R. A. Cassidy
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owlnoire.bsky.social
R. A. Cassidy
@owlnoire.bsky.social
41 followers 45 following 54 posts
Writer 🤎🧡🤍🩷💜 Gamer (affectionate)

Author of #queer YA and NA Fantasy. I like to put my characters in situations.

Current project: The Sparrow Conspiracy, a YA Fantasy novel based on queer culture during turn of the century America.
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owlnoire.bsky.social
Going with a loose synonym today! Don't have "scrub," but I do have "washed."

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #AuthorSky #IndieAuthor
“I’m sorry.” This finally gets Beth to look at him. She still doesn’t say anything, but at least she’s not pretending he doesn’t exist. “For dragging you into this,” Rowan clarifies. He looks at his hands, twisted in his lap, cleaner now that he’s washed them of blood, but still cracked and dirty.
August 29, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
milosometimes.bsky.social
Don't have 'broad' but I do have 'wide'.

This is such a cute moment. Just two queer teens who find comfort in each other. It was so sweet to write.
Though, this is deceptive, because these moments are few and far between. It's usually much... worse.

#WipSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #FtSF
A quote of text overlayed on a landscape picture of crashing ocean waves. The silhouette of a bird is flying in the sky, and the image is tinted in a greyish blue colour. It reads: I’m looking at them with wide, clear eyes and they’re close to me. Their skin is radiating heat, and this close I can trace their freckles like the stars. Their eyes keep flicking down to my chapped lips. I’m stunned by how anyone could look at Kharon and not see how gorgeous they are. They lean in, their lips just whispering against mine, and my eyes flutter closed. The word wide is underlined.
August 28, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
franjames.bsky.social
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #QueerWriters #LGBTWriters #TransWriters

Boy's night out
Rafel steps out into the night’s stinking swelter, spitting snuff onto the street and flexing his bloodied knuckles. Sweat rolls over his lips and chin, dripping from the scar that marks the center of his mouth. He wipes it away and sees the flecks of red staining his cravat, pinching the silk, smearing blood where he tries to rub it away with his thumb. “Fucker bled on me!” Theodimir steps behind him, fluffing his great black beard and placing a cigarette between his lips. The broad expanse of his chest is bared to Summer moonlight, silken shirt plastered to his skin, the ribbon binding his long black hair soaked through with sweat and grease. He grunts an acknowledgment and strikes a match against the theater wall, lights his cigarette. The murky aroma of cheap tobacco and burning wasp paper fills the air between them.
August 28, 2025 at 12:57 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Anybody else have to write an essay on The Importance of Being Earnest? 👀👀

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #IndieAuthor #AmWriting #AuthorSky
And skinny he was indeed. Tall, too, with curly blonde hair that stuck up all over his head—kinda like if someone rubbed a balloon on a golden retriever. But that was where the similarities to happy-go-lucky dogs ended. Anthony liked to be left alone for the most part, and he wasn’t exactly a popular kid at school thanks to his family. Not that I was part of the In-Crowd myself, but I was big and broad and not taking any AP classes, which was enough to give me a boost. If it wasn’t for our 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Linde, making us work together on a project we both hated, we might’ve never even met. But as it was, we wrote a joint essay on The Importance of Being Earnest, and the rest was cheap booze and stolen cigarettes.
August 28, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
kleighdiaz.bsky.social
#WIPSnips | stand/stood

When Lennie realizes the storm and her imagination have been playing tricks on her (though there might also be something a little otherworldly going on…)

Post-apocalyptic #WIP w/ a misfit trio of kids.

#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #amwriting
Writing snippet: Lennie got to her knees, waited a moment, watching, but her mother didn't budge, so she went out to the porch and into the rain. It coated her like freshly washed sheets, warm off the line, and she stood with her back to the house, soaking it in, before twisting sharply in the direction of the porch, staring the darkness down. “C’mon,” she muttered to the shadows. “Go on. Here I am. Do it. I dare you.” And then a click from behind her. She whipped around, and the pale figure stood, rising slowly out of the long grass, jar in hand, cap untwisted. Only, the creature’s head barely cleared the top of the stalks, and when the lightning struck again, those deep scars in its face were more like scratches traced along delicate skin, and she realized it wasn't some wraith out of her nightmares, it was just…a kid.
August 27, 2025 at 8:19 AM
owlnoire.bsky.social
No "stand" for today's #WIPSnips, but I do have "stood"

From Chapter One of an untitled novella. Featuring a giant Joshua tree, a psychic, and monsters that look like mirages until it's too late...

#WriteSky #IndieAuthor #AuthorSky
In one of the chairs, face drenched in dancing shadows, sat a woman. She was significantly older that I’d expected. Not aged from cigarettes or booze like most of the carnies outside. Just old. Long gray hair swung in loose waves down to the small of her back, and she held herself ramrod straight, like a soldier at attention. Her blue eyes looked like an oasis in the desert of her leathery face. They looked at me with a quiet calmness that instantly had me on edge. Her hands, wrinkled and bony, lay flat on the table, but as I stood there, hesitating near the fabric flap, they beckoned me over.
August 27, 2025 at 12:54 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Good afternoon, I am absolutely *floored* by this interaction in my novella.

#WIP #Novella #WriteSky #IndieAuthor
August 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
"The stars are beautiful tonight," Nell said as she twirled her pen loosely between her fingers. "You know... the Ancient Greeks believed some people could do things that were so spectacular, the Gods would immortalize them in the sky as constellations."
August 13, 2025 at 7:26 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
So... I bought a typewriter lol

#authorSky #WriteSky #Indieauthor #Writers
July 14, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
dailywritervibes.bsky.social
🔁 Repost if you’ve ever fallen in love with a character you created.
June 26, 2025 at 1:19 AM
owlnoire.bsky.social
No theme, so we're going with a synonym for today's #WIPSnips!

#WriteSky #AuthorSky #IndieAuthor
“You were gonna spend your vacation in the city?” She asks. “With all those people?” Rowan frowns. It’s not like he said he wanted to spend it at the bottom of a lake. “Yeah?” He shifts his sketchbook to his other hand. “There’s people everywhere, Beth.” Beth rolls her eyes at him. “I know that, dummy. But…” She chews on her lip a bit, looking uncertain, and then goes about grabbing her books from her locker. She has Professor Beaque’s class next. “I dunno, Rowan,” she eventually says. “City people are weird. They’re so…” She waves a hand in the air, and Rowan’s frown deepens. “Well,” he says, desperate for a subject change, “do you got any plans?”
June 25, 2025 at 2:13 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
A little snippet from chapter two of my novel as I catch up on all the #WIPSnips!

#indieauthor #WriteSky #AuthorSky #Writers
It’s a dangerous line of thought to follow so close after… well. After. Rowan shakes his head as he walks down the lane, desperately trying to ignore the persistent ache in his chest. Garrett is gone now. His body will lie in that grassy field until the gravediggers are finished with the trenches, and there will be no more jokes whispered in the classroom, no more mornings beneath the oak tree.
June 25, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
reaper-man.bsky.social
A snippet from the prologue, where I mangle the many-worlds interpretation to justify the existence of my satirical universe.

From an action-comedy novel about the adventures of a girl, a small robot, and the heist crew they call family.

#WIPSnips #AmWriting
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky
💙📚
Of course, once the rest of the scientists emerged from the bunkers and resumed developing even more catastrophic weapons, they wasted no time ridiculing his silly notions. The fabric of reality is finite, they scoffed, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t trying to patch up a hole, but was rather attempting to stitch together an entirely new tapestry. Besides, no one would ever fund such a preposterous study. You couldn’t use alternate realities to blow anything up, after all. And it would be a nightmare to wrangle so many cats into boxes. If every decision caused a split, pondered our perspicacious scientist, then it stood to reason that some universes ended up… stranger than others. Most would be slightly different. Perhaps a world where zebras were monochrome. Or maybe even one where people kept flocking to an ill-advised theme park full of resurrected dinosaurs, despite its long track record of putting visitors on the menu. But some divergences ran deeper.
June 25, 2025 at 1:11 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Little late to the party for #WIPSnips, but I'm trying to catch up!

For June 22nd, I went with an excerpt from my short story, The Last Day of January, which you can find in the first issue of my zine, Goldrush! It's free to download on my Ko-Fi if you'd like to read it 🥰

ko-fi.com/s/518e52756f
“Joy, then,” he eventually said in a tearful whisper and then kissed her like a man home from war. They set up the nursery and told their friends, all the things couples do when they’re expecting a little one. Neighbors they’d hardly spoken to brought them blankets and linens, food and drink, for people will be kind if just given the opportunity.
June 25, 2025 at 12:54 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Little late to the party for yesterday's #WIPSnips but here we go!

From my in-progress Wattpad novella, The Puppetmaster. Link below!

www.wattpad.com/story/392971...

#WriteSky #AuthorSky #IndieAuthor #Wattpad #Novella
The carnival had a lot of vendors, each with their own tent. I assumed that most of the proceeds went to the person who ran the place, not to the people who actually made the goods. Anthony bounced around between the ones selling fried food and the ones selling overpriced junk. I followed him because that was what I did. I wasn't the mastermind of any of our little adventures, and that kept me from getting the brunt of the punishment for whatever happened.
May 27, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
abigailtaylor.bsky.social
Scrub brush and post oaks scatter around the tall grasses and I can’t think of why anything bad should come to this place of silent peace. What had we done to deserve this fate?

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asks.

#WIPSnips from my YA sapphic #horror MARYNEAL 1962. Coming to you this June!
The cover of upcoming YA horror MARYNEAL 1962. The title is on a drive-in movie theater and looks like blood splatter. In the background are cars lined up to see the feature. At the center of the cover is Delah, the protagonist. She's dressed like a Teddy Girl: tight pants and a tucked in flannel. She has long, black curls, and looks frightened. She is covered in blood and her outstretched hand is reaching for the reader, begging for help. Below is a blurb from USA Today best selling author, Emily Jane. "A harrowing and gorgeously rendered exploration of grief."
May 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Little excerpt from "The Puppetmaster," an in-progress novella you can read on Wattpad!

For context, the Joshua Tree in this story is easily the size of a Coastal Redwood. Biiiiiiiiggg tree.

www.wattpad.com/story/392971...

#WIPSnips #amwriting #WriteSky #Wattpad
By the time we left the carnival, my good mood had faded like the last rays of a sunset. We sat in silence on the bus ride home. I had the window seat, and I stared at the endless expanse of the Mojave as the moon rose higher and higher in the sky. It was a clear night, and even though we were still at least an hour outside of town, I could see the Joshua tree off in the distance. A giant guardian caught somewhere between decay and preservation. Judgment, so the Crawford family said.
May 22, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
m-walshwrites.com
#amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky
“Help me stand. We must … we cannot allow him to continue …” Krutch watched Escudo struggle and couldn’t help but feel surprised the Mage had so quickly accepted his presence, much less assumed his aid was given. After all, he was still the notorious pirate being transported to the gallows for execution. Funny how a massacre can make strange bedfellows, he supposed.
May 6, 2025 at 4:16 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Some dysfunctional family dynamics for today's #WIPSnips!
And Rowan would lie in bed, fingers knotted in his blankets, his chest a chasm. He would lie there until his father slammed his bedroom door, locked his mother out. Then he would listen with an ache in his heart as his mother wheezed her way up the stairs to Rowan’s room. And Rowan knew better than to pretend he was asleep. He knew better than to pretend he didn’t hear every curse, every broken plate. Instead, by the time his mother knocked on his bedroom door, Rowan already had a book picked out for them to read together.
May 6, 2025 at 4:49 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Thoroughly enjoying this character. He's an absolute JERK and I love him very much.

#WIP #amwriting #YAFantasy #Fiction #FictionWriter
"Please, my dear. You can't go and mumble your words. You have to enunciate. You have to inflect. Otherwise, no one will take you seriously. Unless that's your goal. In which case, by all means! Keep doing what you're doing."
April 30, 2025 at 10:16 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
Speaking of unhinged characters, #DnD has me insanely inspired. Love writing sample dialogue to get into character before a sesh, because then I get gems like:

"Thank you for making this experience SO forgettable."

Will use in my novel. Thanks DnD!

#WriteSky #AuthorSky #WritingCommunity
April 30, 2025 at 10:05 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
I forgot how much fun it is to make characters who are jerks, actually. Let them be unhinged. Let them be complete assholes. Because it's so much more fun to watch them grow when they actually have to, y'know, become a better person.

#WriteSky #AuthorSky #WritingCommunity
April 30, 2025 at 10:02 PM
owlnoire.bsky.social
An excerpt from my #WIP, The Sparrow Conspiracy, for today's #ScribbledSheroes! The prompt was "defy" and I took a little bit of liberty with it and went with "defiance."

((I'm loving the #WritingCommunity on this site! Everyone is so friendly and the amount of engagement is wonderful!))
((An excerpt from a WIP containing a variation of the prompt word, Defy. Text reads as below)) "What about you, Celia?" Rowan asks. "You didn't get hurt, did you?" Celia guffaws rather noisily and gets up from the tree stump. The sleeve of her green duster is torn and the rest of it, dirty, but Rowan's pleased to see there's not even a hint of blood.  "Hell no," she says. Then, with a roll of her eyes: "If you think I'm gonna let them boys put me in the ground, you got another thing coming." It's a simple statement, nothing she hasn't said before, but Rowan finds himself awed by her defiance. At fourteen-years-old, Celia Beaque has more courage than most grown men.  "Anyway," Celia flicks a piece of dried mud from her arm, “I gotta make sure those soldier boys didn’t touch my books. If I find out even one of them ain’t in mint condition, I’ll find the closest officer and slow roast him like a pig.” She smiles at Rowan and Billie, then takes her leave. Rowan watches her go.  “She kinda scares me,” he says.
March 6, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
veloravenn.bsky.social
March 1st is here, which means 2 things: Women’s Month has officially begun, & so has #ScribbledSheroes for the #WritingCommunity! Time to celebrate the fierce, flawed, & fantastic women in your #WIP!

Share an excerpt that contains the word (or something similar to) “crown!” 👑

#Writers #Authors
March 1, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by R. A. Cassidy
veloravenn.bsky.social
#InternationalWomensDay (March 8th) is silently being removed from Apple & Google Calendars! 😡 Women are facing increasing erasure, exploitation, rights being stripped away, & mistreatment at an alarming rate.

So proud I’m hosting #ScribbledSheroes for the #WritingCommunity in honor of women. 💖
March 3, 2025 at 3:13 PM