#WritersCoffeeClub 7 Jun: Do you avoid idioms, colloquialisms, or embrace them?
I write SF/F; unfamiliar coinages and obscure words are vital tools for alienating the reader from their assumptions. (Clichés do the opposite, so unless I'm using one in dialog to illustrate the speaker's outlook—or the narrator's, in 1st person PoV) I generally avoid them.)
Compare the accepted meaning of the word "virtual" today with the 19th and 15th century meanings …
#WritersCoffeeClub 8 Jun: How vast are your settings?
Current project: it's 700,000 years in our future, the entire Virgo supercluster of galaxies (of which the Local Group is a small backwater) has been settled by human-descendant species, there are at least 30 million star systems on the wormhole grid and 10x to 100x that number connected intermittently by slower-than-light starships, and no star system has just one settlement (terraformed planet or space habitat).
Does that qualify as vast?
#WritersCoffeeClub June 29: Is writing a lonely endeavor for you?
Yes (unless I'm collaborating, which hasn't happened in the past decade).
#WritersCoffeeClub July 21: Do your works contain erotic elements? How far do you go?
Yes, but only when it's plot-appropriate, and I'm not usually insert-tab-A-in-slot-B explicit (unless there's a story-related reason) …
#WritersCoffeeClub June 9. Have you ever written something which later turned out to be a little too on the nose?
Oh hell yes. Story of my life, basically.
#WritersCoffeeClub July 1: Recently, how excited have you been to sit down to write?
Writing is my job, and has been for more than a quarter of a century.
I'm on vacation this month, getting over mild burnout before I sit down to a major rewrite project, which I'm excited about the potential of (if it sells it might be the start of a whole new series).
Looking for something to read? Like your stories hot and sexy?
Buy direct from https://www.evernightpublishing.com/suzy-shearer
or anyone online bookstore worldwide.
PS - Finn is still only $0.99us on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GG7XKGLN?
#
books #bookstodon #writing #romance #olderCharacters #scribesAndMakers #WritersCoffeeClub #writersofMastodon #writingCommunity
#WritersCoffeeClub July 2: What are the limits of critique?
Crits can tell you that your readers have found a weak spot—maybe in your writing, maybe in their reading comprehension—but they can't tell you how to fix it (or even, if it's the second type, if it needs fixing at all).
#WritersCoffeeClub June 11. How arbitrary are the names in your work?
Variable! In present-day settings they're present-day-ish.
In space opera, it depends on the tone I'm aiming for. I've done Ruritanian or Russian-Empire-in-Space in the past. And my current WIP, featuring various dour transhuman puritans, includes a (minor character) customs officer named Piety Humblebrag, which I think is just cromulent. (Still to come: a role for Cease thy Snivelling before the Basilisk, Basil for short.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 12 Jun: What passions appear in your work?
My fiery, unbending contempt for mindless authoritarianism and simplistic thinking.
#WritersCoffeeClub 7 July: What's the sign of a good critique?
You learn something new about the work that was the subject of the critique—if you're the author, it articulates something you didn't recognize in your own work (and then you end up rewriting it).
#WritersCoffeeClub 13 June 2026
C&R: Share your biggest writing habit (good or bad). Everyone: Do you do this too? If not, would you adopt it?
Tea: approximately 4 litres of Irish breakfast tea per working day.
Music: either auditory wallpaper or stuff that's so overfamiliar it doesn't pull me out of my own head.
Good: bum in chair, fingers on keyboard.
Bad: procrastination.
#WritersCoffeeClub June 14: Talk about something you’re willing to endure in order to write.
The publishing industry.
(Mic drop.)
#WritersCoffeeClub 4th July ~ Who do you go to for constructive criticism?
I have crit readers and friends, but the gold standard is my literary agent's opinion—we've worked together for 25 years and 33 books and she gets paid a percentage of my royalties so she is 100% focussed on how to make my books more saleable (within the constraints of what I'm willing to compromise on). She has specific biases but I can account for them, and a bias in favour of helping me earn a living is gold dust.
1- What are your writing goals for this month?
I have Top Surgery later this month (quite excited!) so I don't plan on anything ambitious until I'm at least somewhat recovered.
So, mainly prep. though I have to say, the heatwave caused me to think of a (Short?) Story I want to write. So hopefully I can get the first draft of that out before I'm under the knife.
#WritersCoffeeClub 6/15: "What is the most painful part of the writing process for you?"
When I have finished drafting and there's a substantial rewrite. Do you start a new blank chapter or try to fix what's there paragraph by paragraph? Etc.
#WritersCoffeeClub Aug. 9: What’s a subject you’d like to write about, but haven’t yet?
If it's a commercially viable idea it'll go on my to-do stack and get written. (Otherwise, nope.)
But I don't usually write about a subject, I write about people in fictional settings/situations. Characters come first.
#WritersCoffeeClub 6/15 What is the most painful part of the writing process for you?
Getting started.
The worst is sitting at the computer, with the file open, the date entered - and being unable to come up with the first sentence for the day.
It's immensely frustrating.
Among ADHD-folks, this is known as the Wall of Awful. And there are days when I cannot break through.
#WritersCoffeeClub 5 Aug
Share a small selection of something you wrote recently that you're [satisfied with]
From my current WIP. (Text in alt.) 30 years condensed into 158 words!
🧵 1/X
- Do not respond to this thread. -
Please mention me for further additions.
Common shorts of writing prompts explained:
Anta - Antagonist
BC - Background Character (rarely used)
LI - Love Interest
MC - Main Character also Prota - Protagonist.
MMC/FMC see MC but m for male, f for female.
POV - Point of View
⬇️
#PhantastikPrompts #WordWeavers #PennedPossibilities #ScribesAndMakers #WritersCoffeeClub #TimeTravelAuthors #EroticMusings #writing #fiction
#WritersCoffeeClub 27 April: Share a possibly unpopular opinion. 👀 (Be kind!)
If you want to write fiction, be aware that it is almost impossible to achieve fame and fortune by being a good writer: there's a near-infinite supply of good writers!
Marketing skills and personal connections matter more than ability when it comes to achieving visibility. And without visibility, you're roadkill.
(Raw ability can make up for some of this. Hard work and high output helps, and there's always luck.)
#WritersCoffeeClub July 15: Do you read a lot outside of your comfort zone?
My comfort zone has grown broader with age.
#WritersCoffeeClub 7/15 Do you read a lot outside of your comfort zone?
Not anymore.
For most of my life, I read whatever I could grab. Thrillers, mysteries, hist fic, fantasy, SF, YA, adventures, some romance.
These days, I read my comfort books, often several times, cycling through them. They are where I go to rest my mind and my soul.
The world has become so taxing and chilling, I don't need to stretch myself in reading. I go for feel-good books now.
#WritersCoffeeClub 19th July ~ Where is the line between following genre or medium conventions, and creating something trite?
This question makes no sense: there is no clear dividing line because triteness is a subjective interpretation by the reader.
#writersCoffeeClub July 9: how closely does your writing resemble that of other writers who inspire you?
Hopefully that only happens in my novels where I'm pastiching another author (eg first four launder novels, Saturn's Children)!
Otherwise I strive for originality.
