Good morning, #writersCoffeeClub! It's the end of the month, so here are next month's prompts. This month's theme is "threads," and make of that what you will!
➡️ As always, a text-based list of the prompts is available on my site here: https://sulfur.ink/wcc-nov-2026/ ⬅️
Have a great month, and happy writing! 🎉
#writersCoffeeClubMeta
#WritersCoffeeClub 2 Nov: Do you have a writerly "season"? When does it begin? When does it end?
Winter! It's dreicht and dark and rainy and the nights are 18 hours long so I stay in my home office and write. (Subject to interruption by travel to lighter latitudes.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 20 Oct: What's the shortest work you've ever finished?
Imprecise question: I've written a six word short story— and sold it to WIRED!
If it's about books, I've sold a novel of 53,000 words, but it required a couple of extras to pad it out to full book length for Orbit. But really, the lower length for book sales is set by the publisher's willing to buy, and also varies by genre. Children's picture books, for example, run much shorter than romantasy novels!
#WritersCoffeeClub 3 Nov: When did you last challenge yourself?
When you've been writing for nearly 50 years and living off your earnings as a writer for most of 35 of them it's *really* hard to find new challenges (especially if you want to continue earning that living)!
… Also I write novels, typically one a year. So challenges are annual at best.
#WritersCoffeeClub Nov 5
What do you get the most pleasure writing?
i *love* doing a rug-pull on the reader’s expectations: set them up with a situation or an idea, begin to explore the consequences, then seamlessly do a handbrake turn into weirdville and demonstrate that the side-effects are so much bigger than they were set up to expect.
9th Oct: How does your own sense of mortality influence what you write?
Since I turned 60 I resolved not to start any more series works I couldn't deliver closure on with one final book, i.e. no more long-running series like my Laundry Files or Merchant Princes works. Multi-book shared settings with different protagonists per book, like the Culture novels, are another matter.
(If I started writing another MP or LF scale series I'd be well into my 80s by the end.)
#WritersCoffeeClub Nov 4: Do you include a cast of characters at the beginning of a work?
Only if an editor twists my arm REALLY hard!
There's one in the "Empire Games" trilogy because it's a follow-on from an earlier series with a cast of thousands, and even then I fought back.
#writerscoffeeclub Oct 3: How do you feel about spoilers?
I don't like 'em.
#WritersCoffeeClub 4th of October: How isolated are your characters in your current WIP?
Jum and Tabitha escaped certain death via a dodgy uploading tank. They have awakened 250 years in the future as imprints overwritten onto children of two different scheming noble houses, who thought they were imprinting the brain scans of someone else: if exposed as themselves they'll be erased immediately. There have been significant cultural and political changes and everyone they knew is dead.
#WritersCoffeeClub Nov 7: How detailed are your plans before you write?
They aren't, usually! (I'm a pantser, not a plotter.)
Having said that, if challenged I could usually jot down a page or two of concepts and plot anchors.
STARTER PACK was abnormal: it attacked me while I was struggling with another novel so I dumped the ideas into a note file. But when my notes blew past 10.000 words I realised it would be easier and more concise just to write the bloody book.
140,000 words later …
#WritersCoffeeClub 7th Oct 2026. Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction?
I just finished a redraft in which I was trying to cut, hard, at a long novel. I managed to shorten it by 5%, which is an absolute triumph—my redrafts normally grow by 10%. (This one's a third draft, though, so maybe it's done all its lengthening previously.)
In rewrite I tend to tighten up the prose and elaborate on details, and to clarify murky plot points, hence the lengthening tendency.
#WritersCoffeeClub Nov. 9: How does the writer you are now compare to the writer you thought you'd be?
I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was 7: I am now 62. A seven year old's idea of what they want to be when they grow up doesn't really match reality 55 years in the future!
#WritersCoffeeClub Nov 10
Are there common traits all writers share?
Yes: they write.
(I don't count people who direct a stochastic parrot to produce text-shaped output. That's not a creative act.)
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 10
Do you have a guiding principle as a writer?
Don't punch down. Avoid hurting the feelings of anyone who doesn't deserve it.
#WritersCoffeeClub 12 Oct: What do you specialise in, prose-wise?
Hopefully I don't?
#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 13th: What writerly weakness do you overcorrect for?
If I knew I was overcorrecting I'd try not to!
Decades ago I had an (American) editor who got angry with me for what he perceived as my over-use of semicolons; I am now correcting for my editorially-induced over-correction in no longer using them. Perfectly valid punctuation!
#WritersCoffeeClub Sep. 11 – What's a part of your process you'd give free advertising to?
I'll always give free advertising to #Emacs, specifically Org Mode for writing! It's what I replaced Scrivener with when I switched to Linux, and I've blogged about that transition. https://ljwrites.blog/posts/how-i-got-into-emacs/ Text can be broken up hierarchically (chapters and scenes are some basic examples) and headings collapsed for outline view, and the individual modules can be moved around and refiled to other headings. Version control is a breeze with Emacs' Magit package, and export is available for a whole bunch of file formats.
#WritersCoffeeClub 17th Oct ~ What are the defining traits of your niche in your genre?
I try to occupy several niches simultaneously! But what my SF/F has in common is, it proposes certain changes to how the universe works, asks "what are the second-order consequences?" then bounces the characters off them to see what happens next. Usually 2-5 significant changes per setting, too, not just one thing.
Shorter version: exploring ideas and their consequences.
