#WritersCoffeeClub April 10. How comfortable are you with wordplay?

Very. Next silly question?

#WritersCoffeeClub 10 Apr
How comfortable are you with wordplay?

I enjoy it, but I'm not good at it.

#WritersCoffeeClub 10. How comfortable are you with wordplay?

I love it. Sometimes it’s too cute and has to go, but ahh, I love when something fun like that comes along.

“Every writer has a legacy, whether it’s a single self-published book, a growing backlist with a small press, or a series of essays and poems shared online. You don’t have to be a household name to plan for the future of your creative work.” — Charlotte Jones Voiklis

https://janefriedman.com/planning-for-the-life-of-your-work-even-if-youre-not-famous-yet/

#WritersCoffeeClub April 9. How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

All of it, I think.

#WritersCoffeeClub 9 April: How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

It depends on the project. I would love to sit/stand/annoyingly pace back and forth and say that I’d cram the fantastical like a suitcase. The problem is that, sometimes, the story needs something a little more grounded. That doesn’t mean that the room for the fantastical isn’t there, just that it’s not serving the story right then.

@bookstodon

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing 9 Apr: How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

It sneaks in, given the least opportunity. I have tried throwing it out again, but the resultant books don't sell to a publisher.

So I write in the science fiction and fantasy genre, because those books do sell, and I console myself with the knowledge that even the great Philip K. Dick couldn't sell his mainstream novels during his lifetime.

#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 9
How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

It's all the way down

#WritersCoffeeClub April 9. How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

Room. Lots of room. SO MUCH ROOM. All the room.

I write fantasy stories and webcomics.

Lots and lots and lots of room.

#WritersCoffeeClub 9: How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

I write SF/F, so I'd say there's a lot of room!

I tend to paddle in the more plausible/believable end of the pool, where there's at least a middling attempt at maintaining plausible consistency with reality (nightmarish alien gods? They're ALIENS). But SF/F is, as critic John Clute noted, the literature of the Fantastika, and it works by inducing a sense of alienation from all that is known. And I'm down with that!

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/9. How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

Dragons running spaceship, fighting eldritch gods, along side animals who us we d to be humans and some that used to be gods. Fantastical is the definition of my work.

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/9. How much room for the fantastical is there in your work?

In my translations of German folk tales, I am focusing on the fantastical tales, so the answer is "lots".

I mean, there are plenty of non-supernatural folk tales as well. But many concern some local history and trivia that probably won't be very meaningful to an international audience.

(Incidentally, if I ever get around to translating the second volume of the Brothers Grimm's "Deutsche Sagen", this will be a problem - because that part of their collection is full of ancient German tribes and kings with little supernatural shenanigans. So how can I make these tales interesting for the readers?)

#WritersCoffeeClub
#EpigraphCoffeeClub

"I much prefer lurking on forums." — @benetnasch

8. Share a simile or metaphor that stuck with you.

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

#WritersCoffeeClub 20250408:
Share a simile or metaphor that stuck with you.

Because my mom (now deceased) used to love the expression, "Trouble make monkey eat hot pepper;" when I first heard the term "peppersucker" used as a metaphor, it stuck with me.

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19920107/1469075/hard-times-will-make-a-monkey-eat-red-peppers#:~:text=He%20explained%20that%20monkeys%20don%27t%20like%20hot%20food,used%20the%20phrase%20for%20a%20multitude%20of%20situations.

#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 8: Share a simile or metaphor that stuck with you.

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." — Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

#WritersCoffeeClub Apr8. Share a simile or metaphor that stuck with you.

"I had no more plans for the afternoon than a migrating bird has collateral assets."
-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

#ScribesAndMakers Apr 8: Share a song lyric you've written or heard that resonates with you.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 8: Share a simile or metaphor that stuck with you.

Combining these 2...

Al Stewart's lyrics tend to stick with me for some reason. Vivid similes and metaphors. Here's a particularly good one from "Year of the Cat":

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running,
Like a watercolor in the rain.