arbitrarians almost immediately when their mother ship had emerged from the depths of a hole on the dark side of the moon.” The scene of his father’s demise, the hole called Finigan’s Crater.
“They came for our sun,” his mother had told him.

excerpt from wip Spiral Eyes
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

**Typo in original post - had to repost... sorry. #WIPSnips #meddle #writing #scifi #fantasy #dystopian #adventure #fiction #wip Spiral Eyes (working title). * Mariner fondly hears a voice in his head.

He slipped the remains of his breakfast, dish and all, into the disposal drawer and again heard the whoosh of air that carried his waste away to the sanitation cells beneath the complex.
In his wardrobe he found his uniform for the day – the same as yesterday, and everyday, for all freemans: the garbs were dominated with the colour of fieldstone, but as a captain his blazer bore the tassels of arbitrary blue on the shoulders, and gold-coloured buttons to fasten the front. The trousers matched the tassels with a thin, grey line stitched up each side to give them a military flare, billowing outward where he tucked them into the top of his boots. His boots climbed high to his knees and gleamed a blackness of rubber; what his mother called “wellies.”
“Don’t forget your wellies,” he heard his mother’s meddling voice, though always well-intended, echoing for a moment in his mind. Rain or shine, when he was a boy she’d always told him to wear his wellies and he always did, everyday. Even as an adult and long after she was gone, he’d still hear her voice, fondly, and would still wear his wellies.

excerpt from wip Sprial Eyes
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

#WIPSnips #stream #writing #western #horror #fiction Excerpt from the recently published #novel Sunsetter - continuing the tale of an ancient evil in the wilds of the west. *Francis questions his past decisions in a moment of deep doubt. #books #booksky #read 😱🤠🧛‍♂️

My mind was chaos though my body remained still. My life played out before me in a rapid #stream of thought, culminating to the present and the cold floor upon which I sat.

Those whispered words of Rosco Pitt, delivered in our final moments together, softly drifted to rise above all other memories:

“Your mentor…” he had said, as he’d laid dying on sacred ground, “V’ar kielius. He is the plague. Sometimes the devil you serve is worse then the one you seek to destroy…”

The word ‘fool’ raised my eyes to stare at my hands resting on my knees. They now clenched in fists as I knew that word to be a thought of my own. My face felt flushed with shame. I was twelve again and lost, alone in a world of sudden death, apathetic to a young boy’s plight. My confusion boiled to a breaking point and the tears burst from my eyes, which I frantically scraped away roughly with the backs of my hands, pressing the bruises that now masked black both my eyes.

from the novel Sunsetter
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

#FromOneLine 430 #prompt #writing #prose #vss The fields are black. Freshly tilled and furrowed, the soil rolls corduroyed and rippled, far beneath the drifting glide and sharp eyes of the raptor that rises high into the skies, tipping its wings to slice through the dawn's early light.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I #marvel at time... measured by distance measured by time the comings and the goings of all things - of everything transitioning as thoughts forever pondering; always moving from one place to the next passing time both taken and given #vss365 #musings #time #distance #writing 🌌☄️🧠🏃‍♂️⌛

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#vss365 #ThingToWriteAbout #marvel #cold #poem #poetry #freeverse #writing stricken, he lay frozen, gripped by agony yet marveling at the cold inspiring the perspiring of a one-sided hold grasping the reality of simply growing old.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Peaks and valleys - day by day I think I'll just keep to myself today. I'm anchored in a bottomless sea and the weight is dragging me down, down, down... into the depths. Not something I really want to #explore or share. I had a post for #vss365 but it was too depressing, even for me #photography

night skies - unseen moon illuminates as the white clouds wisp in from the west.
photo by Ross McDermott

daylight - cumulous puffs of mashed potatoe clouds accentuate the blue of a beautiful morning sky, leaves still green peak into frame, resistant to autumn's approach.
photo by Ross McDermott

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#2wordprompt #writing #poem #vsshorror #rhymetime #poetry No poltergeist is this that roams #within my space. This haunt is quite myopic just a #floating face, suffering from indolence it fails to conjure fright, but mopes around lethargic... a forlorn phantom in the night.

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#ThingsToWriteAbout #poem #poetry #writing A pebble tossed to sky then lost, it falls into the pond; just rings left to flee going on and on and on. Concentric #circles rippling to roll back whence they came to dissipate and fascinate as another tossed to sky then lost conjures rings again.

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#vss365 #poem #micro-poetry #writing #rebellion #resilence #freedom Their chains will not restrain us our hearts alone #sustain us as we break the binds of twisted minds and their efforts to contain us.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

A mountain in its #infancy is only but a hill. A hill could be a mountain, unable to #sustain itself, grinded down by time. Pick your poison. Make the climb... I challenge you to make it rhyme. 😉 #vss365 #writing #poem #poetry #theme #prompt

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

*Author's note: TUSK is unique as (with the exception of the prologue) it contains not a single line of quoted dialogue. Given the primitive peoples, I opted to paraphrase all dialogue as their language would be mumbles, grunts & groans. As such, they speak quite eloquently-almost #poetic at times 🙂

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

SciFanSat Magazine @scifansat.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Authors, raise a fist and resist! Rebel against those who tell you not to try! Send in your pieces of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and More to scifansat.com/landing.html before September’s #SciFanSat submissions close at 11:59 PM EST tonight! #SFF #AmWritingScifi #AmWritingFantasy #WritingPrompts

SciFanSat: The Monthly Magazine for Science Fiction, Fantasy and More! September’s theme for issue 38 is REBEL. The deadline for submissions to issue 38 is September 17th, and it will be published on Saturday, September 26th, 2026.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#WIPSnips #effort #writing #pre-historic #ice-age #adventure #action #romance #fantasy Excerpt from the #novel TUSK: a Beringia Story - an epic adventure following the Clan of the Mammoth #read #books #BookSky *With preparations for their journey complete, a new leader of the clan begins to emerge.

The preparations have been underway and are near completion, Jawsuwa said. With a concerted effort they could leave within days. The way of the wander is the way of the clan, he noted. Murmurs of agreement echoed in the air.
These caves had been their homes for a lifetime, Jawsuwa said. The clan had grown soft and lazy, and he reminded them they had always followed the herds, had always moved across the land finding sustenance and purpose. To grow roots and wallow in place is not the way of the clan. He knew the path to the river, as shown on Hooyip’s tusk, and would lead if Molak would not, all those inclined to follow. For those who chose to stay behind, Jawsuwa offered homage, for their doom was as certain as the coming cold. With his words said, Jawsuwa shuffled through the gathering. He nodded to Hooyip and sat closely to his family, joining hands they formed a circle of five. He spoke softly to his family. Around him the clan spoke among themselves. Then Jawsuwa moved again, to stand at Hooyip’s side. Baan also left Molak’s side and moved to stand beside her youngest son. Her eyes stared back at Molak, pleading with him to come, take her hand, join them and unite the clan.

excerpt from the novel TUSK: a Beringia Story
by Ross McDermott

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

In the Eternal Hall of Fatal Foes their portraits hung together. One sang #songs of feathered wings. The other? Froze forever, flailing, falling to the nether. #ThingsToWriteAbout #poetry #poem #BlueSkyPoetry #writing #oldpoem #fallen #angels

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I do not know what he'd become. His eyes glistened as glass and showed me only whites, and his breath plumed out an invisible stench -- one of sewage and rot. #FromOneLine "I do not know..." #prompt 429 #writing #amwriting #prose #horror

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I'm back... all is well with my access to Word and my "precious" (he said in the voice of Gollum) #wip. Thank you for your attention to this matter. 😉 #WIPSnips #call #writing #amwriting #horror #fiction #wip Possessions (working title) *Deidra gets an unpleasant surprise

So, for the second time since starting the job, she called in sick.
“Hi Sally,” she said when she heard the women pick up. Her voice dropped in tone, guilty as charged. “I’m still kinda shaky today, Sals. I don’t think I can come in.”
“Deidra? What are you doing? I’ve got better things to do. You’ve got some nerve calling here today after what happened yesterday.”
Deidra was confused, she said so with her silence.
“Don’t call here anymore, you got it. I thought we were frie…”
“Wait. Sally. What…what happened yesterday?” Something in her stomach dropped – a lead ball of doom.
“What? What d’ya mean what happened yesterday? You quit! And not in a professional manner. That’s what happened yesterday.”
The call dropped. Sally had hung up.
Deidra had sat in the car, immobile. Her life was spiraling in a Kamikaze death roll and the ground was coming up fast. She didn’t call anybody yesterday – she slept yesterday. After a few moments she called the doctor.

from my #wip Possessions
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

A single tear, a shimmering #symbol of #yesterdays glistened on his weathered cheek, moistened, as was the poppy pinned to his lapel, by the steady drizzle of November rain. #2wordprompt #poetic #prose #vss #rememberance

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

#WIPSnips #exterior (outside) #writing #amwriting #SciFi #dystopian #action #adventure - with a pinch of #horror Excerpt (fresh off the press, so to speak) from the #wip Spiral Eyes (working title) *Mariner returns to Pirate's Gap alone, where he comes face to face with a DiNA.

It stood in the shadows of the cavern, just outside the opened tube in which it had once slept.
The other tubes remained closed. The blinking blues of their lights no longer indicating that precious pulse of life.
Male or female? Mariner could not be sure, until it stepped slowly into the twilight of the cave. His eyes examined the DiNA, the last of their kind. It was neither male nor female, as far as Mariner could tell, but when it turned towards him, even as he viewed it from the distance of the Sentimental Raven to the rocky outcrop on which it stood, he saw the spirals forming to spin within its eyes, and suddenly the DiNA appeared a mirror image of the man himself. Mariner shook his head to no avail and stared in muted horror at his own image staring back at him in the dim of the Pirate’s Gap.

excerpt for wip Spiral Eyes
by Ross McDermott

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

JBGarrity Photography @joegarrity.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I captured the Golden Gate Bridge's silhouette as the sun burst through one of its pillars. ☺️ #landscape #landmark #goldengatebridge #sanfrancisco #california #urbanphotography #urban #travel #eastcoastkin #photography

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

#Autumnal rolled from slumber sensing my disdain. "You should know me well by now. And here I come again." "You bring the frost; you bring the cold -- the winter's breath meant to dismember. I shit you not! We've not forgot. "No. We the North remember." #vss365 #rhymetime #vss #autumnal

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