#WritersCoffeeClub May 26: In what ways does your work defy expectation?
I don't enjoy recycling clichés (unless I can put a new spin on them). And I try to zag when everybody else in the market is zigging. Buck trends, be experimental on occasion (near-future crime novels told in multi-viewpoint second person present tense, anyone? Portal fantasy that turn out to be technothriller SF about economics?) and don't do the same thing twice.
#WritersCoffeeClub 9 Apr—What is your favorite way to introduce a character's appearance?
I generally don't do that, because their words and deeds are far more informative about their personality; also, it runs the risk of triggering a sense of alienation in the reader (eg. a sense that all the protagonists are not-like-me).
If I *do* describe a character's appearance, it's to support a specific world-building or plot issue, and I *never* pull the protag-looks-in-mirror trick—it's cheap.
#WritersCoffeeClub May 30 - What do you do when you're stuck?
How stuck is stuck?
Writer's block at short story length: put it down for a few years, write something else.
Blocked on a novel is different, it means my subconscious is warning me that I made a mistake a while ago and I need to back up, re-think, then re-write (anything from a scene up to half a book). So I take a couple of days or weeks off to think and see what shakes loose, then go back to work.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 3: Have you studied writing? Did it prepare you, or did you learn more by doing?
I'm an autodidact. Did English Language and Literature O-levels in the 1970s but that was the limit of my formal education; SF/F wasn't "respectable" and there were no courses available back in the day so I worked out writing from first principles (and from observation). Reading widely within the field *and* outside it were essential.
#WritersCoffeeClub May 12. If not in your current format (novel, play, music, etc.), in what format would you write?
I write novels because that's how I can best earn a living, but I *really* prefer to work at novella length—20-40,000 words, not 100-150,000 words. Sadly there's no real trade distribution channel for them in the UK (where I live) so I have to keep wrestling bloated bulky books.
The grand finale is here!
The final two Chapters (43 and 44) of "A New Faith" are up on the website at https://tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith
#solarpunk #hopepunk #bookstodon #novel #climatechange #adaptation #migration #mystery
#thriller #amwriting #WritersCoffeeClub
#WordWeavers #ScribesAndMakers
#PennedPossibilities #writingcommunity #sciencefiction
#climatefiction
#WritersCoffeeClub 29 Apr: Share the best sentence you wrote this month.
"... Then there was the affair of the week-long costumed country house whodunnit retreat, during which the lord of the manor was unexpectedly bludgeoned to death with a taxidermied dodo stuffed with lead shot."
(Part of a brief montage of events in the careers of a pair of investigators.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 1Sep–What's the most number of revisions you've gone through for a work?
I aim to write once then sell. Also, I usually start a day of writing by revising the previous day, so there's no such thing as a first draft. But in extreme cases, a novel gets revised—or re-written—entirely. My current problem child WIP (in abeyance while I write an attack novel) is on its second complete re-write (third draft) over a ten year period. The attack novel is 80% done and should sell as-is.
https://tinjar.ghost.io/anf/download-a-new-faith/
Ebook versions (EPUB and PDF) are available to download to your favorite ebook reader.
Both versions are DRM-free and should be usable with most ebook readers. DRM-free means that these are yours to keep and also share with friends/family just like a physical book.
#solarpunk #hopepunk #bookstodon #climatechange #adaptation #migration #mystery
#thriller #amwriting #WritersCoffeeClub
#WordWeavers #ScribesAndMakers
#PennedPossibilities #writingcommunity #sciencefiction
Good morning, writers of #writersCoffeeClub! It’s the end of a month, and you know what that means: September’s prompts are up! As always, a text-only version of the prompt list can be found on my blog: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-september-2025/
This month’s theme is ‘sway,’ and starting this month, we’ll have a regular end-of-the-month check-in for how the month treated us. Can’t wait to see your responses! 🎉
Happy writing!
#writersCoffeeClubMeta
#WritersCoffeeClub 5/17. If you work exclusively digitally, could you work by hand? (_Or vice-versa!_)
Definitely not.
While I can use a manual typewriter (I learned on one, before home computers were a thing, though I hate it!) having to go back to pen and paper would end my writing career.
Holding a pen is physically painful and I can barely write by hand these days.
Might as well try and go back to a chisel and cuneiform.
#WritersCoffeeClub for December 6: How has your past writing shaped your present writing?
My adolescent and young adult attempts at writing were, let's say, vibe writing. Writing for an academic audience for 20 years--especially manuscripts for publication in journals--has driven into me that every word counts. The repeated experience of having a 15,000-word manuscript that the editors demand be reduced to 10,000 words while still retaining all meaning critical to the research conducted has taught me to focus on individual words, word choices, sentence structures, and even punctuation.
Not that these lessons always translate into social media posts...
Good morning, #writersCoffeeClub! It’s nearly january, and here’s that month’s prompts! This month’s theme is “Plaster,” inspired by Clarice Lispector’s The Fifth Story; it you’d like to check that out, you can read it here: https://lithub.com/the-fifth-story/
➡️ As always, a text-based list can be found on my site here: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-january-2026/ ⬅️
Enjoy, and as always, we are looking forward to your responses! 🎉
#WritersCoffeeClub 7 May: Do readers need to understand a character's motivations to understand the story?
It depends what you mean by "understand"!
They need to know the main protagonists *have* a motivation and therefore implied aims. They don't need to "understand" it if that means "recognize it empathically as plausible".
(eg. I don't understand Christian Nationalism: I know what it is, and what they want, but I have zero gut feel for why they want it—it's repugnant to me.)
Hello, writers of #writersCoffeeClub, and welcome to October! This month’s prompts are up! As always, a text-only version of the prompt list can be found on my blog: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-october-2025/ Special mention to @solarbranka for helping out! ✨
This month’s theme is ‘prototype’. Looking forward to your discussions! 🎉
Happy writing!
#writersCoffeeClubMeta
Hello, #writersCoffeeClub! It’s the end of the month, and you know what that means: time for August’s prompt list! 🎉 Can’t wait to see your responses!
Text-based list is here: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-august-2025
As ever, if you’d like to help put together next month’s prompt list, reach out!
Happy writing! 🎉
Out now!!
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Isabella Coburn, 50, used to be the most in-demand nude artist’s model, now she’s a successful sculptor.
Artist, Gabriel ‘Archangel’ Milford, 53, needs Isabella to model for him and sparks fly when they meet. Though she refuses him, Gabriel is determined Issie will pose for him. She’s equally determined she won’t.
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#WritersCoffeeClub 2 Talk about something you’ve retold.
The Princess, Her Dragon and Their Princess is a retelling of a @MicroSFF tootfic, where a king offers his daughter's hand to whoever slays the enemy dragon and is dismayed when the dragonslayer is another dragon. The princess is good with this outcome, however.
A friend linked me to the story with 'You should write this!' and O. Westin went 'Go for it, I'm fine with works inspired by my microfics'. So I did! http://books2read.com/princessdragonprince
Good morning, #writersCoffeeClub! 📆 It’s the last day of the month, and here come next month’s prompts! This month’s theme is “Sequence!” #writersCoffeeClubMeta
A text-based version of the prompt list is available on my site: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-november-2025/
As always, WCC invites collaboration! We can’t wait to see your replies, and if you’d like to help make next month’s list, reach out! 🙌
Happy writing! 🎉🎉🎉
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 2: Visual presentation: how do white space and typography become meaningful elements of literary form?
I'm an ebook-native author so for me presentation is entirely separate from semantics—and because I work with big publishers, it's their production department's job, nothing to do with me, mate.
In other words: you're asking a cameraman to comment on a live theatre production. Or a fish to choose a bicycle.
#WritersCoffeeClub 6-April Do the plots or characters in your work converge towards a single point?
If you're writing two or more character threads/plots and they DON'T converge or overlap at some point, you're writing two or more different stories and need to dissect them!
#WritersCoffeeClub ~ What's the funniest thing you've ever written?
My shopping list. I wrote 'dramatic tension' next to the 'almond flakes'. 🧈
#WritersCoffeeClub 16 Apr: Must writing always [be] in complete sentences?
It depends who you're writing for. When I was a technical author, hell yes: the writing had to be entirely transparent and accessible to non-native speakers.
But in prose fiction, your writing style is part of your authorial voice. Trying to mandate the Chicago Manual of Style as a guide for novelists is just plain idiotic (and yes, I'm looking at YOU, Penguin Random House copyeditor guidelines).
#WritersCoffeeClub ~ How do you write characters with expertise outside your own?
Hm. Research obviously comes to mind. 🍏
Online research does wonders:
~ a 44-tab browser situation
~ 39 of them are completely irrelevant
~ 4 are contradicting each other
~ 1 is a Reddit post from 2015 where someone called 'Bill_Xx' confirms your wildest guess. 🉑
Easy.
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug 19 - "How do you write characters with expertise outside your own?"
Everyone else is answering this with "research" and they're not wrong. However, I tend to think that writing [fiction] about expertise other than my own is less interesting than exploring what it's like to *be* an expert …
