#WritersCoffeeClub 31st December 2025 Happy New Year! Take pride in what you’ve written and share the progress you've made!
2025 was a lousy year due to medical shit: had surgery on one eye, awaiting surgery on the other (it's bad enough to make reading tiring, but needs to get worse before they operate).
Got 80% of the way into a third draft of "Ghost Engine" before I got distracted by an attack novel, "Starter Pack", which is now 117K words long and in redraft pending sale. Fingers crossed!
#WritersCoffeeClub Day 30: How much would writing by another means (by hand, digitally, audio transcription) change your prose?
Writing by hand wouldn't change anything significantly. Except that with my fine motor problems I'd probably make a lot more 'typos'.
Audio would be interesting. I did audio transcription for on e f my nonfic books one summer and it went really well. I don't know how it would change my fiction, but would love to try.
#writerscoffeeclub Dec 30. How much would writing by another means (by hand, digitally, audio transcription) change your prose?
All my full length novel manuscripts have been written using MS Word. I probably wouldn't be able to write without the ability to move text around and delete/insert text as required.
#WritersCoffeeClub 30: How much would writing by another means (by hand, digitally, audio transcription) change your prose?
Significantly!
I started out writing on a manual typewriter, then an electric one, before graduating to a word processor. Each change lowered the barrier to composition, at word/sentence level then structural level.
Audio transcription is impossible for prose fiction—it's entirely incompatible with the way I compose text, and suffers from a highly restricted vocabulary.
(contd.) Speech transcription software is not designed for prose fiction, it's designed for business correspondence. Can't recognize dialog tags, is bad at punctuation, and caters only to the most frequently used words.
Imagine trying to dictate a paragraph like this (see alt-text):
#WritersCoffeeClub 30: How much would writing by another means (by hand, digitally, audio transcription) change your prose?
Significantly!
I started out writing on a manual typewriter, then an electric one, before graduating to a word processor. Each change lowered the barrier to composition, at word/sentence level then structural level.
Audio transcription is impossible for prose fiction—it's entirely incompatible with the way I compose text, and suffers from a highly restricted vocabulary.
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 28: How does your prose create and maintain tension?
My prose is so tight it has elevension.
#WritersCoffeeClub Day 29 – What’s something you’d like to see future generations of writers discard?
Thankfully I'm already seeing pushback against the toxic idea that all fiction must follow the 3/5 plot arc and all plots must contain a central conflict. I hope this trend will continue and future writers will see conflict-centered plots as one among many options, not the be-all end-all.
#WritersCoffeeClub Day 29 – What’s something you’d like to see future generations of writers discard?
Supine obedience-in-advance to the whims of marketing diktat issued by publishing marketers (who frankly don't know what sells because there is no way to research it b/c publishers sell to wholesalers, not direct to the public). NB: such whims involve writing for a specific genre, bullshit "X meets Y" comps, bandwagoning, and standardized lengths. Oh, and shoot that "save the cat" formula book!
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 28: How does your prose create and maintain tension?
My prose is so tight it has elevension.
Looking forward to another insecure year. What's peeking over the horizon for the rest of you?
#writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritersCoffeeClub #PennedPossibilities
#WritersCoffeeClub 12/28 How do your prose create and maintain tension?
Intuitively?
This isn't something I do with conscious intent. I know in theory some of the ways to create tension -- close in PoV, short, quick sentences with short paragraphs, that kind of thing.
But I couldn't actually say which of those I used or why or when. I just know that when I feel the tension myself, that feeling transfers to the page and eventually the reader.
If I don't feel the tension of the moment, then the moment tends to flop and I know I've screwed up somewhere up the line.
#WritersCoffeeClub 28 Dec. How does your prose create and maintain tension?
I always try to remember Alfred Hitchcock's answer …
A journalist asked Hitch in the early 1950s, "sir, how long can the leading couple kiss?"
(Received wisdom back then was if a screen kiss was more than a chaste peck the censors would classify the movie as suitable for adults-only.)
Hitchcock thought for a minute, then said:
"Fifteen minutes—but first I show the killer slipping a bomb under their love seat."
#WritersCoffeeClub 28 Dec. How does your prose create and maintain tension?
I always try to remember Alfred Hitchcock's answer …
A journalist asked Hitch in the early 1950s, "sir, how long can the leading couple kiss?"
(Received wisdom back then was if a screen kiss was more than a chaste peck the censors would classify the movie as suitable for adults-only.)
Hitchcock thought for a minute, then said:
"Fifteen minutes—but first I show the killer slipping a bomb under their love seat."
Looking forward to another insecure year. What's peeking over the horizon for the rest of you?
#writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritersCoffeeClub #PennedPossibilities
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 27. How can we as writers support one another?
Pay it forward.
(Whatever you learn about the way writing and publishing works, share it. We are not competing in a zero-sum game against our fellow writers! It doesn't hurt you to help other people.)
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 2: "How can we as writers support one another?"
Understand consent.
(Hint: There are critical differences between "I passed your unpublished story along with your personal info you believed was safe on to Google and ChatGPT and also a group you didn't know exist. See what they did with it! Isn't this cool? You should— why do you look so upset? I'm helping you!" versus "Thanks for letting me read your story. Here's the critique you asked for. Need anything else from me?")
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 2: "How can we as writers support one another?"
Understand consent.
(Hint: There are critical differences between "I passed your unpublished story along with your personal info you believed was safe on to Google and ChatGPT and also a group you didn't know exist. See what they did with it! Isn't this cool? You should— why do you look so upset? I'm helping you!" versus "Thanks for letting me read your story. Here's the critique you asked for. Need anything else from me?")
#WritersCoffeeClub Dec 27. How can we as writers support one another?
Pay it forward.
(Whatever you learn about the way writing and publishing works, share it. We are not competing in a zero-sum game against our fellow writers! It doesn't hurt you to help other people.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 12.26 — Who or what serves as your "rubber duck"?
My friend Rachel and my partner Raidon.
Rachel has a fairly stressful job and likes to relax by listening to me ramble on about my writing. So once a week or so we'll hang out and I'll just talk out what ever I've been doing, progress I've made, problems I'm having, etc.
With Rai, we meet virtually most days to do some writing together, and we'll talk through problems together as they come up. If I have a problem with my solo writing, I might bring it to them and they'd help me figure it out.
#WritersCoffeeClub 12.26 — Who or what serves as your "rubber duck"?
My girlfriend. LOL. Since we met, we've always written roleplay stories together, which are just co-written stories, and we often talk through plot points and things like that before or as we're writing together. If I have an issue with one of my novels as well, I can talk things through with her, and I'll usually realize what it is that I need to write or do along the way. We love chats like that.
