Stephen Cox says "Terror on sale!!"

#WordWeavers Apr 16: If your MC lived in our world, would they have good financial credit?

If Mrs Ashton appeared in our world - she comes from Victorian London - she would have none of the information financial institutions or the state expect. Assuming she travelled with an emergency stock of jewellry, she would not be absolutely without resources but she would more than ever be thrown back on her spiritual powers and her confidence trickster skills.

#books #writing

Long overdue but switching active newsletter to beehiiv from Substack. First post is where I stand on selfpub versus trad and I have two books out in a year! Free updates including offers (two free short stories when edited, etc).

#writing #amwriting #books #SFF #booksbooksbooks #writingcommunity

stephens-newsletter-69af79.beehiiv.com

#PennedPossibilities 985 — How long have you been writing or when did you start?

Since primary school. Secondary school largely discouraged creativity. I threw myself into roleplaying games, wrote stories here and there, and had a big outpouring after a writing workshop. Then kids. in 2012 I used a sabbatical to write a novel and ain't no stopping me now

"Wanting to be a writer" and "doing stuff to make you a writer" are quite different

#books #writing

@arcadiagt5 @rdm @gregeganSF

a linguist would wet themselves laughing at the idea that some languages arise clear and pure from the mind of a god* and that others are nasty hybrids. I joke that "English is three languages in a trenchcoat"

fun fact we dropped gendering nouns because both Vikings and Saxons did it, but differently, which was such a pain people gave up

• I exclude deliberately manufactured languages.

There's a meme about opening the nearest book at page 42 and chosing a good sentence. It's my The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder,

The speaker is notorious medium and MC, Mrs Ashton.

"Her client had taken the bait, and with fashionable hypocrisy, intended to evade her brutal husband's orders".

Yup, that's the book in a sentence

#books #reading #writing #novels

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/4: Do you switch between past and present tense? How do you make it work?

Present can create immediacy. The various pasts are a reliable way of storytelling. In Our Child of the Stars I wrote Cory the alien boy in third present so you got his bubbling enthusiasm and his deep fear. In the second book I wrote the same style but in third past and noone noticed. which I thought was interesting.
#amwriting #writingcommunity #writing #books

I wrote a story about the Moon going pay per view which seems even more relevant now.

https://stephencox.co.uk/the-last-day-of-the-moon/

#free #fiction #Moon #NASA #artemis #reading

#WritersCoffeeClub 3: Is there one piece of well-known writing advice you ignore?

"Do not talk to me of the Deep Writing Advice. I was there when it was written."

Advice is fine, you consider it, work with it, look for its use in writers you admire, decide how to use it if at all. The key is the word "advice".

Endless regurgitation of what say Chekhov said when writing Chekhov as though it is legally binding and handed down by Aslan, no.

#amwriting #writerslife #writersofmastodon

Starmerzugzwang

is the term for a leadership crisis all outcomes of which will be worse for ordinary people.

#ukpol