iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 8h

Since I did a previous thread about my common criticisms of the 7 sets of the first 10 pages of novels I read for an upcoming writing workshop, here are some of the things that made me write compliments in the margins. Here are the roses to my previous thread's thorns:

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maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'm attending a writing workshop in two days for which I had to read the first 10 pages of 7 other authors' manuscripts in advance to provide feedback during the session. Here are some of my most common suggestions for improvement in those opening pages:

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The global resistance movement against longevity recruits Hanna Kim when a forced blood donation leaves her sister in a preventable coma. Hanna must defy her powerful mother and reject everything she was taught to discover the truth and save those she loves. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 30/09/2026

anyway character driven stories are not, in fact, easy to generate by a thing that doesn't understand human emotion

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

When 150yo grandma gets in an accident, Hanna & sis are forced to donate too much blood to save her. With sis in a coma & everything she knew about longevity shattered, Hanna chooses to reject the system her mom helped build & join the global resistance. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Great perspective in this thread for all of us participating in a pitch event for the first time!

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If you find yourself repulsed by the never-ending stream of horrible stories about campus sexual violence and wondering how so many young men can treat so many young women as less than human, please see Inter Alia! It's running in NY, or you can watch at home: www.ntathome.com/videos/inter...

ntathome.com

Inter Alia: Full Play

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

BLACK MIRROR x ANNIE BOT x ONE LEVEL DOWN When sis is forced to give too much blood, Hanna Kim sees longevity isn't worth it. Only by joining the resistance does Hanna learn what humanity lost in the quest for longer life & how far she’ll go to get it back. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Would you open your veins to keep your ancestors alive? What if you didn't have a choice? Descendants in 2200 must donate blood, but once her mom pressures her anemic sis to donate until she’s comatose, Hanna Kim joins the global resistance against longevity. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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E. Catherine Octobler @ecatherine.com · 02/09/2026

My bones need some recovery time, y'all, so @thedeadlands.com is taking a break to give me that time. 💖💀💖

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

BLACK MIRROR x ANNIE BOT x ONE LEVEL DOWN In 2200, descendant blood doubles ancestor lifespans. When donating too much puts her sis in a coma, Hanna Kim must decide whether to keep supporting the system her mom spent her life building or help tear it down. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

In 2200 when descendant blood doubles lifespans, Hanna's sis enters a coma from donating too much. Hanna must decide whether to uphold the system her mom devoted her life to build or help a global resistance destroy it in hopes of creating a more just future. #DVpit #A #SF #SFF #OWN #Asian #POC #WOC

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Kat is right about all of this. One of the reasons that college sexual violence is uniquely devastating is because it changes the victim’s entire future.

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This!! I'm so annoyed at how many of the same SFF writers who vent about how some literary fiction folks look down on speculative fiction can then turn around and do the same thing to romance

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 25/09/2026

Science fiction is currently roughly six percent of the current fiction market in North America and fantasy is (again, roughly) four times that. There's definitely more money in fantasy. In all genres, I will note, the money is very unequally distributed. (Horror... fluctuates)

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Maurizio Manzieri @manzieriart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

COVER REVEAL! An original illustration, inspired by @aliettedebodard.com's Xuya Universe, is the cover art for the brand-new anthology series "The Year's Top Science Fiction," edited by Allan Kaster (Art by Maurizio Manzieri - Publisher: @infinivoxsf.bsky.social - October, 2026).

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Paula Weiman @tinyfairyhunter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The thing that makes a pitch stand out to me is specificity--comps tailored to aspects of the work, a synopsis that establishes character/setting/stakes right away (loglines are a bonus), and a concept that's different from other queries in that subgenre. #askDV

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Stuti Telidevara @stutitelidevara.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

If the story wraps up satisfyingly in Book 1 but could continue, saying “standalone with series potential” conveys that succinctly. While series are getting shorter many genres still thrive on series publishing and I wouldn’t consider it a problem if a manuscript I loved kicked off a series. #askDV

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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.

And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of my biggest regrets in setting up an author newsletter is trying @beehiiv.com. I didn't know they reserve customer support for paid tiers only, they have a track record of locking accounts without explanation, and most infuriating: the account is impossible to delete once you decide to leave

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Narnia books as Isekai Manga

1. My Sweet Tooth Made Me The Villainess’ Slave
2. In Another World, The Dwarves Picked Me To Lead The Revolution
3. All At Sea With My Level 0 Sailing Skills
4. On A Mission In Another World And I Can’t Remember The Cheat Codes
5. That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Horse
6. Help! My Uncle’s In Love With The Demon Queen!
7. Reincarnated In Another World Just As The Game’s Ending

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Shelf Stable Podcast 🔜 Spiel Essen, PaxU @shelfstablecast.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Woke up temporarily to write a dream idea that would "revolutionize Uno." When I checked my notes app this morning, it said, "+1 card."

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Gil Hova @gil.hova.net · 17/09/2026

Any opportunity to re-post "When the Glove"

Web cartoon of the cartoonist waking up at 5 am, still half-asleep, saying "Just had such a good idea, gotta write it down", and is writing it on a piece of paper.

THE NEXT MORNING

The paper says "When the glove"

The cartoonist stares at the paper.

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Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's friday! Good news thread time! What's your good news from the week? what's made you smile? And if you work in or around publishing I think I can hazard a guess... everyone else? Hit ME!

static.klipy.com

Widows Bay Show

Alt: Patricia from widows bay looking happy at first but then sad but what I want you to know is patricia rocks

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/09/2026

But - by definition - it can't contain any of our future surprises, because it's just trained on the things we already know, and if we knew about something, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/09/2026

With LLMs, we have invented a machine that uncovers the statistical regularities in our seemingly irregular world, and we have learned that the roughness is rarer than our intuition led us to believe.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/09/2026

The LLM's statistical picture is always incomplete: it sands off, rounds down or truncates the final couple decimal places, and those smoothings make all the difference, the way the pinch of salt makes all the difference to the chocolate.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/09/2026

Surprises are *everything*. A surprise is the seam of gold in the wall of quartz; it's the friend who confesses they've fallen in love with you; it's the moment when you and the party and the GM all come up with an amazing way to kill the dragon and then roll a natural 20.

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#DVpit - Diverse Voices Pitch @dvpit.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Today we're hosting #AskDV (Q&A with literary agents) at 4-5PM ET to prep for #DVpit! Using #AskDV ask participating lit agents your questions about pitching, querying, & publishing! Join us & @ericsmithrocks.bsky.social Alexandra Levick @mwhatnall.bsky.social @tinyfairyhunter.bsky.social

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#DVpit - Diverse Voices Pitch @dvpit.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It's #DVpit month! #DVpit is a bluesky pitch event for unagented creators from marginalized communities to pitch their projects to literary agents and editors! And we've prepared a month of pre-events to help you prepare for the main event on Sept 30, 2026! Go to dvpit.carrd.co for more info!

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I know some people love them, but I'm so tired of hearing about novel-length retellings of extremely common stories where the only twist is the setting. "Romeo and Juliet IN SPACE" or "Cinderella but MODERN DAY" is just *yawn* to me no matter how well written

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Nicole Sune Sbitani @nsune.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"I just feel so... #autumnal." "Like, you're craving pumpkin spice?" "Like... I'm worried the summer of my life is over and I'm not ready for what's next." "...I don't think pumpkin spice can fix that." "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt." #vss365

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Jesse Hawken @jessehawken.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

"One more thing Miss Barlow... you were about 14 in 2001, and you grew up in the UK, so why did they dismiss your school at noon on 9/11, when the attacks would have happened around 2 pm your time? I just don't understand how the school knew the attacks would be happening later"

Columbo (Peter Falk) asking one more question

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Vanessa Fogg @vanessafogg.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"The minute you ask the machine to take over for you, you’ve given up the idea. Telling someone (or something) to make a thing for you is not the same as making that thing. In art, idea is inseparable from expression, and doing the thing is the only thing." www.uncannymagazine.com/article/a-si...

uncannymagazine.com

A Sigilary for the Median Human in the Gearwrack - Uncanny Magazine

The Sigil of Assurance You take a bit of wax and drip it over the em dash fresh out of the printer, working it over, building it up until it’s a little caterpillar crawling on the page, nestled betwee...

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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 09/09/2026

he’s talking about carbon removal but this is the most EVERGREEN SKEET to ever ship out into the bsky seas

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tunes to make you run away @whippoorwont.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

"people are anthropomorphizing LLMs because they are so astonishingly good at processing human thought and language" people will anthropomorphize a chair if you put the stitches in the right place.

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Mike X. Nichols @mikexnichols.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Thinking about this exchange today

A YouTube video for the Water Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The comments section has an exchange as detailed below. “@TheMrdangles16 • 11y ago:
i hate the water temple... too confusing :(“ “@KeithHalsell • 2y ago:
it's been 9 years, i hope you are doing great in life now.” “@TheMrdangles16 • 2y ago: it couldn't be going worse Keith.”

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JRho @jrho.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The most absolutely massive flex from the state fair exhibit. This quilt is made of 40 years of prize ribbons from various categories at the New Mexico State Fair won by Carol St. Clair Johnson. She also won a prize for this quilt.

Massive quilt made of prize ribbons in blue, red, yellow, and white

Center square of quilt made of yellow and red ribbons and yellow rosettes

Block of quilt made of blue, yellow, red, and white ribbons. Ribbons state the year. Some have the prize winning object written on in marker

Carol St. Clair Johnson
born 1954; resides Albuquerque, NM

O Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years
2023
satin ribbons

After unexpectedly winning her first blue ribbon for a sewn cape in 1981, Carol St. Clair Johnson developed an enduring love for the New Mexico State Fair. The quilt Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years incorporates more than six hundred of the ribbons she won at the fair every subsequent year except 2020 (when the fair was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic). Johnson earned ribbons for needlework, knitting, crochet, pies, cookies, cakes, canning, jewelry, flowers, vegetables, and potted plants. The title of the quilt is a reference to the state song, and the design places the state's Zia sun symbol at the center. The quilt earned Johnson yet another ribbon: Best in Category (miscellaneous quilt) at the 2023 New Mexico State Fair.

Courtesy of Carol St. Clair Johnson

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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

What is the last short story or book you read and loved that was written by a trans author?

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no brain, only alison @alisonborealis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Alright everybody, if you learn one thing this year, let it be this: NEVER drive or wade into floodwaters. You have no idea how deep they are or how solid the ground is underneath. A strong current in 6 inches of water can take you out.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Watching a documentary on Robert Wise. After the clips of all his incredible films: “Everyone who worked with him said it was a pleasure to be on his sets and he was kind and easy to get along with.” I want more of this. Fuck being a tortured genius. Do the work. Be brilliant. Be nice.

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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 04/09/2026

In short, attempting to "rank" art using math and logic just shows you don't understand art, math, or logic. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 04/09/2026

An INDIVIDUAL can maybe say who their faves are. "These are the ten best novels I read this year" and even "of the ten THIS ONE is my favorite" sure. "Spiders Georg, author of The Spider Cookbook, scientifically the best writer in English of all time" is just not possible.

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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 04/09/2026

On the topic of ranking artists--don't. You actually can't. I mean, you can rank by measurable but not meaningful metrics (who uses the most adverbs, or semicolons, or whatever), but you can't actually rank by any metrics that matter to readers or writers. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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