iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 5h

A day without an AI slop email about my books is like a day without sunshine. No. Wait. It's like a day without golf ball-sized hail and the mist rising up from the Arrowhead Project.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Clearly I have had some kind of curse laid on me that renders any server I talk to incapable of hearing the word "unsweet" when I am ordering a beverage. Tonight was the eighth time out of ten I got sweet tea instead, and as a bonus, when I was offered a beverage to go, they gave me sweet tea.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Tonight, a task that has been a long struggle has finally been put to bed. A metaphorical deck has been cleared. An item has been checked off a ToDo list that has lingered there far too long. ...I need a drink.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

In hindsight, putting chocolate on the table that was eventually enveloped in direct sunlight was a bad idea.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

On the road to Winston-Salem for the Bookmarks Festival, the largest book event in North Carolina. As usual, I am torn between "Oh God, I packed too many books" and "Why did I not bring all the books?"

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I found myself watching a YouTube video about the behavioral origins of Gen X's self-reliance and I said out loud, "I don't need to watch this, I was there." Which, I suppose, is the most Gen X thing I could possibly have said.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just hit publish on prototype decks for Squatches & Scotches, the card game @williamsem.bsky.social and I have been working on. Looking forward to having a version to share with people that I didn't make myself using the paper cutter at the local FedEx Office!

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Astonishing how much the hideous little mascot for Meta's Muse AI looks like a version of the Adipose from Dr Who that got left in the rain too long.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Any serious analysis of the sports betting industry zeroes in on how the model was founded on one concept: Normalizing the concept of sports betting so that people just accepted it, and didn't think about consequences or costs because it was just there. Worth thinking about in other contexts...

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

When a book on Bigfoot for sale crosses my radar and I go, "naah", you know there may be some issues with that book....

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yesterday I was given a poem about ghosts by a person dressed in a full body fox costume. Also, I listened to a lot of Supertramp. The two are not related.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The answer is almost certainly “Yes.”

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

….the moment when you realized you were so organized and proactive for once in your life that you showed up to the venue and hour before they were planning on opening the doors.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Self-care is realizing that you still know every single lyric to Styx’s THE GRAND ILLUSION album despite not having played it since the mid-90s and being at peace with that.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

When you finish reading a story in public for the first time and people come up to you and hug you, you know the story landed.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Raleigh. Tomorrow night. Words. Lots of 'em.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Me: T-Mobile has disabled my phone. T-Mobile Employee: That's easy enough to take care of. Just call this number. Me: ....

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Today's tally: One story sale! One story rejection :-( One baseball game. I will take that every time.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

....the moment when you plunk down for the ebook version of a title you've been chasing for a while only to realize it was formatted and edited with all the care of the Tasmanian Devil trying to make a cake recipe.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Starting the day right with a rejection note from a publisher. Let me say for the record that I greatly appreciate the quick turnaround and professionalism on said publisher's part.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Part of me wants to do a troll post about how George Soros will give every American $5000 if the Democrats take the House and Senate and then watch the nincompoops take it seriously, but I'm really afraid of the joke escaping containment and winding up on Fox News.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Going to see the Drive-By Truckers tonight. Faced with the core concertgoer dilemma: What t-shirt do I wear? 1-A Drive-By Truckers t-shirt. 2-A Drive-By Truckers adjacent t-shirt. 3-A Similar Band To Drive-ByTruckers t-shirt. 4-A totally hideous prog band t-shirt just to be different.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Saw Trump’s post with the Space Nazi uniforms and my first thought was, “Welp, I guess Claude just scraped Pete Hegseth’s spank bank.”

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Going to be a contrarian today and wear a Carolina Mudcats t-shirt to a Durham Bulls game.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

And the last notes of ProgDay have faded to silence.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

There is something incredibly freeing about just giving the charity raffle some money instead of having to actually keep track of the tickets and try to match the numbers for prizes I would have no idea what to do with anyway.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

One of the things I like about prog is the wholehearted, genre-wide stance of “FUCK YOU, WE LIKE FLUTES AND WE WILL USE THEM AS WE SEE FIT.” I respect the hell out of that.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Heck is being on a one lane road behind someone who is going the same place you are, only much. More. Slowly.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Thunderstorm just rolled in at ProgDay during French TV’s set. I have never packed up a show table so fast in my life. Now waiting it out. Good thing I brought a book.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

ProgDay highlight - lots of folks coming by to tell me they bought a book from me last year and they really enjoyed it.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Key consideration of ProgDay for me: Precisely how many more Rush bootlegs does one man need?

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A great start to ProgDay! Donated a book to the charity raffle, got set up, listening to my buddy Sean’s band Bruteus rock out, and someone who bought some books last year already came by to tell me how much he and his wife liked them (and to give me a wee precious dram of Bunnahabhain).

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

No truth to the rumor that I ran around the empty theater making “Beep beep!” noises at the late screening of Coyote Vs. Acme, but damn, that is one funny movie.

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Reposted by The Mummer's Dansky

Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

"The Most Important Thing fiction writers can take away from video game writing: How to adapt to the rules." 🎮🕹️👾 New nonfiction today by @rdansky.bsky.social: "Learning From the Nerds: Game Writing Techniques That Apply To Fiction" Read it here: www.apexbookcompany.com/blogs/apex-m...

"Learning from the Nerds: Game Writing Techniques That Apply to Fiction" By Richard Dansky. Apex Magazine, Issue 154.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Technology has thwarted my creative efforts tonight. "Accept Changes" mocks my pain.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I hate AI spammers, but whoever's sending me fake emails that are supposedly from award-winning literary novelist Anne Tyler over The Video Game Writer's Guide to Surviving an Industry That Hates You just sent me a third followup, and I have to admire the commitment to the bit.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Happy to report the sale of my story "The Patterson Hood-Gimlin Film" to Monstrously Misguided, publication date TBD. So if you need your Bigfoot/Drive-By Truckers mashup, start your timers, folks. It's a-coming!

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

One of those days when you get Chinese food for lunch and the message in the fortune cookie just reads “Sorry, bruh. I got nothing.”

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

At this point, the non-Ellen highlight of the week has been the fact that I was able to use both “thumbdick” and “fuckstick” as descriptors within the same seven day period. The rhyme was not intentional. And I might yet add a “chucklefuck”, just for texture.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Just read a longform piece on the ESPN website about the dangers of gambling addiction among college students. There’s one mention of how things like video games expose kids to gambling. Zero mention of ESPN’s massive flood of gambling stuff in its basic content. This is my shocked face.

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The Mummer's Dansky @rdansky.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Got not one but two AI-generated scams asking me to give permission to a book club to talk about my nearly 30 year old fantasy novel during the course of a single Durham Bulls game tonight. And it wasn't even a particularly long Durham Bulls game.

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