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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 2h

#WIPSnips #cousin (vibe) #writing #western #horror #fiction Excerpt from the #novel Sunsetter, sequel to the #novel Weathervane -- a tale of ancient evil in the wilds of the west. 🤠 vs 🧛 *Bloodlines: Maddie reveals a secret - a common ancestry.

“Only whispers ever spoke of what became of Taamatik and the Mammoth Clan,” she continued. “Some said they fell, aged and small in number, they had become easy prey for the wolf. Others spoke of the world swallowing them whole; angered gods and a descent into madness – but truth of legend is just that, only legend to be whispered at the fires, to keep the little ones close.
“It was Noah and his tragic tale that showed me what my people had never truly known.
“The blood that flowed through Taamatik, that now flows through my veins and once through the heart of No ha is one and the same. And it was a son of the clan itself, that laid the people to waste.”
She caught my motion to protest before I actually could. The fact she had communed with the fiend caused my inners to stir, both with concern and, yes, the pinch of a jealous twinge. I admonished those thoughts and settled myself, allowing her to continue.
No ha, she said, was that son and in many ways still is.

from the novel Sunsetter
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 2h

#2wordprompt #poem #writing #vss #thefall #rev 🍎🐍 He #sinks in cogitation, coiling in a #lazy stance around a knotted leaning post where wasps and magpies dance "Taste," a sensuous slur, a syllable enhanced Freckled rouge, the apple falls: the end of day, of paradise - the end of Eve's romance.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

#vss365 #poem #poetry #writing #rhymetime #vss Pressed against the stone the bitter storm rages the Siren sobs in silence drowned out by the rain. She sings no more seduction; saddened by corruption her voice denied induction to the #Siren Hall of Fame.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

placid ponderings drift in pools of reflection sirens silent now #vss365 #sirens #haiku #writing #poetry

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

👍Tis the season to be twisted! 🎃👻🤡

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

#vssdaily #poem #poetry #writing #vss #searching Upside downside blindside wrong side right side inside out. I’ve had a look. I can’t find her anywhere. Oh! Wait… nope, just a #moment of sentiment… not quite joy… I’ll keep looking. 👀

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

#vss365 #poem #poetry #writing #seasons #autumn #winter Tears once flowed now frozen; bitter pearls of crystalline. Autumn curls its fingers rigor sets for dormant time, approaching with each gusting breeze howling hollow in the mind. Winter's #sin: to eat the meat and leave behind the rind.

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

#WIPSnips #contract (pact) #writing #western #horror #fiction No "contract" anywhere in my current #wip (s) so I'm drawing from the #novel Weathervane for today's snippet. *Even in the light of day, the threat of the fiend looms large... 🐺🧛‍♂️🤠 #read #books #booksky

The Marshal eyed me uneasy then offered sharp glances at the forest around us. I felt his anxiety and shared in its grip.
Despite the light of mid-day, the woods arounds us became filled with watchers and the light breeze whispered ominous through the boughs.
“My mentor, being one, Noah being another, can still reach out while they sleep. Their minds are creeping fingers manipulating the natural world, finding simple things to do their bidding.”
As if in response to Jebediah’s words, the howling of the wolves suddenly erupted from somewhere – from everywhere – all around us.
Jebediah spat. “He has made a pact with the pack. Arm yourselves gentlemen.”
Jebediah’s movements were fluid, almost too smooth for such a mountainous mass. The Marshal too moved swiftly, slipping two rifles from our kits, and tossing a Winchester to my hands.
Immediately we three, armed and ready, brought our backs together and faced all sides.

from the novel Weathervane
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Always the shiny things: the gleam, the flash, the captured eye; #unable to #escape the #lure of the night sky. #vss365 #lure #2wordprompt #poetry #poem #writing

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

👏👏👏 - nice write... reminds me of my first car - a 1984 Cutlass Supreme ... I named her Becky and I loved her so. ❤️

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#vss365 #mountain #novel #literary #western #fiction #shamelessselfpromo #read #book 1 in the Dead of the Night series. #freesample read.amazon.ca/kp/embed/?as... available in e-book, paperback and hardcover formats The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt

Rare it is to find the words of a man such as this. A man who turned his back on this world and found solace in the empty whispers of granite and stone beneath the unrelenting wind that is life.
The words you are about to read are the words of the man himself. He crossed the land at a time when laws were for the weak and borders knew no bounds.
His sirens were the coyote, the wolf and the buzzard; his cohorts were the ghosts of his past, who beckoned his dreams and tortured his soul. He was one of thousands, lost and forever wandering. He was destined to be faceless, nameless and unknown. Then he came down from that mountain and became a legend.
This is his story...

a novel by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#vss365 #haiku #poetry #writing #mountain (vibe) #photography #landscape #myphoto Arching back of beast lit ablaze as night retreats dragon’s breath at dawn

Somewhere on near the Alberta/B.C. border, the Rocky Mountain range becomes lit with illumination courtesy of a rising sun.
photo by Ross McDermott - circa 1998

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#WIPSnips #dent (buckled) #writing #scifi #dystopian #action/adventure #fiction #wip Spiral Eyes (working title) *the DiNA's make a narrow escape as their incubation chamber is breached.

Their eyes did not open but remained sealed by the membranes of the lidded skin. Their ears appeared as tiny florets of cauliflower, surrounding small holes on the side of their heads but developed well enough to hear the hovering hum of the drones that now focused their high-density lasers on the thick steel of the chamber’s door.
The DiNAs, though new to this chaotic world, recognized the sound of the threat as a systematic attempt to cut through the barrier. They paused and did not panic. In unison they turned and moved to the bank of escape tubes that lined the back wall of the chamber. As the sparks flared and hissed their penetration, and the steel door dripped in its molten melt, the DiNAs nodded mechanically, not in unison but in rapid succession, clicking like falling dominoes, and then carefully moved their still-delicate frames into the tubes. The suction was a vacuum, the sound was sudden, blasting through the chamber as one continuous rush.
The heavy door buckled, the drones zipped inside to hover in a predetermined pattern. Each scanned the chamber, lethal lasers armed and ready, but found no life, cloned or otherwise. The chamber registered empty.

wip Spiral Eyes
by Ross McDermott

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#horrorprompt 2309 #hunger (vibe) #poem #poetry #gargoyle #writing #dark #vsshorror Gargoyle skin prickles with the tickle of stole's ribbon; but he will not move to eat the priest remains as stone - staring east centuries now, no need for feast; his last meal was a gibbon.

static.klipy.com

Gargouille Cath Smiling

ALT: Gargouille Cath Smiling

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Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#2wordprompt #hover #star #freestyle #poetry #JWTS🔭 The distance yawns so vast We once #hovered; we once drifted Propelled by gasps of newborn #stars and streaming threads of given light that twists, mists and bends the night along the contours of the cosmos to finally find the eye of Webb. 👁️

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Reposted by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott @beyondtheonions.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#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 · 01/10/2026

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 · 01/10/2026

#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 · 01/10/2026

#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 · 01/10/2026

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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 · 24/09/2026

I see a typo... lol... 'for get' -- 🙂

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