Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #writerscoffeeclub, aggregated by home.social.
#WritersCoffeeClub
Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
I was at PaxAus playtesting one of my #boardgames. I have no recollection of how the topic came up but one of my testers came up with the phrase Vampire Butterflies.
They are now in my current WIP: Sword of Hadoor.
#WritersCoffeeClub – 25th Oct. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
My published fiction output across almost 30 years was "The Report From Potter's Point," a serial about characters in a small New England town, appearing at first weekly in three newspapers, and later rebooted to longer monthly installments in a magazine. In all that time, nobody ever had a pet, believe it or not. No dogs. No cats. Not even a goldfish.
In January 2019 a mini Australian Shepherd entered my life. And now in my current WIP, Jack has a dog named Wolf. (And there are a couple of cats here and there, too.) Who'da thunk?
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct. 25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
I owe my whole writing career to the Magic: The Gathering "Panther Warriors" card. Had it not been for that, I never would have come up with the isekai story of a boy adopted by a panther tribe that I ended up calling A Charmed Life. If not for losing that in one too many computer crashes, I may not have started Guiding Lights: Primary. And if not for that, trying to make a battle system based around it, I never would have stumbled into the Jerako universe. It's hard to articulate how much those three ended up being the pillars of my everything. All my creative body of work could more or less be traced to taking breaks from things all spiraling out from that single point where I was inspired to write because I made some fan cards that sucked by the power levels of the game at the time. The story I was making in the cards ultimately outgrew the limitations said cards would have imposed.
#WritersCoffeeClub 24/10: What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
Currently everything, as I'm trying to figure out if I even need a set process.
#WritersCoffeeClub – 25th Oct. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
It was early October and as I was washing a few dishes, I looked out the window and all of my wife's goats were standing stock still, staring into the woods. They all seemed to be looking at the same spot and weren't moving at all. After watching them for a few minutes, they finally broke ranks and went back to munching greens.
I thought, "The goats know something's out there that I can't see."
That thought became the novella The Goats Knew. A horror story I attempted to write for Halloween, but missed by about 10 months.
#WritersCoffeeClub – 25th Oct. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
Had a weird lucid dream/sleep paralysis (that I still think was real). What occurred during it became the first book in a series I had published way back in 2016.
Question for those of you who subscribe to ad free podcasts.
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Do you have a preference?
Musecharmer Radio would love to know. Thanks!
#FediHelp #Podcasts #CommunityRadio #WritingCommunity #WritersCoffeeClub
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 24: What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
There's nothing particularly experimental right now, everything's fairly solid.
#WritersCoffeeClub 24/10: What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
A: Oh, just about everything. My energy is zapped after putting out the book.
Work on stories for submissions?
Revise novel manuscript?
Shoot more video to promote this book?
Just do art because it’s not words?
I mostly want to hibernate. 🫠
#WritersCoffeeClub 24. What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
I'm not sure. I suppose depending on the given day and how my mental health is my writing is provisional because I am willing to say "today isn't a good day for this and that's okay" and move on. But really my workflow is pretty well established.
#WritersCoffeeClub 24. What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
I have the first draft of my fourth book with my proofreader (still struggling with a title), and an idea for another book which will still be fiction but more philosophical.
#WritersCoffeeClub 24 - What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
My music choice. Yesterday was folk. Today might be classical. Tomorrow, Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
No. I don't do drugs. Why do you ask?
#WritersCoffeeClub October 24:
What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
Everything in workflow. My processes constantly change, improve, devolve, and basically adapt. I have a "overwatch" Git repository filled with scripts to ensure consistency, I have NixOS flakes that work with my writing processes; they used to be Yeoman scripts before then Bash before then... something else. It is constantly evolving because I like the process of writing as much as writing.
As for the works? It depends on the official status of the project:
Stable is edited, polished, and the best I can do. I will do almost anything to make sure I don't break that. The further up the list you go, the more things become liquid. Again, I make mistakes like I had an incorrect age for a character and the distance between two points in Sand and Blood wasn't long enough for the Mach 1 speedster run in Sand and Bone; so I edited it.
Whenever I do make changes like that, I use semantic verisoning so that becomes a breaking change which I do document as making. Those are usually only for "stable" stories but I want to treat breaking.
Much of this is because of "Guido fired first" and the entire special edition of Star Wars. (Which is strange, because I don't really "like" Star Wars, but it is very influential in my life and philosophies.)
#WritersCoffeeClub October 23:
How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
I try not to make any. I have a think about authors who announce "this will be X books" and then have to write a few hundred pages of filler to make it happen.
But I do write a lot of commissioned works and I strive to finish those. I may not always make a deadline, so I don't usually give one to the commissioner, but I will get it done unless I find I'm unable to for some reason; since I don't get paid until I finish, the only thing I waste is time.
Many years ago, I decided to take some advice from Jim C. Hines and Scott Lynch that I heard at ICON (IA, which is today) which was "write more words, don't be a dick". What followed was that I wrote a chapter or story a week for three hundred consecutive weeks.
https://d.moonfire.us/blog/2021/03/17/three-hundred-weeks/
I put a lot of effort into making sure I had good buffers to avoid missing a week. I wrote programs to ensure it was published. I made sure I was going to post on Thursday every day for basically six years.
And then I burned out, which is where we are. Five years and I only published one book, write two stories, and have been working on my fifth novel ever since.
The only real promise I make is that I will not have sexual assault in my books. No matter how grim, or dangerous, it isn't there. It isn't an option, it isn't even a concern. It does not exist.
Occasionally, though, I make a mistake (fucking reality). When I do, I go back and edit the chapter/story, bump up the version, and then move on. I'll acknowledge it because I live in a world were SA does exist, but I have loved ones who never want to worry about that. So, no SA by anything written by D. Moonfire.
#WritersCoffeeClub October 22:
Share a work you found really challenging to read.
I have a tendency to memorize most of what I read. When I was a teenager going through 1-3 books a day, I realized the threshold was about a hundred books, give or take, before I could go back to it. Otherwise I was remembering what would happen before I turned the page.
This is one reason I can't read Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster. I read that book so much that I took a twenty year break and still was remembering what would happen on the next page.
This is also why I almost speak in quotes and movies and scene. Because I remember them, they are the framework of my thought processes. It is why Linsan in Allegro uses plays and songs to guide her life, and she is lost when she cannot.
Which means Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien is remarkable. I cannot remember the book. At all. I can read it, close the back cover, and honestly say I can't remember a single thing about the book that I was reading seconds ago. It was a pain to read, I could not visualize anything, I could not establish an emotional connection to any character. I spent the time reading but it refuse to get out of my short term memory.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 24 What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
At this point in my career only the publisher is provisional—and even then, only before my agent has sold the book! (I usually work to contract with everything set out years in advance, but the times, they are a-changing.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 24 - What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
Pretty much everything in terms of my new WIP, a Cordwainer novel in its beginning stages with only a little bit written so far. All of it could change in a heartbeat.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 24: What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
I'm still forcing myself not to write any more in the Juniper series until I know who's going to publish the first book and how many more in the series they want me to turn out.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 24
What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
Unpublished works are always subject to change until launched.
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/24. What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
Nothing.
I recently (within the last 2-3 years) added an "echo words" checker and switched to local speech output to read out loud.
(All online speech output systems are AI now. Screw 'em. Besides, locally it's free.)
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 24 - What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
Currently proposing two new stories for my magazine client. They'll pick one and I'll develop the story based on their decision.
#WritersCoffeeClub 24/10: What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
Anything that distracts me from writing the stories making up Tales From the Demi-monde, my short story collection featuring the adventures of my various secondary characters.
Having said that, I need to recognise the fact I’m bound to become distracted at some point.
Probably by some competition or a call for submissions to an anthology.
One always has to bear in mind the old adage, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”
#WritersOfMastodon #TalesFrom… #SecretLife… #HowtoSucceed… #Author #Novel
#WritersCoffeeClub 24th Oct ~ What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
In my #WIP, most of the story is subject to change. Possibly character names. Maybe the title. Possibly the themes, styling, format, POV, beginning, ending, the middle...
#WritersCoffeeClub 24/10: What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
It's half term right now so I'll be writing every day this week. And I'm first drafting which ought to be finished soonish. Then comes the fun part!
#WritersCoffeeClub 24/10: What is currently provisional in your workflow/work?
Workflow is pretty well set at this point. The core writing process exhibits turbulent rather than laminar flow, but hey ho…
As to the work itself, this now means looking beyond the Shattered Moon series. The next book has key characters well established but some missing chapters and others that aren’t yet in order. Once they are, there will be some rewriting to do. All good fun.
#books #writing #writersofmastodon
#WritersCoffeeClub 24. What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
I feel most of my current work process is pretty solid, but I still want to test alternative layout and typography choices.
As for my current WIP, I am nearing the end of my beta reading phase. There will be some refinements, but I do not expect major changes.
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.10.24 — What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
Discipline.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#WritersCoffeeClub 24 Oct What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
I'm at least three-quarters of the way into writing a book. Almost everything is going to end up reorganized or rewritten. There's a three-fold structure to the themes that I think is pretty much set in stone. Everything else is fluid.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct. 24: What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?
Strictly speaking, nothing is provisional to my workflow because I finally have the exact tools I need to do essentially everything I want. LibreOffice might be provisional to stage plays if anything ends up doing the format better, and I don't adore it for notes, but WordPad doesn't handle emoji well.
In my work... details of The Temperature of Space that I need to either build out or erase. I kind of wanted to up the ante with money issues not present in the initial draft, but I don't think that's actually working and will probably rip that out since I was trying to find places to force it in. I think having more things break will probably serve the feeling of insecurity better, because that was already in the initial concept. And the last couple chapters really, really still need to be refined for time scale.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 23:
How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
i haven't done that in years. i would only do that with non-fiction, unless i really felt inspired. even then, i doubt there would be any promising involved.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 23: How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
I don't make promises lightly. When I do, whether to myself or someone else, I take them seriously.
What matters isn't necessarily the exact wording, but the intention behind the promise. I can be flexible about how I fulfil it, but not about whether I intend to keep it.
Barring a meteor strike, naturally.
I'm not changing my profile photo, but here's me with my buddy Broxo. I'm the one wearing glasses. I'll hashtag some of the places where I regularly post.
#Writing #WritersCoffeeClub #WordWeavers #ScribesAnd Makers #PennedPossibilities #MiniAustralianShepherd #MiniAussie
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/23
How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself this year with an arbitrary release date that constrained me with a difficult timeline. While I did get it done, I’ve learned for the next book not to overpromise on what I can feasibly deliver.
My town's library is temporarily closed while a new furnace is being installed. I took out a couple of books from a nearby (Marion, MA) library where a family member works. The receipt shows the value of the books I got for free by borrowing instead of buying. Go libraries!
#Library #Libraries #Books #Writing #WritersCoffeeClub #WordWeavers #PennedPossibilities #ScribesAndMakers
#WritersCoffeeClub 23 Oct How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
Butt in chair, hands on the keyboard and...
Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing...
#FlashFiction #Writing #WritingCommunity #RomanceAuthor #Romancelandia #AmWriting
#WritersCoffeeClub 23 Oct How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
Promises, schmomises.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 23
How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
My only promise is to myself. I'm good at lying to myself. "I'm going to finish writing this chapter in a week."
Yeah... about that.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct23 How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
What, like actually finishing the story I wanted to have done in like, May?
....I don't. But tbh, the very few ppl who read what I write are understanding. I write for fun, so like... surviving comes first.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 23 - How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
Up until recently I’d never had to write to a deadline.
Having announced I was serialising the short story collection Tales From the Demi-monde on my website I buckled down to writing to ensure I’d be able to stay well ahead of the scheduled publishing dates.
So far it’s going OK.
#WritersOfMastodon #TalesFrom… #SecretLife… #HowtoSucceed… #Author #Novel
#WritersCoffeeClub 23/10: How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
Pardon? Is this a phrase with some specific recognised meaning that I have somehow never encountered before in decades of writing, talking about writing, and reading about writing? Or am I supposed to be like Humpty Dumpty. “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.''
🤔
#books #writing #writersofmastodon
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/23. How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
I didn't promise nuthin'.
#WritersCoffeeClub 23rd Oct ~ How do you make sure you deliver on your writerly promises?
That's part of the craft, right? That is, the way writers deliver on the story's promise is what it's all about. So, I suppose, I make sure I deliver by studying the craft.
#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.10.22 — Share a work you found really challenging to read.
The Hunger Games
Good story, unique characters. Author can't consistently handle the past tense passages that require beyond the simple past, and her editor didn't earn her salt. This doesn't even consider that 1st person present tense is jarring. Took me three tries and urging from a friend to finally get into the book. In the end, I liked it. It confirmed my agent's observation that bestsellers have nothing to do with good writing—they are just story and marketing.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/22
Share a work you found really challenging to read.
I find it difficult to stay engaged over a lengthy series. That’s likely why I still haven’t made it through The Wheel of Time yet.
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/22. Share a work you found really challenging to read.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, I’d particularly enjoyed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, particularly the Pratchett-esque use of footnotes, but Piranesi left me cold.
It was vaguely reminiscent of an earlier novel which, if I rightly remember, had a character called the Bellman and also featured a dinosaur in the attic, but I can’t actually recall its title.
A more recent one was the China Mieville/Keanu Reeves novel, which I posted about as being unreadable a few weeks back.
#WritersOfMastodon #TalesFrom… #SecretLife… #HowtoSucceed… #Author #Novel
#WritersCoffeeClub 10/22. Share a work you found really challenging to read
I'm studying Arabic and reading the lyrics of Nizar Qabbani in Arabic. It's quite a challenge for me, but a great pleasure! To me, any translation tastes insipid.
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 22
Share a work you found really challenging to read.
Nonfiction: Godel Escher Bach. I still haven't finished this book that my grandmother gave me when I was in my teens. It occupies a guilty spot on my sparsely populated shelf. One day ...
Fiction: Atlas Shrugged. The adolescent politics and philosophy of Ayn Rand aside, she is a terrible writer. I read her abomination of a book so I would have a baseline from which to read the sequel/response by my friend Robert Peate, titled Sysyphus Shrugged.
#WritersCoffeeClub 22/10: Share a work you found really challenging to read.
After hearing forever that Terry Pratchett was the greatest thing since sliced charred wildebeest, I decided this year to try him.
I could not get more than 35 pages into The Color of Magic.
Sorry, gang.
#WritersCoffeeClub
October 22nd
Share a work you found really challenging to read.
Hamlet, in it's original.
I mean, I love the play *and* the 1996 movie adaptation. But reading…
