CIRCLE WITH A DOT

#WritersCoffeeClub – 22nd Mar. How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)Mostly via 50+ Trello boards, although I maintain one document for errata and another one for research I haven't yet integrated into the text.

@cstross There are one or two geek observances I mark including Pi Day, Both 7 of 9 days, 4th May and 21st June Oh, and Talk like a Pirate Day, of course ‍️

@juergen_hubert I read there was a whole creative taxidermist trade in the 1800s.

#WritersCoffeeClub 3.19 — Do you need to finish a work before starting another?Nope. I do not generally translate German folk tales in the order I want to publish them in books, although relevant tales sometimes get priority.But I have translated many tales which I will only publish in books that are a dozen volumes or more down the line.https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Main_Page

#WritersCoffeeClub 18 March: One of the best writerly gifts I've received was when one of my daughters made me cupcakes iced ocean blue and lava red to commemorate my novel Pen Pal (... the novel features the ocean and a volcano ...)

#WritersCoffeeClub 14. Do you think readers want new experiences in structure or narrative, or do they prefer what's familiar?most people are not reading to challenge themselves. they want as little friction as possible, and never want an experience that encourages them to re-examine their assumptions. in this way, catering to what most people want is often opposed to more ambitious artistic goals.however, the merit of attempting 'new' structures and narrative techniques is unclear. most of the experimentation possible with these things has already been done, so further attempts to get clever with them are likely to be more annoying than successful. it's more important for artistic choices like these to support the story you want to tell, rather than trying to be groundbreaking for its own sake. (and the ground is likely to have already been broken decades ago, anyway.)

@cstross Ground attack aircraft like the A10, though, I'm guessing would have more of a chance, but it's still going to be which one sees the other first

@Gillinger Thanks for sending that to me! Hope to read it soon.

@thegoblinwitch I haven't tried the shaking the printout and screaming, but it's an intriguing idea! Maybe I'll do that this time.

@Firlefanz I for one don't know.

#WritersCoffeeClub March 11. Does your work reflect your morals? How so?Only insofar as my moral sensibilities inform my authorial attitude to the events and character actions in my stories. (And my moral sensibilities are those of a raised-reform-Jewish-atheist in his sixties, so they're almost certainly not what you'd expect them to be.)What I *don't* do is write approvingly about protagonists doing things I consider to be despicable.

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/11: Does your work reflect your morals? How so? For the most part, yes. Individual characters do not always have the same morality as I do (or that other characters do). But good tends to win out over bad, and kindness is always important. That's how things ought to be.

#WritersCoffeeClub 11. Does your work reflect your morals? How so?in my most recent story, yes. one of the consequences of having a narrator with a strong voice is that the narrator has opinions, and forms judgements. in this way, the story will have transparent intended readings, and the narrator's opinions more or less reflect my own. when i wrote stories with a less prominent narrator, i had more ambiguous readings of the characters' morality. i think this is neither an upside nor a downside—just a difference. moral ambiguity is not necessarily better or more clever than being upfront.

@ElisesWritings then implies doing something after something else- than is a comparison between two things. Being a good teacher allows you to write new chapters in others lives as well as your own.

@therivercrow Only the left nostril?

#WritersCoffeeClub 5. How do you make sure you don’t leave plot holes?There are no plotholes. There are only unexplained mysteries yet to be unraveled.

#WritersCoffeeClub 3 March: On what are you unwilling to compromise?I refuse to use #LLM for my translations of German folk tales (or any other kind of AI-based translation system). Everything you see on this wiki was translated the hard way.https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Main_Page

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/2. Does your overall goal differ from project to project?Not really. My overall goal is always to entertain, to craft a good story with engaging characters, and to provide an escape from reality. Each story is different and may have a different message or something, but the basic goal is always the same.

@cstross …and the name of this month is…?

#WritersCoffeeClub 1. What is the fundamental goal you seek to achieve with your current WIP?stories have many goals. i don't think i could narrow it down to just one, other than the fairly banal 'to tell a good story.'i wanted to express several ideas about enlightenment, individualism, failure, and forgiveness. a story invoking Venus also has to care about love, and sexuality. if i wanted to have one clear thesis, i would have written an essay, not a novel.