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bareroot.bsky.social
Dienw Neb
@bareroot.bsky.social
15K followers 390 following 360 posts
Writer of odd books
https://noshelterbooks.com/
Reposting & posting unpolished thoughts as I work on my current project.
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bareroot.bsky.social
In trying to illustrate a cute-but-distinct vole side profile for Dim Gods, I seem to be inadvertently replicating The Grabbler.
Pencil sketch of The Grabbler Pencil sketches of cute vole side-profiles
November 17, 2025 at 12:12 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Starting some rough, experimental sketches for Dim Gods. This is a fun project.

Also, both Principals and null will be on sale for 99c over the weekend.
Lost in a square of white space, a simple drawing of an anthropomorphic vole wearing something like a medieval peasant's dress runs from left to right.
October 31, 2025 at 2:18 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Concept for a #remembranceday sticker or pin.
An image of the Remembrance Day poppy overlaid onto the classic "Antifascist Action" circle logo.
October 30, 2025 at 6:47 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
I didn't read the rest of your thread but I've made it better/worse.
A useless degree-of-relation chart
October 29, 2025 at 1:38 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
A new review for Principals (www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...). Three stars will always be a little disappointing but the reviewer makes fair points, pro and con.
A screenshot of a four paragraph, three star review. Text content follows: Principals follows Agati and Jun-Fi, best friends who find themselves plucked from their home in a war torn, post-apocalyptic city full of poverty and tossed into the world of training to become idols. Sounds glamorous, right? I mean just days of Singing, dancing, obeying orders, starving and receiving beatings whenever they are not perfect. Not so glamorous. Outside their walls, a revolution is stirring. What could go wrong? The secondary plot line in this story is Johan, an incredibly self-centered song writer who has been very privileged and as such could not imagine the government or the police treating anyone unfairly, let alone him. He is a law-abiding citizen, after all. He is summoned to another city to receive an award and in spite of warnings from his daughter and ex wife, he decides to go anyway. His plans aren’t the only thing that starts to unravel as his beliefs and his very life are threatened again and again. I think this is a debut novel for this author or perhaps one of only a couple and overall, it was well done. I enjoyed the writing and the concepts. The story felt very real too given the state of the world at the moment. She kind of lost me in the last third of the story a bit though. It started to feel disjointed as the story ramped up and maybe that was the author’s intent but it was frustrating to me as a reader. I felt the ending was too abrupt and left many questions unanswered. Things also didn’t really tie together like I had hoped they would. I think standard chapter breaks would have helped me out immensely too. The best parts in my opinion were the short bursts of perspective from operatives in the resistance, I would have liked more of those to give the reader a bigger picture perspective on this world throughout. Overall a very creative idea that just needed a bit more finessing in the last 75 pages for me to feel like it worked well.
October 23, 2025 at 8:00 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
First physical back-up for this project.
A pile of A4 sheets of paper with the text mosaic-censored to be illegible.
October 12, 2025 at 3:29 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
A crudely drawn, 4-panel comic. We see an angry or determined bald, shirtless man using some sort of gym equipment that involves having your arms wide out then pulling forward to bring them together in front of you to exercise the arms and chest muscles. In the final panel the man has a thought bubble: "I'm gonna be so good at huggin'"
October 5, 2025 at 2:51 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
A nice new review for my previous novel, Principals (amzn.to/4oT40SG) oddly it's behind a login wall on NetGallery but I can share it here. The reviewer makes some valid criticisms.
Principals is a striking dystopian novel set in Ibban, a Korea-like country where poverty is brutal and survival is precarious. The story follows Jűn-Fi and Agati, two girls pulled into a government-run idol school that promises glamour but quickly reveals itself as little more than exploitation. It’s a smart and original twist on the genre: using the entertainment industry—modeled after K-pop—as a tool of oppression, while also critiquing the very real conditions faced by idols today. The novel shines most once the girls arrive at the school. The tension is relentless, the world-building immersive, and the stakes heartbreakingly high. It’s grim but never gratuitous, and the characters are easy to root for. I did find a few elements less effective. The chapter introductions, while reminiscent of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, were overly long and slowed the pace. The subplot involving Johan, a European songwriter, felt distracting and underdeveloped compared to the compelling arc of the girls. Despite these drawbacks, Principals is a powerful, unsettling, and deeply engaging read. I’d recommend it to fans of dystopian fiction who appreciate social critique woven into an emotionally gripping story.
September 30, 2025 at 5:50 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
A couple of chapters away from finishing the second draft of Dim Gods and I'm so excited to start the third ([s]the[/s] a fun bit!) I can hardly concentrate on the task at hand.
Detail of a painting showing two shadowy, clothed squirrels with beady eyes on a steep, mossy cliffside.
September 30, 2025 at 10:52 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
Zack Fox tweets: This is how the photos be lookin in headlines when a white man kills his entire family. There is a photo of a man and his family all wearing sunglasses, smiling and riding a jetski.
September 26, 2025 at 5:46 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
@junlper.beer Totally unrelated but it's been bothering me for a while now - I have a cactus that looks like you.
A photograph of a cactus that looks like Juniper.
September 16, 2025 at 12:37 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
The void left on the courthouse wall where Banksy's painting has been removed, partially obscured by a splash of orange paint.
September 11, 2025 at 11:00 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
As credited, this is from a photoset taken in 2012.
The same scene from another angle showing two women holding glasses of pink goop, with four hands between them as might be expected of humans. The same scene from another angle showing one of the same two women drinking a glass of pink goop, with only two hands between them as might be expected of a human.
September 6, 2025 at 1:33 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Location scouting. Bsky seems buggy lately.
A roughly carved statue imitative of the Buddha or some other SEA figure of veneration stands, dappled and mossy, in a broadleaf woody glade. Almost too close to the foot of trees which support vining plants thicker than a man's neck, is nestled an old concrete bunker. Only the doorway is visible, hung with moss and ivy - its arcing back soft with decades of accumulated biomass, saplings, tall grasses.
September 6, 2025 at 12:11 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
This is the largest experiment into manifestation to date.
Book cover of "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne
August 30, 2025 at 10:04 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
The mouth of a shady, fern-lined lane. The entry is marked by a small (four foot, or so), moss-and-ivy-ensconsed standing stone marked with a plaque that reads "Please close the gate". Some distance away from the posts the gate is laid, attached to nothing and partially covered by foliage, on the verge.
August 22, 2025 at 5:23 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
I primarily get them on my website's contact form. Recently I received one addressed to another author entirely, which I thought was some impressively lazy scripting on the botter's part.
A spam email from "Aurora Harrington" addressed to a C. Buck.
August 19, 2025 at 1:57 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Somehow, Principals ended up being advertised on the same page as two books associated with L. Ron Hubbard. That's something.
A screenshot of the "Litnuts" website advertising "Typerwriter in the Sky" by L. Ron Hubbard, and "L. Ron Hubbard presents: Writers of the Future vol 41" above two other books and Principals.
August 16, 2025 at 1:16 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Not even a third of the way through the month and the Principals 2nd edition has entirely outsold the first edition. Gunbae!
A static ad for the book Principals by Dienw Neb. It shows the front cover, headed with the text "1984 was a warning, not a manual... Principals is different" and underwritten with "I cannot describe just how much I loved it" (available at amazon.co.uk)
August 9, 2025 at 8:50 AM
bareroot.bsky.social
They even line up at the spines, isn't that neat?
A stack of copies of Principals and null, alternating to show how the titles all line up neatly.
August 5, 2025 at 5:36 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Photo showing the Foreward and Contents of Principals' 2nd Edition Photo showing the chapter 6 header & epigraph of Principals' 2nd Edition.
August 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
The hard copies of Principals' 2nd Edition have arrived, they're really lovely objects in themselves.
Photograph of the front cover and spine of Principals 2nd Edition at a slant angle. Photograph of the front & rear cover of Principals 2nd Edition at a straight-on angle.
August 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
The Monkey Wrench Gang was the primary inspiration for my novel "Principals". Not just an ecological story, they have other similarities. So for the entirety of this month, the new edition of Principals is available for 99c to celebrate its spiritual ancestor. 4/4
www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...
Cover of Principals, second edition. A masked military figure looms over two young Asian women wearing orange bandannas. Behind them is a cityscape aflame.
August 1, 2025 at 1:31 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
Relatively unknown today, the book's relevance can still be seen in the common phrase "to throw a monkey wrench into [something]", monkey wrench as a verb meaning to sabotage. This is where the phrase came from. 3/4
Cover of "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey, unknown Edition showing an illustration of the "bones" of a bulldozer, as though it was a living thing, decomposing into dry red sand.
August 1, 2025 at 1:31 PM
bareroot.bsky.social
If such a broad claim can be substantiated is difficult to say, but it undoubtedly inspired many within the environmentalist movement, in particular the notorious Earth First! group. 2/4
Cover of "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey, 10th Anniversary Edition with illustrations by Robert Crumb.
August 1, 2025 at 1:31 PM