@colorblindcowboy Do what works. Don't yearn for what doesn't.

#WritersCoffeeClub May 6: What does your usual workspace look like? Share a picture.

I'm not into sharing a picture. It's a desk with a laptop and a monitor. Same same as everyone else.

There is a painting on the wall, though, of typewriter font on a white background that says, "A word is worth a thousand pictures." My mother and me made it together 20 years ago.

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#PennedPossibilities 663: How do your characters strive to progress, thrive, and better themselves in a positive way?

They're engaged in pure survival, but along the way, they are using the values instilled in them: community, solidarity, non-violence, mutual aid. They're growing into the people they were raised to be, just under absolutely awful circumstances.

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#WordWeavers May 6. Describe the way your MC walks.

She walks with preternatural balance, every step placed just right, hips and core supporting her body. Most people don't notice it consciously. She just seems "strong" even though she's five-foot-nothing (although if you're looking carefully, you can see the actual *muscles*).

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#ScribesAndMakers May 6. Would you like to go to a creative retreat? Would you prefer a mixed retreat or your art only?

Sounds amazing. I'd love to. I think a mixed space that had other writers in it would be ideal.

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Wrote a bit more yesterday (not doing word counts, that's not where I'm at with the draft). Final exams are over, and I can carve out and hour here and there to *inch* ever closer to my big climax, and then slide into a denouement, which I am thinking I'd like to draw out a bit, let it breath.

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@arielkroon Agreed. I cannot say it out loud since someone pointed out what it literally means.

It's about *semen*, folks. Literally.

PSA: please stop saying "seminal" esp when you are writing about feminism. It's a gross word on a lot of different levels and some of us have visceral responses to that sort of thing. /Gets off soapbox

@jwilker Wait, what did I miss? Writing grifters are kind of fascinatingly terrible.

@NaraMoore That was my approach before spellcheckers got good enough that they'd recognize my attempt. There was a time when I was just out of luck. I would never spell it correctly.

#ScribesAndMakers May 5 -What word(s) always trips you up when writing? Common misspellings or misusage.

Silhouette. I have not once spelled it correctly on my own. I try my best and then get the spellcheker's help. I even speak a little French, but that word is beyond my anglo imagination.

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#WordWeavers May 5 Describe the way your antagonist speaks.

Slowly, carefully, respectfully. She communicates warmth through formality. Her words are measured and deliberate. She makes perfect sense. Except that it's monstrous.

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#PennedPossibilities 662. Imagine This: Would your MC be a sore loser or a sore winner?

She'd be a sore loser. She'd be confounded by the fact of having lost, and it would come out in other ways.

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@bodiednovel Same, my friend. Same.

#WritersCoffeeClub May 5 Have you ever worked through a bad experience by writing fiction?

You mean like my childhood?

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@susankayequinn Fantastic. Love it.

And Maslow ripped his diagram off the Blackfood anyway. That's why it's shaped like a teepee, only it was the other way around. The best thing was to be fully integrated into a community of care and service, and IIRC, the top wasn't the goal, anyway, so I read this diagram as "use what you have" being the best thing possible.

#WritersCoffeeClub 4 May: How do you take notes? Share a (redacted?) screenshot or photo.

This is pretty typical, just a bullet-point list. Anything more complicated than that, and I might as well just start writing the thing.

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#PennedPossibilities 661 — How does your antagonist / villain handle criticism?

She's certain the criticism is misguided and patiently explains how you're wrong, and she's right, now line up behind her and do as you're told.

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#WordWeavers May 4: Describe something unusual/interesting about one of your characters’ looks or style.

I have trouble holding any one "look" for her in my head. At first, I was lie "pixie cut!" and then that didn't stick in my head, but I think I knew she needed short hair, I honestly don't know why. Then, I started picturing clothes that reminded me of 70s hand-me-downs bc I wanted to show that her family/community doesn't just dispose-and-consume. It's never solidified.

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