David Wesley Woolverton
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davidwesley13.bsky.social
David Wesley Woolverton
@davidwesley13.bsky.social
26 followers 35 following 33 posts
Creative writer, instructional design PhD, & squirrel enthusiast. He/They

https://semirandomreflections.blog/
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davidwesley13.bsky.social
The story's hero glimpses the villain's headquarters for the first time. She showed up expecting to see a forest and only found factories. #WIPSnips #WriteSky #Build
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: Some vile creature had evicted all the trees from the woods. The spindly pines no longer scraped the skies. The proud oaks no longer crowned the peninsula. No more birds would perform their symphonies here; no more squirrels would practice the arts of nestcraft and nut gathering. Moonshiners would no longer shine and shipbuilders would find no more wood for shipbuilding. Will-o-the-wisps who’d retreated there as humans gradually shrank Flicker Swamp would’ve retreated again, and where on Earth to? Giant stone walls cordoned off the once wild land. Glass mansions and steel factories covered the too open acreage. A conglomeration of houses, scarcely a step up from caravans, lent one corner some slight livability. What cheerfulness that gained was sucked out again by a military fort boasting ugly great tanks and missile launchers. Aisling had now laid eyes on Pearlshot Cyber Incorporated.
November 14, 2025 at 3:41 AM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
Does it count as cheating for a shapeshifter to use that ability in a costume competition? #WIPSnips #WriteSky #Local
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: Isabelle and Jason adjust their costumes as they walk into the local comic book convention downtown. Isabelle wears a black robe, infinity-sign glasses, and a pointy black hat. Jason has on a black trench coat with a dark blue scarf-ish thing tied around his neck and a black wig he’s trying to make curlier. He watches Nasrin checking her appearance in the glass door. Nasrin wears a frilly grey blouse and a messy, faded blue skirt that poofs out around her legs, with some kind of black garment tied around her waist. She’s opted out of a wig. Some of her hair is down; most of it’s bunched up in a rat’s nest on top of her head. He says, “I still don’t see why you didn’t come in your fire body and call that your costume. You’d’ve cleaned up in all the competitions.” Nasrin adjusts her skirt. “I couldn’t call that a costume because costumes are for pretending to be something you’re not, and I didn’t wear it because today I want to be something I’m not.”
November 10, 2025 at 6:32 PM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
Context: An immortal, time-traveling mother/daughter duo are discussing family history with their distant, mortal descendant. #WIPSnips #WriteSky #Fiction
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: Aiyana stands in the front door with Ceylan, who keeps her doe ears and nose just long enough to receive attention before she fully humanizes her face. “I added Ignacio’s picture,” Ceylan says. “I hope you like it.” Isabelle puts the picture beside her ceramic village, nearest the sign that says Leaving Fantasy. She asks Aiyana, “What happened to him after you and he left?” Aiyana twirls her hair. “You kinda know. He married the woman in the picture, adopted her kids, and they grew up and had kids and that eventually led to you.” Isabelle nudges her. “Que va. What else happened?” Aiyana’s grip on her hair tightens. She almost pulls some out. “I don’t know. I took him back to Mexico and went home. I couldn’t make myself forge that close a connection knowing it was gonna be that temporary. Till yesterday I didn’t even know where my bloodline had ended up.” She half-hugs her mother. “Thanks for keeping up with them for me.” “They’re mine, too,” Ceylan says.
November 9, 2025 at 7:27 PM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WriteSky #Movement
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: The woman allows them a silent moment to process before she presses further with, “Why go through the rotations at all? That’s what really bothers you.” Ignacio says, “Not quite,” but Aiyana says, “Yes.” “When thus all passes away, why do we do it? Well, what else is there to do? If you’re stuck with living you might as well get some enjoyment and fulfillment out of the bargain.” “And what?” Aiyana asks. “Just deal with the continuous emotional hangovers after the highpoints end?” “If you think it’s worth it.” The woman sits beside Ignacio. “You’ve experienced that yourself recently, haven’t you?” Ignacio just sips his drink. Only a slight movement in his eyes indicates recognition of the question, or affirmation of its correctness.
November 7, 2025 at 4:41 PM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
When someone who was alive during the 1700s goes to a 21st century pirate festival expecting authenticity. #WIPSnips #WriterSky #Costumes
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: Something literally flashes in Nasrin’s eyes. The monocle she wears sends the ray of the flash out like a laser. The flames perpetually flickering in her DNA flare, and if she doesn’t chill out soon her entire body might erupt. Her hair’s already dancing in an unnatural, fire-like fashion. Thankfully the wind coming off the nearby Gulf of Mexico makes it harder to notice. “You should’ve dressed plain like we did,” says Jason. “No one else would even think of coming here in costume.” Nasrin spins to face him, sending her jacket on its most dramatic twirl yet. “This is not a costume,” she says through clenched teeth. Her voice gains a faint echo as she gets more worked up, as if three of her are speaking at once. “This is the actual outfit I wore as a ship’s captain in the 1700s.” Jason examines the dents left in his ankle by a sand-spur. “See, we know you’re immortal, but if anyone else hears ya say that you’re gonna get locked up.”
October 29, 2025 at 1:33 AM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
Going off vibes this time. Blood-curdling's the tone I had in mind when I wrote this section. #WIPSnips #WriterSky #HorrorVibes
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: He felt Evil Eye’s boot stomp the back of his neck, pushing his face into the plush carpet. “Insolent animal! You think any voice but mine matters?” “Nosir, my Dark Lord! It’s just I can’t silence the other!” “I’ll silence it soon enough!” “Yaar!” Deveroux knew that within seconds the Eye would disintegrate his flesh molecule by molecule. The burning wave he expected never came. Instead he felt his head plunge into a vat of something that smelt like burnt crab oil. When he gasped it filled his lungs. As his head came out of the bucket he saw a vision of horses tearing each other’s skin with their teeth. One shrieked and ran towards him, foaming at the mouth, eyes bulging and nostrils flaring. He woke on the floor of his gold-tiled bathroom in torn clothes and covered in scratches.
October 28, 2025 at 1:46 AM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WriteSky
screenshot of the following novel excerpt. Ella stood in front of the yard she’d grown up in, not the house she’d grown up in. The house there now didn’t have the porch her granddad built, or the shutters her dad and brother installed, or the little wooden cross her mom had painted her granny’s face on. It did have a flower bed, just now it had neglected roses instead of cared for weeds. It also had a garage, not needed in her time because no car had ever lived at that address. She looked at the mailbox (which was brick arch and not rusty tin on a splintered wooden pole). She had the right address, alright. She sat on a fallen oak tree near the sidewalk on the other side of the road. When had they put in a sidewalk? Even a cracked one?
October 16, 2025 at 12:20 AM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingPrompts
Screenshot of the following novel excerpt: Aisling laughed. “I’d find him first, of course, but firster, show me what you found before I came in.” Jen sidled up to Leon. “How do you know he found anything?” “Give over. It’d take something pretty hot to cause a fire like that. For a journalist not to find it would amount to a crow not finding meat on a battlefield.” Leon froze. His eyes looked through Jen to the door. His right foot may have twitched in the same direction. A tiny drop of sweat formed on his forehead. In a jerky blur of motion he took his phone out of his pocket, opened his photos gallery, and handed the phone to Aisling along with the battery pack keeping it charged. Aisling worked mostly one handed: three fingers behind the back of the phone, pinky under the bottom for support, scrolling with the thumb. Periodically she used her left hand to zoom in on something. She stopped on one particular story and frowned.
October 10, 2025 at 1:07 AM
davidwesley13.bsky.social
I don't have any lines about hibernation, but I have a poem from a book I'm working on that depicts a steam locomotive in a mechanical version of hibernation. #WIPSnips #WritingPrompts #PoetrySky
Screen capture of the following poem: Alone, the wanderer snaps Through the rampant woods without a map Till he finds a place where kudzu vines have grown Around the lifeless locomotive caught in their trap. The engine rests there as its own tombstone, Its mummified remains preserved by vines alone. Its railless wheels have halted from their courses, The firebox has frozen, the water tank is dry as stone. Inspecting the body, he finds no defect that forces It to lie there. No missing part or open sore is Visible. Freed and cleaned, it could travel further. People have reanimated more corroded corpses. He could surely arrange its rescue by some museum or other, But the engine seems to groan against such bother. It has kept its final promise, And resents petitions for another. The choice he finally makes is this: The resurrector role’s not his. He exits through the forest’s brush and frizz, Resolved to leave the body where it is.
October 3, 2025 at 3:45 PM