#wcc — Public Fediverse posts

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.13 — Follow-up: if writing was not your "thing," what would your "thing" be?

Photography. Have a picture. Notice the horse's eye? Taken at the Elverhøj Museum, Solvang. California.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.13 — Follow-up: if writing was not your "thing," what would your "thing" be?

Photography. Have a picture. Notice the horse's eye? Taken at the Elverhøj Museum, Solvang. California.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.13 — Follow-up: if writing was not your "thing," what would your "thing" be?

Photography. Have a picture. Notice the horse's eye? Taken at the Elverhøj Museum, Solvang. California.

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[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.13 — Follow-up: if writing was not your "thing," what would your "thing" be?

Photography. Have a picture. Notice the horse's eye? Taken at the Elverhøj Museum, Solvang. California.

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More in #AltText

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.13 — Follow-up: if writing was not your "thing," what would your "thing" be?

Photography. Have a picture. Notice the horse's eye? Taken at the Elverhøj Museum, Solvang. California.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.12 — If not in your current format (novel, play, music, etc.), in what format would you write?

My life in the past decade has been this: dabbling in the other format. I was and had always been a novelist. The idea of something "short" was pretty much foreign, though not alien. When I began writing again after the 2001 burnout in 2015, I began first writing essays (which much of my output on Mastodon illustrates and demonstrates) and then writing short stories in the 1K to 3k range. I discovered the pleasure of starting, writing, then completing projects that novel length puts off and puts off and puts off... You get the idea. My answers today would be short stories, and if by novel you mean fiction, I'd write short essays or columns, though I doubt I'd enjoy it as much as writing fiction.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.05.04 — Is there a scene or a character or even a plot you regret adding to a finished work?

Define finished? When the editor loved it and the publisher bought it, I thought it was finished. Then I had to cut out half the story. That turned out to be 105K from 200K. Do I regret all the effort I put into all those scenes (including all the spicy ones)? You betcha, but the book sold very well, so there ya go.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.27 —Share a possibly unpopular opinion. 👀 (Be kind!)

When I received my first galleys and had a conference with a big publishing house editor—okay, I won't be shy because they were generally excellent: Ballantine Del Rey—I was literally told that commas (and other punctuation) exist to tell the reader where to breathe. They pointed out actual comma faults, but also had me remove a great many others. I could see how a carefully constructed sentence that progressively builds and reveals information could do so without commas and yet not lose meaning nor trip the reader into forgetting a predicate.

Like that one.

In retrospect, since the publishing house made money by reducing the number of pages necessary to tell the story, and by extension every single character could be considered valuable, I think the "style" sacrificed clarity and simple prose. Grammar exists for a reason, and there are plenty of more arbitrary rules than those for commas. That said, I'm not going to make comma usage involved with creating lists seem more important by referring to it by the elite college from which it takes its name. It is not better than any other comma.

My unpopular opinion is that by not using proper comma syntax, whether it is preventing "comma fatigue" (yes, that was the term) or saving characters during typesetting, even if you can intuit the meaning of the sentence, you risk creating ambiguity when the reader craves clarity. Yes, most readers won't notice, but what if you don't notice a mistake when you think out whether to use a comma as you write it? Not to increase your anxiety, but you risk losing a reader or appearing amateurish when you get such simple skills wrong.

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https://www.europesays.com/ie/453441/ Parvathy Thiruvothu: Two decades of cinema, risk, and refusal to conform #20YearsParvathy #AMMA #Éire #EnnuNinteMoideen #Entertainment #IE #Ireland #Kasaba #MalayalamCinema #Maryan #Movies #OutOfSyllabus #ParvathyAwards #ParvathyControversies #ParvathyFirstFilm #ParvathyHindiFilms #ParvathyMalayalamFilms #ParvathyPolitics #ParvathyProfile #ParvathyTamilFilms #ParvathyThiruvothu #ParvathyTK #TakeOff #Uyare #WCC

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.24 —Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.

I think of it as silly, but I am prone to understatement. One of the important factors in how the social structure in the reluctance series works depends on the genetic relatedness between siblings and the relatedness between parent and child.

I got the ratio wrong.

I'm now recasting the logical argument I was using into a common sense argument for how the society works. Doing so makes an important premise open to attack by technological reasoning, but I think it may also create an allegory for how science and tradition clash in our world.

Still silly. I ought have known those ratios, or looked them up much earlier.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.23 —What are some form conventions you disregard?

Remember, I got a C- in high school English. Other than learning manuscript submission format and how typical SF books are formatted,, I probably ignore plenty of form conventions I am not aware of. Anyone want to analyze my writer challenge game posts to clue me in? I'd be much obliged!1

=-=-=-=-=-=
1 Actually, please don't. 😋

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.21 —What's a (maybe silly) hill you're willing to defend?

Not silly: Women get to choose, and, no, their self-agency doesn't negate his, but their choice is theirs alone and you can't have it or take it or break it, nor can you logic it or bible it away.

If the question meant writing battles: The Oxford comma. Definitely. I would have included two spaces after a sentence as the current one-space rule makes impossible certain grammatical and attribution constructions following the end quote. But. It's too exhausting to argue it anymore and I have broken myself of the habit.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.19 —How can prose achieve lyricism without verse structure?

Step 1: Allow yourself to become convinced in your soul that prose can be lyrical. Stop denying it without proof. Prose differs from poetry in that metrics are integral to the style, and rhyme, but that's it. Accept it. Prose allows both meter and rhyme, too; Poetry marshals the army of thought through meter to the field with soldiers of rhyme. That's the difference.

Step 2: Find lyrical prose. Enjoy that author not only for the story but the beauty of the telling of the story. Start studying.

Step 3: Read The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsythe. The author presents rhetorical style, um… Eloquently? You'll find the book fun! These are your ABCs. Tools in hand, attitude fully adjusted, you too will discover the lyricism, like love, deep within your prosy rosy heart.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.17 —Can plots which hinge on a misunderstanding be done well?

It is a bit flippant to merely say yes. The best answer I have is to say not to cheat the reader, recognizing almost nobody is a perfect communicator and making that point. So long as the reader sees the characters are working at the best of their ability, or they're failing as they'd typically fail, the story can illuminate the human condition.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.16 —Must writing always in complete sentences?

Yes. In grade school. Required for a good grade.

Unusual syntax?

The point of a sentence is to communicate clearly, not to demonstrate how well an author can adhere to the rules. Fragments (naked meaning) and run ons (continuous and continuing thoughts that build forward to a point) are okay—if the meaning is clear. Left out words like the verb "be" in the prompt are questionable, unless in service of a point and clarity. People rarely speak formally, nor do they speak entirely grammatically. It's arguably unnatural to write prose that way. My work is conversational, meant to be read aloud. So. Of course. I think sentence structure in search of meaning in fungible.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.15 —Name a writer whose voice is just exquisite. Share an sample!

I'll mention here that C. J. Cherryh is the master of 3rd person close POV, and her SF and fantasy works in that respect are masterworks. Her stories are good, too. All that I've read, anyway. No samples: There are plenty of excerpts out there.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.14 —Do you consciously work with syllabic stress to create rhythm?

Pretty consistently. Yes. Yes, I do.

Pressed, I'll say I'm a writer. Given a moment to think on it, I'll say, "I'm an author," but that's not the gist. I am a prosaist. In my heart. It's what a poet is. For prose.

Words matter.

Storytelling definitely matters, but if the prose lacks music the story lacks muscle. I'm very conscious of syllabic stress; I choose my words carefully, first for meaning, then for how they sound. I revise for rhythmic reasons as well as for clarity. Punctuation is not a rule; it's an accelerator, a brake, maybe even a clutch. I use italics to push and to pull. It isn't my only tool. Alliteration, repetition of words and sentence structure, meter—I employ plenty of tricks.

Sometimes I even sound eloquent. I write my prose to be read aloud. Syllabic stress… it's kinda important.

Of course, sometimes a sentence doesn't work.

You don't get to read those. I scrap 'em. Then start all over again.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.12 —How does being a writer influence your life outside of the work?

For most people, it is irrelevant what they do for work, but I'm an author. Word choice matters. How to communicate through words, meaning, and symbology is the core of my profession.

How does being an author influence the rest of my life? I am profoundly aware of all the meanings of words (the meanings I've learned, anyway), and when I learn a new one I almost want to dance—which means the imprecise use of language always draws my attention. It likely doesn't help that I'm #actuallyAutistic1. When I don't understand, my first inclination is to see meaning where there isn't any (or fixate on a more archaic meaning), and the second is to see people's attempts to spin, obfuscate, equivocate, or prevaricate. Political news makes me wonder if there is an epidemic of stupidity, or whether people simply pick and choose words and meanings that best suit their beliefs or the agenda they are pushing, and are willing to lie to do so. (Okay, not wondering, really.) On good days, I can figure out what people are saying to the point that I seem fluent and neurotypical. I can even participate in wordplay to work the meanings they've given me. On a bad day, I fixate on the wrong meaning and suffer misunderstandings. Still, words bring me joy. I love to listen to a great conversation, or watch a great screenplay.

1 No worries. I know it is a superpower.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.11 —What's your most effective method for connecting with readers?

There is a literal and a literary sense to this question. Literally, at this point in my second career, it's through Mastodon. Here I connect with other writers, readers, and other interesting folk, sharing ideas, advice, and solving problems. One day I'll do this also via a website. In previous incarnations, I connected with readers of posted stories through comment boxes and replying to forum posts. Literarily, I'm hoping to build up a base of readers of my short-short fiction that might consider my longer works when I publish them.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.10 —What's something other writers swear by that you just don't get?

Not a fan of the people swearing thing. Even writers. Don't get the concept at all.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.09 —What is your favorite way to introduce a character's appearance?

If I am more concerned about introducing the appearance of a character versus introducing a character's appearance on stage, that indicates I am focusing on the wrong things. My opinion, of course.

Sure, we've all met people IRL whose appearance matters. For us. For them. In fiction, it's essential for "love on first sight" tropes. Not so essential for real people in normal situations. Appearance, what catches my attention at least, is often incidental information: a crisply pressed uniform, hair in cowlicks, colorblind fashion sense… As a result, I try to make such details a focus for the reader upon the character, but only if it drives the story. For example, given the proper opportunity in the story, I can mention her "freckles like embers blown by a wildfire" and add little more. What my readers see of my characters depends entirely on what interests or catches the attention the 1st POV narrator—okay, what obsesses, distracts, or interferes with the narrator. Anything else would break point-of-view and become authorial intrusion.

Intriguingly, this leaves the reader able to make the characters more relevant and more like themselves.

In any case, what I want to describe and what I can describe become two totally different things. The words circumscribed and constrained come to mind. The world in my stories is not only not our society, it's not our civilization. As a result, it is not until the 90k mark in my current story that an incident finally causes Bolt to clarify her hair color (she's the MC), though it might only be her body hair color! Mind you, there are hints. I use the word "clarify" advisedly here.

Which doesn't answer the question.

Favorite? Opportunity.

Finding those natural spots in the the story when such information is necessary, and advances the story eloquently and vividly. Otherwise, I'm likely to revise it out.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.08 —Do you do warm-ups before or cool-downs after a writing session?

No. As Elmer Fudd would say, you gotta sneak up on that wiley wabbit.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.07 —Do you combine poetic fragments and prose paragraphs in your work?

So rarely as to be non-existent. I once included a lyric. Once. And it was supposed to be funny because the protagonist had to act goofy. Does that count?

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.05 —How can the physical form of the writing become part of the storytelling?

Storytelling is at its heart and in its origin an oral tradition. As such, it both had no physical form and a dramatic one, filled with music, gesture, props, and puppets. Insisting on words written in physical form does not divorce the aural aspects. People sound out words in their minds. Words evoke burnt and golden colors of autumn, the rustle and peeps of nature, the smell of flowers, the taste of bacon, and the caress of a fond friend. But where in our modern experience of the craft does the physical form of writing become part of the storytelling?

You know this.

Children's books. Illustrated with images. Letters writ large, loud with color, maybe turned into technicolor snakes. Words literally popping from the page, chased by the characters they evoke.

In a typical novel?

Check out how a novel's cover art and the titling interact…

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.02 —Visual presentation: how do white space and typography become meaningful elements of literary form?

Oddly enough I can answer this. Normally, as a conventional writer, it's the publisher who takes care of these things. Even to handle breaks mid-chapter, However, I do something unique.

Well…

I'm told.

I'm told it is.

Not right to do.

To do this.

But.

I do. Only when it reveals something important about the mental state of the narrator—unlike in this passage. Of course, a publisher could overrule such things. I probably wouldn't complain.

Probably.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.04 —Do you switch between past and present tense? How do you make it work?

Logic says this question is asking about narration. That's easy, I never narrate stories in present tense. In dialogue, a narrator might report to someone what they are doing at the moment, which would demand present tense. More often though, the narrator might relate a story that happened in the past, switching to the past of the past to do so. I generally switch to the simple past once the narrator establishes the time in that passage. Same goes for more complex convolutions that require more complex tense "situations."

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.30 —What got in the way of your writing this month?

To be honest, I used answering hashtag writer challenge games to procrastinate more than I'm willing to admit to.

Oops. Pretend you didn't read that.

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March 28: Do you ever sacrifice blunt clarity for prose that flows well?

No.

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.28 —Do you ever sacrifice blunt clarity for prose that flows well?

Truthfully—throwing no shade here, I promise—I reacted to this question with a WTF expression at the suggestion that I would stoop so low as to consider delivering prose that flows poorly, lacks eloquence, is devoid of rhythm, or sacrifices clarity, clarity that's sometimes blunt to the point of being a spiked club. Style exists to carry the reader along on seas—sometimes calm sometimes tumultuous—of understanding. It's the ship's navigator. Style should enhance clarity. It must enhance clarity. Clarity and style together to make our stories shine.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.27 —If you had to pick one, would you say writing is a more exciting or cathartic process for you?

Cathartic. I enjoy writing, but it rarely excites me. After I get a passage done, it feels good because the unit of work is complete and I can see that I've expressed the idea as I wanted.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.26 —How much of a break or hiatus do you take between works?

I work on more than one story at a time. They overlap.

Writing is Life.

Taking a break or hiatus would be tantamount to suffocating myself.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.24 —Do you have a writerly "third place"?

One of the things I like about these prompts is learning about something I didn't know. I don't really have a place per se that I write other than home, and I am retired so I don't write at the office—though I did write while taking long walks during my lunch break (true, thumb-typing on my phone). I do occasional write at a park or a coffee place, but never consistently. I do often write on longer trips in the car. With the spouse driving! I don't think this latter constitutes what this question asks.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.23 —What's the most you've worked on a WIP before deciding to scrap it? What happened?

I don't specifically recall "the most," but a chapter is usually enough. I have had a lot of great ideas with no idea how the story could end, or for which I don't have the relevant experience. One recent idea was a young girl transmogrified into our world into a human being along with notebook which scares people other than her that touch it. When she's in college someone from the other world starts writes into it, offering her to learn magic. She's a runaway with little memory of her past, kind of a reverse magic mirror trope, and her pen pal on the other side possibly evil, possibly trying to trap her. I got a great first chapter out of the idea, but it requires writing someone living as a young adult in our modern gig economy world. I can't write that. Worse, I'm not sure how the story ought end.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.22 —How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)

Poorly. Slap-dash.

Taking notes uses the time I might be writing. I see being thorough as an opportunity for procrastination. Like doing research ahead of need.

To answer the question: Scrivener lets me paste webpages into a research folder. I have a Kindle Scribe I sometimes use to write thoughts into at times when it would be inconvenient to write, like 3 AM in bed. When I was a programmer, I used OneNote to write down important things I'd discovered so when I forgot them I might find them, but programming didn't suffer a time issue analogous to the one I find when writing.

I should fix this.

I won't, though. I know myself.

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.06 —Is there a local writing community near you? Do you participate in it?

You can't get closer than Mastodon :mastodon: (🐘) on my very own computer!!! Too shy to look elsewhere…

I participate in:

#EroticMusings
#PennedPossibilites
#ScribesandMakers
#WordWeavers
#WritersCoffeeClub
#Writephant
#Writever

As well as:

#WritingCommunity
#WritersOfMastodon

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.02.24 — What’s your greatest challenge in fleshing out your setting?

Since I am careful to write about what I know or can imagine, the challenge is the in-writing. Despite how loquacious I think I am, I write rather concisely, skipping to the next action. Fleshing out the setting happens when I iterate during composition (reading/revising the pages before where I continue writing) or during revision. It's there that I change passive declarative passages to integrate description with action, to make the setting more palpable to the reader. Some detail pops up as I imagine or reimagine. It takes time. That's a challenge. Sometimes it increases the length of the passage; detouring away from the core action is also a challenge to overcome. Yet, when I read other's work, mine seems more concise, so I can't give a definitive answer to this one.

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We shouldn't be surprised. It's just over six years since #Hullkr didn't score at least 22 points at this ground. #wcc #wcchkrbri

This Walsh is rubbish! #wcc #wcchkrbri #rugbyleague

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.02.17 — How do you write about ecstacy, in a spiritual, artistic, or sensual context?

I'll take this as how do I, as an author, write this. I treat it as a mental change of state, often from hope to belief (or disbelief), accompanied by an interval of loss of self-control. I don't state a protagonist was "ecstatic"—a cold, dispassionate term that defuses, as it diffuses, all perceived passion—any more than I would describe in graphic detail the transition from before to after during sex. Instead, I describe the losing or loosing of control, the overcoming shock to continue to act, possibly the guilt (or lack thereof) of owning and enjoying the situation, and the revelation that something, very well forever, has changed. It can be as simple as metaphor, or the building pressure of words toward release, or even the combination.

"What seemed ice, forever frozen, was now steam; the relief valve scalded me as it whistled gloriously, but I jumped back; the pistons moved, back and forth, grease dripped, the wheels skid against the tracks, screeching, screeching. And. Bit. It chugged. The steel behemoth rolled forth. I danced beside the rails; I didn't care. I was right! I was right all along!"

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