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  #WritersCoffeeClub for 18th October 2026 18. Talk about a time you had a revelation. That would be the time I was working on a story idea for ~6 books in the future, and I suddenly realised that, with only a *very* minor tweak, something I’d already included in my first WIP would be *perfect* foreshadowing for it...

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  #WordWeavers for 18th October, 2026 18.Share a line from your WIP where a character is lying. Do they get away with it? Illara kept her face blank as she said, “My name is Enki, I was looking for wildflowers, and I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing here.” The sorcerer next to the general – Illara supposed he was the most senior, given his position at the general’s right hand – shook his head, and spoke in his soft voice. “Young lady, I am afraid that we have neither the time nor pati...

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  #PennedPossibilities 1159: If you told your characters about our Halloween, what would they think? They'd probably think it was an interesting cultural peculiarity - right after I finished explaining to them what a 'hallow' was.

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  I was re-reading the "Towards a Taxonomy of Cliches in Space Opera" by @cstross ( https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/03/towards-a-taxonomy-of-cliches-.html ) when I read this point: "The flight time between planets in an inner star system is the same as between planets in the outer system" It suddenly occurred to me that, with the putative sci-fi "one earth gravity acceleration forever" type propulsion (no frame shift or hype...

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  #WritersCoffeeClub for 19th October 2026 19. Tell us about some unwanted critique you've received. The only critique I’ve received is from people I’ve asked to read my work. I expect I’ll get some unwanted feedback after I actually publish… 😏

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  #WordWeavers for 19th October, 2026 19.What does your MC keep that they probably should have thrown away years ago? Nothing, really – Illara doesn’t have much in the way of personal possessions. It’s her memories that are precious to her.

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  My work PC had been running for less than ten minutes when I got a message saying IT had installed important updates and it needed to be restarted... So how's your Monday morning going? 🙄 #CorporateLife

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  #WritersCoffeeClub for 21st September 2026 21. What can a reader know to be true about you from your work? I have no idea. Probably that I’m a bit old-fashioned? I know what I’d like them to understand: that I wrote these stories myself, that I hope the reader(s) like them, and that the process of writing them brought me a great deal of satisfaction and joy.

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  #WordWeavers for 21st September, 2026 21. In your current WIP, which character do you relate to the least and why? Well, the antagonist is a psychopathic demon that seems to delight in torturing its victims – that is *so* not me.

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  I see the landlord class are mounting yet another attack on stamp duty, one of the last barriers to them trading houses like shares... Or maybe this is just boomers whinging about paying tax on an asset that's worth 20x more than they paid for it. I thought it was the *buyer* that pays the stamp duty, anyway. So surely the only issue is the stamp duty they'd have to pay on a smaller (and presumably cheaper) house? Which they could easily cover out of the windfall profits they d...

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  #PennedPossibilities 1134: What type of clothing does your MC typically wear? Illara wears pants / trousers / breeches of usually wool or linen, depending on the season, and loose-fitting shirts (same sort of fabrics), comfortable boots with wool socks, and her 'trademark', a thigh-length sheepskin coat. It gets cold at altitude, so a dragon-rider needs to be prepared.

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  Someone posted on the work bulletin board asking for help with a script not writing to a file on SharePoint. The very first response: "Have you tried asking Copilot?" 🤦‍♂️

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  #PennedPossibilities 1086 — How do you find your inspiration? (Do you enjoy nature, books, games, films, shows, or all of the above?) Yes. To elaborate: inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere. All of our experiences go into the great mixing pot in our minds whence inspiration comes. I do agree, though, that quiet thinking time is the best time to synthesise all these inputs into new ideas. Time spent away from the attention-consuming reality of modern life, even if it's only a...

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  #WritersCoffeeClub for 31st July 2026 31 End of the month roundup: What will you do differently next month? I *hope* I will put a lot more effort toward the ‘business’ side of things: set up a website, perhaps, pull some earlier works into slightly better shape, maybe do something at long last about covers, and progress toward self-publishing… (I’m a terrible procrastinator when it comes to some things!)

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  #WordWeavers for 31st July, 2026 31. Does your MC have a role model they look up to? If so, who? Yes indeed! Illara looks up to several people. She has an enormous respect for the Queen, who she got to know quite well during the events that took place at the capital a few years back. She also looks up to the Duchess Eolan of Kara, and Countess Idela of Firnesse – they both seem so confident and even-tempered, and she aspires to be like them. (spoiler: *they* admire *her* ability to remain so s...

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  #PennedPossibilities 1087 — Friday Edition: In honor of a friend (@thatwriterellie), we’re using a word once per week. Write or share something from your WIP pertaining to: “struggle.” This is from an earlier WIP, near the end, and describes the MC's reaction to some very bad news: “I’m so sorry, Aelyn,” she dimly heard Sen say. Her despair was so deep that no tears came. The colour seemed to drain from the world, and sounds barely came to her ears. The cold wind blowing over the mount...

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  #WritersCoffeeClub for 1st August 2026 Firstly, a very big thank-you to @paris for pulling these together - your efforts are greatly appreciated! 1. What are your goals for the month, writing-wise? I would like to make some progress on the ‘business’ side of writing – figure out what I need to do, and actually do it – so that I can progress toward self-publishing some of my works. I’ve been putting it off for far too long because it all seems too hard, and writing new stories is much more fun...

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  Visiting my parents, and this is still lurking in the fridge! My last photo of it was many years ago, good to get some updated snaps! 😆

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  Bought a new mug yesterday, so I can have a decent cuppa at last... 😁 #tea

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  Writers’ Coffee Club for 15th May 2026 15. Follow-up: and how little is not enough? When the reader gets frustrated that they’re not getting more of that element (plot, characters, setting, etc) or if they feel that something is missing. If your story hinges on a particular aspect, then you need to make sure you give the reader enough material that they can appreciate that part of the story, or it will feel hollow or incomplete. #WritersCoffeeClub

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  @David_Hollingworth@mastodon.social it's been said that it's undisputed fact that nobody who went into the bush with Vegemite smeared on the back of their neck was attacked by a drop bear, but that was before they learned to use machetes...

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  WordWeavers for 6th May, 2026 6. What writing-related challenges have you encountered recently? Lack of motivation. I’ve wanted to write, but when I get a chance to sit down at the PC, I’ve just not had the energy. I’ve enjoyed it when I’ve worked on it, and I’ve had some good ideas, but it’s the actual getting started that’s been difficult. #WordWeavers

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  Currently sitting at a desk in the office, and there are four people within five metres dialled into Teams meetings. 🙉 *So* conducive to concentration... 🙄 #CorporateLife

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  TFW I revisit some code I wrote ten years ago, and when I figure out what it does and why, think, "Ooh, that's quite clever!" 🤔

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  WordWeavers for 29th April, 2026 29. Can you describe your current WIP in three words? Woman, dragons, demons. #WordWeavers

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  Writers’ Coffee Club for 29th April 2026 29. Share the best sentence you wrote this month. Context is everything. Isolated sentences are often robbed of their meaning. But here’s one, anyway: “It was a bittersweet sort of smile, but a smile nonetheless.” #WritersCoffeeClub

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  Writers’ Coffee Club for 30th April 2026 30. How was this month for you, in terms of writing? A bit ‘meh’. I made some progress at smoothing the rough edges of my current WIP. I sent a few chapters to a friend for some feedback. I realised I still have a couple of plot threads I need to do some significant work on, so they feel like part of the story. I also wrote a few thousand words of draft scenes / notes for future projects, too. And I continued to lack the self-discipline to actually...

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  WordWeavers for 30th April, 2026 30. What unhealthy beliefs are held by your MC? I’ve not really considered that. I know she’s unfairly biased against goblins, based on some experiences when she was young (and she's going to have to work hard to fix that in the future). She doesn’t like spiders AT ALL, for a similar reason, but that’s not really ‘unhealthy’. #WordWeavers

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  #PennedPossibilities 1001 — Is your MC confident or not? Tell us why. Illara is full of self-doubt. She doesn't believe that she is capable enough and deserving of the trust and faith that people put in her. It comes of the sudden changes in her life that accompanied the adventures I have written about. Illara is a fish out of water, in many respects, though she's gradually becoming accustomed to her new surrounds. Perhaps her self-confidence will return in time.

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  WordWeavers for 1st of May, 2026: 1. How long have you been working on your WIP? I started making notes for this story a couple of years ago while writing the previous two novels featuring this MC. A few scenes that came to mind, but I had nowhere to plug them into the stories I was writing at the time. I began concentrating on this WIP at the beginning of 2025, after completing the previous novel I was working on. Last year was pretty bad for my writing productivity, though, so it's t...