mastodon 4.7.3Debut author and colossal geek.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21: What's a (maybe silly) hill you're willing to defend?
Second person sucks. You really hate it. You find it gimmicky, contrived, unnatural, and distancing to the reader, rather than pulling them in. At this point, you've read enough to automatically nope out of *anything* written in second person. And you have no regrets.
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 23: Have fairy tales influenced any of your creative work?
Not a lot. They can be amusing or interesting from an anthropological perspective, but they aren't really my jam. 🤷
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 30: What's a problem you solved in your creative work this month?
Well, I decided I've been spending too much time on hashtag games. Gonna take a month off and focus on just writing. 😁
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 17: What's something you've learned in recent research?
Thanks to the #ConlangApril hashtag game (on bsky), I've been looking into linguistics more. Like, details on the terms "nominative accusative" vs "ergative absolutive," or "analytic morphology" vs the "synthetic" kind, or "sandhi."
I like learning things. (If *nothing* else, it increases the number of jokes you can get. 😁)
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 15: What's a smell that has featured in your work?
So far, mostly unpleasant ones. Ozone, burnt debris, body odor, unpleasant sauces. Plus a couple spoilers.
The *lack* of car exhaust smells comes up, as well.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 30: How was this month for you, in terms of writing?
Bad enough that I'm taking May off from the hashtag games, to focus on writing more. 🤷
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 29: Share the best sentence you wrote this month.
Normally, a barely-verbal mental patient who kills a guard doesn't get much in the way of justice.
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 20: Have you ever read or performed your work in front of an audience?
I mentioned that long ago, in college, I read a monologue. Once. (I went last, so the audience was down.) Seemed to go okay.
https://secondary.blog/2025/03/24/a-thirty-three-year-old-monologue/
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 15: Name a writer whose voice is just exquisite. Share an sample!
I've mentioned Roger Zelazny. Here's his Agnostic's Prayer:
"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.
1/3
#ScribesAndMakers 24: Our next featured creator has a "love/hate affair with common tropes." What's your relationship with tropes?
They're tools, not rules. Useful, fun to play with... and fun to interrogate, subvert, and remix. *Especially* the common ones.
As I put it recently on one of the socials, "I'm pretty good at fulfilling tropes to the letter while doing violence to their spirit." 🤣
#WordWeavers 29: Can you describe your current WIP in three words?
More worldbuilding porn?
#ScribesAndMakers 18: Do you ever read out loud, either to yourself or someone else?
Almost never. Too shy for my own stuff, not much call to read to anyone since the kids grew up.
I can generally sound things out in my head so they flow ok, so I don't need to read stuff aloud most of the time.
#WritersCoffeeClub 16: Must writing always in complete sentences? Unusual syntax?
Of course sentence fragments and syntax games have their place. You don't usually want langourous pacing, complex phrases, and elaborate sentence structure - maybe with asides and diversions, like this one - when intense emotions are at play.
That's also useful when you want to show the MC/narrator is, themself, in an unusual state of mind. Positive *or* negative. Or other.
#ScribesAndMakers 16: How do you feel about illustrations in (non-comic) books?
They have to be worth the mode-switch. Yes, reading text and processing an illustration are both visual operations, but one of them engages the language centers a lot more.
Oddly enough, 'noise' illustrations that I can ignore are less annoying than relevant-but-low-value ones.
In *comics*, though, the art is (at least) half the point and I *want* those drawings.
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 22: What fictional character (from any media) do you find the scariest?
Rorschach and the Scramblers from Peter Watts' BLINDSIGHT would win, just for their philosophical implications.
Except they're not, technically, *characters*... 😬
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 22: What's a writing skill you wish you were better at?
I've already remarked upon my lack of poetry. So I should probably come up with something else. Which is: LOLworthiness.
I can be funny. I can *definitely* do sarcasm and dark humor. But quippy jokes don't come easily. Snickers and chuckles yes, belly laughs not so much.
#WordWeavers Apr 30: What unhealthy beliefs are held by your MC?
Jim refuses to accept he might be stranded in an alternate timeline *forever*. This has... benefits (like not giving up) and drawbacks (like reluctance to adapt).
He also finds some basic assumptions he's had about gender turn out to be... questionable. And in this world, dangerous.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 19: How can prose achieve lyricism without verse structure?
I learned much of what I know about #writing by reading. Reading *lots*. With time and further study from actual writers, I've often been able to consciously recognize many of the tricks and techniques authors use to tell stories.
'How to make prose luminous' is not something that *can* be wholly analyzed, IMHO. There are techniques, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. 🤷
#ScribesAndMakers 25: Our featured creator does "a bit of educational activism on the side." Do you do any activism through your creative work?
I hope to at least make readers look at familar things in a new light. Maybe even think about them a bit.
The series is the memoirs of the MC. And it's sort of his 'defense' of his actions in the new timeline.
So the whole thing is subtly structured like an argument. A reader who disagrees with my worldbuilding will know *exactly* where they disagree.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 25: Share your current biggest creative frustration.
Time. Gonna have to take a month off the socials and spend 'post-composing' time on writing. 😐
#WritersCoffeeClub 24: Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.
Lots of mistakes in early drafts, especially getting character names wrong.
I find I'm a little reluctant to describe the most wrongheaded writing mistake I've made, though. At least I outgrew it. 🤷
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 19: Have you ever been to a poetry reading?
Yes, but only because I had to for a college course. I don't denigrate poetry at all - especially since my few attempts have been so feeble - but much of it doesn't really speak to me. And I prefer to absorb it by reading, anyway. 🤷
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 17: Can plots which hinge on a misunderstanding be done well?
Sure.
Not by *me*! I Still, any plot *can* be done well. Some are more difficult than others, is all.
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 28: Are you interested in etymology? Is there a word with an origin you find especially interesting?
When investigating Proto-Indo-European for my WIP, I learned about *gʷḗn - the reconstructed word for 'woman.'
It developed different ways through different groups, and occasionally descendants from various lines would meet up in the same language.
Like English. That word became 'queen.' But by a different route, it became 'cunt' as well. 🤔
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 28: How magical is your work?
Most of my stuff, only in the Arthur C. Clarke sense, 'sufficiently advanced technology.'
Occasionally I'll dabble in 'the unknowable,' but usually to (a) explore a fun logic knot, or (b) explore how people respond to something truly weird.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 14: Do you consciously work with syllabic stress to create rhythm?
Usually not at a conscious level. Only when I actually have to hit a specific meter. Mostly I just look for flow.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 26: Recommend a nonfiction book about writing.
Can I recommend a video series? I don't agree with everything he says, but there's plenty of useful bits. And you can listen while you wash the dishes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZvzkfVo_Dls0B5GiE2oMcLY
#WordWeavers Apr 26: How “high maintenance “ is your MC?
Jim's self-sufficent, sometimes to the point of being self-absorbed. It's not that he'd actively try to hurt anyone, and he's happy to help when asked. Don't expect him to go out of his way to help spontaneously, without being asked.
#WritersCoffeeClub 8: Do you do warm-ups before or cool-downs after a writing session?
Like a lot of other authors, apparently, I will spend a little time editing and polishing the stuff I wrote the day before. Gets the brain limbered up and helps limit polish passes later.
In general, tho, I can switch in and out of 'writer mode' fairly easily.
#WordWeavers Apr 21: Does the change of seasons affect your writing at all? If so, how?
I probably have more time in the winter to be on my computer doing longer stretches of writing and editing. Less in the summer, though I feel more creative then - I can go on more long walks and bike rides.
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 7: Would your current creative project make a good game? (If it is a game, is there another media where you think it could work well?)
Maybe one of those excessively detailed FMV games with multiple paths and possible storylines?
#WritersCoffeeClub 20: What have you tried to immortalise in your writing?
Immortalize is an awfully grand word to describe my ambitions. Just influencing a few people towards examining their preconceptions, to imagine other ways of living, would be awesome. There's seldom enough of that.
#WritersCoffeeClub 18: Does your writing ever get away from you? (plot bunnies…?)
Well... *I* don't think so. YMMV.
Of course, 'explore the premise thoroughly' is my motto, so my standards could be warped. 😁
#WordWeavers Apr 14: Do your MCs tend to run more optimistic or pessimistic about life? Why?
They tend to be somewhere in the middle, with varying ratios. The main thing is they're usually optimistic in strategies and pessimistic in tactics. As in, "hope for the best, plan for the worst."
#WordWeavers Apr 28: Do you use flowers at all in your story?
They come up - as symbols and organisms - but not as a recurring interest or anything.
#WritersCoffeeClub 23: What are some form conventions you disregard?
For fanfiction and stuff, I mix punctuation and quotes the way programmers do, not the stupid rules of English. "Hello", not "Hello," ya doofuses.
For stuff I'm actually trying to sell, or in professional contexts, I submit to the standard rules, because it *can* come across as amateur.
Except to other programmers.
#WordWeavers Apr 23: What would your MC be willing to die for?
He's not even sure what he's *living* for, after losing everyone he ever knew or heard of. Along with his entire world, culture, and recorded history.
Finding something worth dying for is a key part of the character arc, tho...
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 6: Some people have creative work inspired by their dreams. Have you ever had dreams inspired by your creative work?
Well, I've dreamed of data structures, and editing novels. So I guess that counts.
#WordWeavers 19: If your SC was going on a trip, would they pack light or take too much?
Manayka would pack what he actually needed. He tries to be efficient and practical.
Jim would think that he overpacked, though. At first, anyway. He's not used to what the local culture demands of men, in terms of presentation and fashion.
#WordWeavers 17: How far beyond the local home of your MC does your story extend?
A few thousand miles in space. In time... hard to say. 5,700 years have been changed. Maybe reality warped around Jim, maybe he got dropped in an alternate timeline. That would change the distance.
According to Relativity, 5,700 years ago is 5,700 light-years away in spacetime. Not sure what the distance between alternate histories is...
#WordWeavers Apr 16: If your MC lived in our world, would they have good financial credit?
He did, and he did. (Not a *lot* better credit than the average postdoc, but his family has some money.)
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 7: Do you combine poetic fragments and prose paragraphs in your work?
Rarely. I don't do poetry much myself, so I only quote others. Which I only do if the quote is particularly apt.
#WordWeavers Apr 6: Can you create a character/place/storyhook/device on the spot, if you need to? If so, share an example.
Doing a crapload of that in my current WIP. Just-in-time worldbuilding. Character and plot elements take more, though. Just whipping them up on the fly has a much higher chance of inconsistencies.
#WordWeavers 20: MC’s relationship to obtaining/preparing food?
Jim has actually lived off the land in the Amazon headwaters. Hunting, gathering, preparing his own meals.*
In more 'civilized' environs? He *can* cook, and has. But it's easier to get carryout.
*For a couple weeks at a time, then dipping into some modern supplies. Along with regular nutritional supplements, some support from the tribes he's studying, plus the knowledge that he can bug out of his fieldwork if things get too bad.
#WordWeavers Apr 8: Do you characters tell jokes? If so let them tell us a joke, please.
Jim's doesn't do jokes, just dark humor and sarcasm.
"It was time to perform the most important impromptu art criticism bullshitting of my life."
"I’m going to assume you, dear reader, have never been stranded in a completely unknown alternate universe. So trust me on this: it’s a wee bit disconcerting."
#WordWeavers Apr 24: Do your characters have any “tells” when they are lying?
Jim's pretty good at reading people. And he's good at lying; in particular, by telling the truth... with redactions.
But he does run into someone even better than him at it. Of course, that person's a pro in the field of court intrigue. And he picks up on a brief hesitation Jim makes...
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 6: Do the plots or characters in your work converge towards a single point?
I like to try for a big climactic conflict where themes and plots and characters come together. Doesn't always fit every story, though. Especially lots of characters.
Still, it's best to tie in as many of those things as you can into the climax.
