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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 01/10/2026

The ideal reading experience #amReading Galaxy Outlaws: Salvage Trouble At Tatte Cafe & Bakery, DC

A bowl of saksuka and a small coffee ☕️ in front of a PaperWhite tablet reader

JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 27/09/2026

Another @milanote.bsky.social board, as I zero in on final structural edits to my space opera manuscript, I always have a fresh editing board: Chapter summaries, outlines for each character arc, lots of to-do lists and new chapter outlines! #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #amEditing #Plotter🚀

MIlanote board for editing reverse outlines and new chapter outlines

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 25/09/2026

Such an interesting exercise. Evil for evil’s sake has been done. Try this! #amWriting

Alice Cooper
@alicecooper
Random writing tip: if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the A hole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let their voice and logic come through.

Niko Lauro
This is an excellent method for building character depth. It forces the writer to justify a villain's actions through their own flawed logic. Truly helpful for creating nuanced antagonists.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 13/09/2026

Just finished the new chapter and it must be a sign, I’ve just tipped over into 82k on my manuscript. We’re far from done with revisions, but this should be my last 🤞 completely new chapter. On track to have a complete, revised draft by the end of October~ #amEditing #amWriting #WriteSky ✍️

Page 298 of 298
82000 words

Word document report

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 21/08/2026

How come these paperbacks from the 1950’s have no acknowledgments, no citations, no thanks to my partner and agent? Is that a recent development? Or were they saving pages? The book feels baked without them. #amReading

A green round table for one awash in soft lime rays of morning. Grey concrete shadowed in the background. An expertly crafted green matcha full to overflowing to my left. A proud black Nalgene to the right. Dead center, a dime paperback golden-age sci-fi, mostly green cover, cracked and bowing up and well-loved. Hell of a lot of green in this photo.

My train is late so I’m having a matcha at the nearby cafe. Also I finished my book I was going to read on the train.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 20/08/2026

Spent an hour at the cafe brainstorming some new endings for the manuscript I’m editing. Making a satisfying conclusion while setting up the stakes for the sequel is a headache #amWriting #WriteSky

Unreadable scribbles under the header The End”. The first 14 ideas, with boxes around the bits I might actually use

Up to 25 ideas and I’m wrung dry. A few more clever ideas in there

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 12/08/2026

An excerpt from my newest manuscript. Diplomacy is going about as well as you can expect with a deceitful race of parasitic aliens than enslaved the last remnant of humanity… #WriteSky #amWriting #WritingPrompts #WIPSnips

"Don't you presume to tell me what I won't do, captain. Push me and you will see. I will vent this whole station before I see it in the hands of cattle."
Draper rested a hand on Caden's shoulder. "It's okay, captain. I’ll go."
His son, the captain, almost looked heartbroken.
"Is that Mr. Thorne?" Reaper raised its voice with mock surprise. "Good to hear you're alive. I was worried I wouldn't have the chance to kill you."

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 31/07/2026

Heartbroken to learn one of my all time favorite novels is out of print. Recommended Ouroboros Wave to a friend and they COULD NOT FIND IT. No audiobook. No ebook. No physical copies. (I found a handful on abebooks) What can I do about this? This book is so important to me

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 09/07/2026

From my newest retrofuturistic novella where mankind fights a losing battle against a parasitic alien 👾 race aboard a space station that orbits a black hole. ⚫️ #WriteSky #WritingPrompt #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity 🪐📚

"What is truth?" Draper muttered to himself. He could not share Clarkson's fierce hope when he might drown in all that raw data. More inscrutable noise for a persecuted species that KEPT demanding reason and understanding as it grappled against one that most certainly did not.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 03/07/2026

Been a while since I’ve shared a #WritingPrompt 🚀 So here’s Mr. Thorne, failing at diplomacy with the parasitic alien Sovereign of the space station: #WriteSky #amWriting #WIPSnips 🪐📚

"No!" Reaper pounded the table. "I made you, Mr. Thorne. Plucked you from the depths of mediocrity. Gave you purpose. I saved your miserable life when your own kind tried to dispose of you. You belong to me."
Finally the truth had come out. Draper was waiting for something like this, had wondered why Reaper had demanded he come here in person. His life was the one concession it was willing to trade anything to get.
Draper was not a coward any longer. If that was the cost of saving his son's life he would pay any price. Somehow, he knew he was never destined to join his son out in the greater universe, fighting for the resistance. He had too much to atone for.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 30/06/2026

Jemma enjoying a nice piece of toast while scary landscapers trim the bushes outside the window #ParrotsofBsky #Birb 🪶

A somewhat ragamuffin looking Indian ring necked parakeet enjoying some whole wheat bread crust on the kitchen table

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 27/06/2026

Becky Chambers, Arkady Martine, CJ Cherryh, Peter Watts, Julia Armfield, to name a few. (And so many have so few published works 😩) #BookSky #BookTok

authorgfallen
Have you ever finished a book and immediately thought, "Yep, I need to read everything this author has ever written"?

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 24/06/2026

Another partial outline in @milanote.bsky.social for my latest manuscript. Most of it consisting of tight chapter beat sheets, mapping out choice and consequence in each scene. Also character names, research, and random tangents~ #amOutlining #WriteSky #Authors

A large Milanote document too dense to read, representing detailed outlines of chapters, characters, arcs, and subplots

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 24/06/2026

Hair care products. Found at our local target

Amongst soothing and gentle white containers of shampoos and conditioners is an unassuming bottle of Cholula hot sauce

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 23/06/2026

Read Children of Strife by @aptshadow.bsky.social. It’s a close call, but I think this one might be the best of the quadrilogy (impressively can be read on its own) An incredible tying of threads from the other three novels & exploring new ideas with familiar characters. #SciFi #BookTok #BookSky

Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 18/06/2026

The waning moon and what I’m told is Jupiter. On a very late walk with the pup~

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 14/06/2026

Just finished Butcher Of The Forest by @premeemohamed.com and it really spoke to me. The archaic suspicions and rituals of childhood are what keep you safe in the forest. But the children act much like adults, rationally, and it causes them no end of issues. #amReading 💙📚 #BookSky

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 09/06/2026

Just finished Create Your Writer Platform by @ChuckSambuchino which is an excellent book for nonfiction and fiction that helps rationalize the social media and promotional space for writers. It’s an older guide, 2012, but still holds up~ #AmReading #Authors #WriteSky

CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM
The Key to Building an Audience, Selling More Books, and Finding Success as an Author
Chuck Sambuchino

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 09/06/2026

So fresh figs are growing in our neighborhood and now each morning dog walk is doubling as a fig eating walk. (Yes this is a variety that ripens green)

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 31/05/2026

I have to brag, today was our biggest showing for Davis Fiction Writers! ✍️ A successful meeting where we shared critiques, covered ch2 of Save the Cat Writes a Novel, and did some productive shut-up-and-write! The only person i can tag on Bsky is @micahflee.com #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

A large group of attendees sitting at picnic benches at Volt Coffee. Many laptops in the mix, some books on craft, some iced coffees

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 31/05/2026

Went and saw Backrooms last night. Let me tell you, it was EVERYTHING I wanted from a movie about the backrooms. A24 is the only studio I trusted to do it right, it was so much fun and so eerie, perfectly captured the liminal uneasy tension (and then escalated from there) 10/10 #FilmSky 🎥

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 28/05/2026

Case in point, some agents are asking for supporting evidence to prove human authorship. This is coming. #WritingCommunity

r/PubTips

[PubQ] If an agent asks to see the receipts, am I wrong for feeling skittish?
Agent requested to see the developmental notes, my planning, the architecture of my thoughts and some early drafts. Am I to assume this is a good thing, but also, I mean, come on, that's recipe. I understand the caution they must take these days, and I am inclined to abide. But at the same time kind of skittish.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 27/05/2026

I know it’s long. Read it. If you’re a creative at that low crest of the sine wave that is the creative life (questioning your worth and life decisions) this message is ABOUT YOU. Read it. #WritingCommunity #Authors

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's gonna take awhile. It's normal to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your way through."
-- Ira Glass

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 26/05/2026

#WIPSnips on this new novella I’m writing with a supermassive black hole as its centerpiece. Would you believe this is the beginning of his story? #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #AmWriting #SciFi 🚀

Better to be torn to shreds in the accretion disk than face that horrible fate. A mercy, if one could call it that.
The pod shuddered. The ache and whine of metal, as if the pod itself rebelled against the horrors of the monster that rose up to meet them. Draper squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for
that final moment.
Take care of little Caden for me, Jill. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there to see him grow up.
To hold you again. To keep you both safe.

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 09/05/2026

Back in Seattle for the writers conference ✍️ (Currently rewriting my pitch. Again.) #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 08/05/2026

I’m pitching a novel at a conference this weekend, it’s bureaucracy in space basically. Excellent idea by my writer friend, I’ve made custom business cards for the protagonist, designed by me, printed by FedEx (same day!) We’ll see if people appreciate this gimmick #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 30/04/2026

It’s live! @clubchicxulub.bsky.social go check out their latest issue, featuring my weird short story “Planet of the Pygmy Rhino” 🪐🦏 (In audiobook format narrated by yours truly) And other amazing creators. You won’t be disappointed! clubchicxulub.com/club-chicxul... #WriteSky #ShortFiction 🪐📚

CLUB CHICXULUB
JOURNAL
VOL 5, PANDÆMONIUM

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 27/04/2026

Featured in @clubchicxulub.bsky.social author showcase on Instagram ahead of the launch of their volume 5 issue featuring my short story! Thanks for the love 🙏! #Authors #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Pfp out in the woods of Washington state, wearing a Jurassic park shirt. Curly hair, beard, smug confidence unearned

Club Chicxulub Vol. 5, Pandæmonium includes a free ticket to the Planet of the Pigmy Rhino I brought to us by Jordan Spalding! @jordan_spalding_dot_com
Jordan Spalding is a writer and avid reader who lives and breathes science fiction and speculative fiction.

He's mostly obsessed with forces of nature greater than ourselves. The things we cannot best, but may survive if we are lucky. Jordan has forthcoming work in Schlock! Magazine. In his free time, Jordan is a bird watcher and video editor. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his partner, two small parrots, and a boston terrier named Fig.
jpspalding.com @jordan_spalding_dot_com
This is definitely one of the weirdest stories we've ever published in Club Chicxulub! Do not miss out! Vol. 5, Pandæmonium coming this week!

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 20/04/2026

Update: my mom has a superior phone camera 📷

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 20/04/2026

Tromping through the swamp in Jean Lafayette south of New Orleans and we’ve spotted our first gator~

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 17/04/2026

From Instagram, @clubchicxulub.bsky.social will be posting, (among other writers’ excellent works), my first ever narrated short story in their Pandæmomium issue! This story was the craziest idea I ever came up with. Just days away, keep those eyes peeled 👀 #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #shortstory

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 01/04/2026

Update: orbit achieved. We’re headed back to the moon! 🚀 🌖 #ArtemisII #NASA

Space shot above the atmosphere with the ship in the foreground and earth below, glare by the sun

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 30/03/2026

The fun part of moving to a new place is trying all the coffee shops ☕️ and JUDGING them #amWriting

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 22/03/2026

Building a local writers group now that I’ve moved. 🤞 hopefully there’s enough folks here to make a real group out of this! Here’s my poster I built in canva~ #writingcommunity #authors

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 08/02/2026

Putting a few hours into revising the manuscript today. Over the halfway point, still set on getting this in the hands of beta readers in a week and a half! #amEditing #WriteSky ✍️

A London fog, half-sweet, next to a laptop with an unfinished manuscript

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 05/02/2026

You know the sunny spot slaps when she’s in full roadkill mode. #DogsOfBsky 🐶

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 02/02/2026

We saw some snow geese this weekend! Turn up the volume! #BirdsofBsky 🪶

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 31/01/2026

Visited the Amache Japanese internment camp in southern Colorado today. #Historical #Colorado

"I have brooded about this whole episode on and off the past three decades for it is illustrative of how an entire society can somehow plunge off course."

Milton S. Eisenhower, first Director of the War Relocation Authority, younger brother of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1974

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 30/01/2026

Update, an amazing talk this month! 😆 Thanks @creativemornings.bsky.social a wild and interesting creative journey~ #Creatives

Speaker Fa’al presenting national negrographic

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 30/01/2026

Today’s #CreativeMornings Denver is in a beautiful church downtown. Very cool! 😎 #CMDenver #creatives

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 27/01/2026

This has become my pre writer’s workshop ritual at this point~ #WriteSky

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JP Spalding - SciFi 🪐🚀 Writer @jpspalding.com · 26/01/2026

While it was still sort of nice out, we took Fig to wash park for her first time—needless to say she was overstimulated by the smells and the people and the squirrels. A good breather from writing to reset and digest the fresh outlines before I dive in. #DogsOfBsky 🐕 #WritingCommunity

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