#writerscoffeeclub — Public Fediverse posts

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

So my most recently published novel, Neon Citadel, started out as an image and I wrote the entire book towards that final image.

The real life inspiration was:
During Covid lockdown I was picking up Thai food for dinner for my wife and I, and when I left the Thai place and turned back onto the main road, there were tens of thousands of birds (starlings is my best guess, it was dusk... they became corvids in the book), gathered on the power lines and trees and anywhere they could sit, as if they were watching the road or watching me drive down the road.

It felt like the most birds I'd even seen in one place and it was beautiful and ominous in the dusk light, and probably felt all the more ominous because of that lingering lockdown feeling. As many holes as there are in my poor ADD brain, I've never forgotten that moment/image.

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

One of my wildest novel ideas came recently from a historical-factoid Facebook post. I tracked the factoid down and it seems to be true. Which sent my mind in all kinds of directions.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25, unlikely inspired source cont’d.

I stand corrected.

I’m right now sitting in a cafe, working on my novel and a woman, who I presume to be a doctor asked permission to do a “short” video call and then proceeded to do a FULL ON PREGNANCY CONSULTATION WITH A CLIENT. I know all juicy—pun intended—details of this family’s pregnancy adventure, including where the expecting mother likes to be touched on her body.

I’ll definitely be inspired by this unlikely event to write something. I took extensive notes.

I found myself doing that which I haven't been doing in a long while. Posting to questions posed in the various groups I follow. I hope it's a trend I'll keep doing at least on the weekends. Time is always my enemy.

#scribesandmakers #engenderedwriting #TimeTravelAuthors #wordweavers #writerscoffeeclub #writingcommunity #pennedpossibilities

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I would never have expected to get inspiration from a view of a Catholic church's steeple, but it gave me a major idea for how my urban magic system works.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25/10: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I’m more likely to take unlikely inspiration from a likely source. When rereading “Brier Rose,” I said to my girlfriend, “imagine the downstream economic effects on a pre-industrial agrarian society if you banned spindles.”

The Grimms never touched on that. And there “The Princess & the Mortgage Man” was born.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25th of October: tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

The left-pad incident in 2016 partly inspired the magic system in Remittance Witch, or rather the concept of mages building enchantments from precompiled packages. And the fact that each of the damn things has a bazillion dependencies to track 🙄

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_left-pad_incident

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

Juniper's Harp began as me idly wondering what Fleabag would be like as heroic fantasy. Juniper very quickly got away from this initial inspiration and became her own woman, thankfully; but that's where the initial spark came from, uneasy though it makes me to admit it.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25/10: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I was watching the second episode of the Percy Jackson TV series last night and there’s a scene where Percy is told his pen, which doubles as a sword, can never be lost as it will always find its way back to him through magic.

It sounds like a useful attribute for an artefact to possess, now I just have to figure out how to use the idea to its best effect.

#WritersOfMastodon #TalesFrom… #SecretLife… #HowtoSucceed… #Author #Novel

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct. 25 – Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I am not sure what a likely source is for this question. For me, everything is a likely source.

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

Oooh, I love this one. I recently had an entire plot come to me from a prompt for the #WordWeavers tag. I'll be the main plot for my second story in the #FatedByFire Series, the next story after #TheScarletMirror. Of course, I'm fleshing out everything and getting it ready for when the time comes, but this was how it all started. I'll share it down below.

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/24: What is currently provisional in your workflow (or work)?

At the moment, it's a bit all over the place. I'm currently heavy into the rewriting phase for "Wings of Quiet Longing," adding as much as I possible can and changing things around, and I'm also pushing out new chapters for "The Scarlet Mirror," all while balancing that with finishing smaller standalone stories that were either commissioned or written for friends. Like I said, I'm all over the place. That's how I usually work, though. It keeps me busy and focused. I go where the muse takes me. My best writing happens that way.

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct. 25 – Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I've never really understood where inspirations come from. They show up at the strangest times. I'm pretty sure if I could recreate them, I could sell that.

#writing

#writerscoffeeclub Oct. 25: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I'm not sure there is an unlikely source. Any "source" is game. Whether it be a lucid dreams, work, nature, & anything in between. A lot of my technical parts of things are derived from both old and modern equipment I work with, characters are usually compilations of characters from my dreams, and story arcs come from those characters.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25 Oct. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

My underwire broke - and I discovered that they really can cut pretty deep and painfully when they're broken, so it became my heroine's weapon of last resort in DUST ON DIRT.

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 25 Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

This prompt just doesn't compute. All inspiration arises from the mind

My mind wanders and makes connections between things. When it sees new and significant connections, then — BAM — there's an inspiration. Even if there is an external prompt for the mind-wandering, the external thing or event isn't the source of the inspiration.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I’m trying really hard to think of something unremarkable I was inspired by.

I guess I am not that imaginative. All sources of inspiration I can remember are quite significant, which makes them likely sources, in my opinion.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I was inspired to write my Cordwainer novel Blood Libel by the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville several years ago now. I wrote the whole thing in incandescent rage. I still think it's one of the best books I've written.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25 Oct. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis! Without it, I'm pretty sure I'd never have written "Neptune's Brood", which is a space opera about financial fraud on a scale so vast the perpetrators had to colonise 200 new star systems to launder the proceeds.

I don't think even Elon Musk is thinking that big … yet.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25/10: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

That's a hard question. I'm inspired by just about everything. My lockdown book, The Cliffhangers (written during lockdown, not *about* lockdown, but things creep in, you know?) has an element inspired by PE with Joe. And if you don't know what PE with Joe is I can't really help, because it was a whole cultural vibe, but you can look it up. This is just one example tho, there are literally countless others.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25th Oct ~ Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source

All sources are likely to generate some sort of inspiration, whether that be a single word or a fully realised world with fully formed characters.

#Writer #Writing
#WritingCommunity

#WritersCoffeeClub 25/10: Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.
This is a cunningly disguised variation on the dreaded ‘where do you get your ideas from’, isn’t it?
Since I rarely, if ever, know what my ‘inspiration’ is, I don’t know how to answer either question. I think my brain is some sort of fermenter, so what comes out is not easily traceable to what went in.
#books #writing #writersofmastodon

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/25. Tell us about inspiration from an unlikely source.

I'm not into inspiration so I don't have any answer ... though I suppose one might argue that deciding to write a mermaid book was beause that was the theme of an event I was going to attend.

But honestly, that was more "if I wrote that I could sell the books easier because they're on theme". Of course, I fell in love with the characters because I wouldn't write something I didn't believe in.

#writing #writingCommunity

#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.

#WritersCoffeeClub

Someone gets me!

https://www.punknoir.online/p/a-book-review-of-john-shirleys-the

Question for those of you who subscribe to ad free podcasts.

Are you okay with a private RSS feed you can use in your favorite podcast player?

Or do you get them through a private YouTube link?

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.

#writing #writingcommunity

#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?

#writing

#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:

• Idea
• Unstable
• Alpha
• Beta
• Stable

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.)

#writing #writingCommunity

#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...

#Writing #Writer
#WritingCommunity

#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.