Hi, I'm an as-of-yet unpublished YA author and high school math teacher who just joined Mastodon. I'm looking out for suggestions of who to follow in the writing/teaching community!
I refuse to set up an account to use ChatGPT even for my own amusement, because sooner or later their customer database will be leaked on the internet.
I'm trad published by Tor and Orbit. Author/publisher contracts include a clause asserting I am the sole author and have the right to license the work for publication. Any hint that I used an LLM for my writing without my publishers' knowledge could be fatal to my career!
"Don't create anything, copy existing works from existing artists and alter it sufficiently to escape copyright laws. It's the largest theft of property ever-"
In 1963, in a bid to settle a conflict with his English teacher, a 16yo student from San Diego sent a 4-question survey to 150 well-known authors or commercial, literary and science fiction.
"Did they consciously plant symbols in their work?" he asked.
Here are many of their wonderful answers, very much worth the read
#WritersCoffeeClub 9/24: What are your biggest bugbears with publishing?
In the intro to the ed. of The Martian Chronicles I have, Ray Bradbury writes this thing about "I went down to New York and told this editor my idea for the Martian Chronicles, and he gave me $1500 and that paid my rent for two years and delivered our first baby daughter." Now, if you write a really good novel, you might still get a $1500 advance.
Looking for cover artist referrals (boosts welcome). Pay is $600 USD for a novel cover.
What I want:
Mr. Maybe and Dr. Don't is a non-traditional MG fantasy, with swords and magic and unusual woodland magical critters that need some art design. Whimsical without being farcical.
(In an ideal world the artist would also contribute some interior art, e.g. b/w frontispiece and/or chapter images. Price negotiable for that.) #amPublishing#WritersCoffeeClub#writing#artist
I thought we'd start Feb 1st with another intro as we've had so many new writers joining us to play.
Also, an old tradition in the UK allows a woman to ask a man to marry her on the 29th of Feb. As I'm a traditionalist (not🤣) I thought we could do something different at the end of the month and switch things around 🤔.
Fuck yes! But only by American standards: here in Scotland fuck is fucking punctuation, and cunt is a gender-neutral term of endearment between friends. (I'm not particularly sweary by Irvine Welsh standards.)
I'm putting together a Christmas list for my family. It's that time of year again. So... Send me some reading recommendations! Give me links to YOUR books, guys. I'm going to bookmark this and save it for later, so I can purchase stuff throughout the year as well. I want to support everyone.
I hope everyone will check out the comments, too. Let's all support and love one another and help each other when and where we can.
#writerscoffeeclub ...
I feel compelled to share with you Jane Austin's favorite and, clearly, most productive writing space...
Tucked in a nook with a Grandfather clock and a nice view out the window, she wrote her six famous novels, with a quill, at this tiny table. This photo is in the Jane Austin House in Chawton, Hampshire, England. #writingcommunity
#WritersCoffeeClub May 28: Do you have advice for other authors that you haven't heard from different sources?
Yes: "there's more than one way to do it." (For almost any value of "it" that doesn't involve mathematics or formal logic.)
This is actually advice from a programmer, Larry Wall (inventor of Perl) but it applies especially strongly to writing fiction. Whatever you're trying to do, consider alternative ways of doing it.
A wise writer told me to establish it long before publishing. I sure took her advice to heart.
I recently passed my 11th anniversary, sharing a 500-1000 word post EVERY Thursday (I never miss. I share insights about writing, my journey, mental health, aging, lifestyle, worldbuilding, maps, & more.
There are also several stories, map examples, & 2x/week I share poetry.
#WritersCoffeeClub 1/25: How do you feel about writers who write outside of their gender/sexuality/race?
Flip the question: how would you feel about a writer who ONLY ever wrote inside their gender/sexuality/race?
(They're not exactly stretching themselves or developing their art, are they?)
Yes, it's easy to mess up writing the other. "How not to" isn't a topic I can answer in a toot. But it's important for writers to try to see the world through other eyes.
"Hi there! It seems like you're trying to write something slightly more difficult than what you're really capable of. I'll sit here and make passive aggressive comments about your non-American spelling and the passive voice until you realise that you're probably not as good a writer as you seem to think you are."
It was like writing with your Mother making helpful suggestions.
The particles at the end of English sentences are not prepositions, they are verbal particles, which are a characteristic of Germanic languages, but not of Latinate ones. English grammar remains Germanic despite the efforts of scholars who were overly impressed by Latin grammar.
#writersCoffeeClub 4/24: When older novels use outdated or racist language, should they be edited for the modern world or left alone and viewed in context?
They shouldn't be edited, BUT I'm all in favour of adding a content warning up front and then footnotes/an afterword explaining how attitudes and/or usage have changed since the text was written, and explaining it in context. Especially if the book is being directed at younger readers or the education sector.