The movie had not the ghost of an idea of what made the book so special and beloved. It trampled on many things that were at the heart of the story.

It was awful in every way, and not even "so bad it's good"; it was just bad. Honestly, even if you don't know the book, I think it would just feel like a lackluster, formulaic modern fantasy movie with nothing special about it.

But if you *do* know the book, you can see just how awful a travesty it is. 6/7

I whole-heartedly recommend the book¹. The movie deserves to be consigned to the pits of anonymity and utterly forgotten.

1. And the series it's part of. _The Dark is Rising_, the book I've been talking about, is actually #2 in a 5-book series. You can start with it, then go back and pick up the 1st, called _Over Sea, Under Stone_, or just read straight through from the beginning. Just get #1 and #2 under your belt before you go for #3. 7/7

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 14: Is it OK for a book to be purely entertainment, or must it have meaning or a lesson?

I personally like my own works to have some kind of meaning, but I adamantly defend the rights of stories to exist purely for entertainment. Hell, I'll even enjoy reading them! Just because I want to write Thing X doesn't mean I want *everything* to be like that, and I enjoy reading Things Y and Z.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 15: Do some readers over-interpret your work? Do they get messages you weren't sending?

Nobody's had the chance to yet! 🤣

(Okay, my alpha reader conceivably could've with the few vignettes and the one scene they've read. But if they were inclined to do that kind of thing, I wouldn't trust them as my alpha reader.)

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 16: What would be the best writing-related Solstice present someone could give you?

I haven't the faintest clue.

I don't use things like Scrivener or Grammarly, so a subscription to them wouldn't help me any. Ditto for pens or notebooks; I'm digital-only, as writing by hand makes my hand cramp very quickly and my handwriting is atrocious.

I suppose maybe a good book on writing? But I never seem to finish reading those; I always wind up writing instead…

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 17: Which writing conventions do you ignore, if any?

I've written before in this hashtag (and WordWeavers) about my utter contempt for prescriptive "grammar rules" based on Latin, but I don't think most other writers follow those, either, so I wouldn't grant them the status of "writing conventions" at all.

In that case, I think I'm mostly following conventions. No real boundary-breaking, convention-defying stuff going on in my work. And that's okay.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 18: What are your biggest turnoffs or turn-ons when reading?

One huge turn-off for me is exclamatory comments in the narrative voice. (Of the myriad things that were horrible about Piers Anthony's writing, those were the first one I picked up on.)

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 19: Do any of your stories occur in Winter? What do you take from the season?

My WIP is my first work, and it runs from early spring to mid-autumn. Just to contrast with that, I plan to make sure to have the next one cover winter for at least part of its duration, but I have no idea when it'll start or end, or what will happen.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 20: Is anyone getting a copy of your latest book for Solstice?

No, there's nothing ready to give as a gift.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 21: Disney is making a musical animation of one of your stories. How well does that go?

O_o Wow. That's an... interesting concept. I have no idea. I mean, they'd have to get over the queerness of my story and cast to even start on this, but if I assume they must have done so (according to the parameters of the question), then... I'd be incredibly curious to see what they did with it. 1/3

Like, could Idina Menzel sing Jessie Nakamura's magical awakening, à la "Let it Go" or "Into the Unknown"? That could be kind of mind-blowing.

Look, I'm a sucker for musicals. I *looove* the way music can convey emotion, and pairing that with storytelling just hits me in so many places in my psyche. Disney has so very many problems, but... 2/3

...they're also *good at* musical storytelling. *IF* they kept my stuff queer, and also didn't mess with the anti-cop parts, then I'd be willing to see what else they made out of it.

But we all know each of those "if"s is a complete non-starter on its own, and the pair together is beyond imagination. 3/3

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 22: How would you describe the tone of your WIP? Hopeful, dark, funny, emotional etc?

I think it's a juxtaposition of angry and bitter, wonder-filled, and hopeful.

(I was not planning to have anger or bitterness in it, but I'm afraid they will be unavoidable after both Trump's re-election and the past few years of response to Covid.)

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 23: What holiday treat will you enjoy while writing over the holidays?

I've been having sugar cookies as a wintertime treat, and had a little eggnog last night. With rum. (And sadly, just a teeny bit too much nutmeg. But it was seasonal!)

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 24: The elves have granted you one writing wish. What do you wish for?

For my first novel to be a smashing success.

Once that happens, I'm sure I can keep going on the momentum that will start me off with.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 25: Merry Christmas. Are you having a writing-free day or sneaking in a few paragraphs?

I celebrate the Winter Solstice, not Christmas.

Since I have Christmas as a work-free day, I'll be trying to get more writing done than I usually do on workdays (i.e., treating it as a regular weekend day).

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 26: Do real-life events inspire your writing? Share an example.

Not exactly "inspire", but since my WIP is set in the current day, I am keeping track of ways that current events might crop up in my characters' lives. One example is the solar eclipse that happened on April 8th of this year, although it wasn't very noticeable at all in San Francisco.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 27: How consistent are you with your writing? Daily? Weekly? Whenever you get the chance in your already overloaded life?

Pretty much daily, although I occasionally skip a day. According to my progress logs, that's happened 14 times in the past six months: on July 17th, 18th, and 22nd; August 28th; September 4th and the 18th through 21st (when I'd just started my new job and my whole routine was disrupted); October 3rd and 18th; and November 2nd, 26th and 27th. 1/3

So currently (over the past 90 days) I spend an average of 55 minutes on weekdays and 1:29 on weekends and holidays.

(But the last 30 days, it's 1:04 on weekdays and 1:44 on weekends. I am bringing it up again, now that I've got my routine back together. Just slowly.) 3/3

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 28: Have any resources improved your storytelling skills?

I think the thing that's improved them the most, if anything has, has just been paying attention to stories as I read or watch them, and seeing how they do it. What works, what doesn't... what affects me and gets me caring about the stories and the people.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 29: What are your feelings towards readers?

I've always loved people who read a lot, even before I started trying to become a writer. But I guess that's my feelings toward *bibliophiles*, as a random person. My feelings toward readers, as a writer? 1/3

Without readers, I could complete my story and feel proud of what I'd done, but it would also still feel like the loop hadn't really been closed, like a part of the thing was still slightly incomplete.

It'd feel *lonely*. 3/3

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 30: Do you like a book that is challenging or just carries you along?

I'm okay either way; they both have their places.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 31: What were the big writing moments for you in 2024?

I don't think there have really been any. I've just been plugging away, keeping on going, but I haven't had any big milestones with it this year.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 1: What are your writing goals for 2025?

Number one: finish my first draft! Good grief, I've been working on background and supporting material for so long...

So, yeah. Finish the first draft. Hopefully in time to be able to let it rest for a month or two and then do at least one editing pass on it. 1/2

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 2: Have you ever made up something in a story which has come true in real life?

Not yet, no.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 3: What form do your stories take? Flash, short, novella, novel or other?

Novels. I'm writing vignettes for practice, but they're not really "full stories" in my opinion, they're just snippets or scenes or suchlike.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 4: As a writer, what do you get from social media?

Conversation and maybe even a little bit of community with other writers.

Maybe someday it can also be a channel to advertise or promote myself, but that'd be way premature at this stage.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 5: January can be a dull month (especially in the UK). What’s your worst writing month, and why?

I don't have a general month of the year that's bad. This particular year, November was kind of bad for my writing, but that's because it was a particularly bad month for my mental health in general, due to the awful US election results.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 6: What’s your current writing project? How’s it going?

The urban fantasy novel about people who can talk to the spirit of the City and do magic as a result, the one I've been talking about since I got on Mastodon in the first place.

It's going... far more slowly than I'd like. But it is going.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 7: What are your biggest hopes for the writing world in 2025?

I have a fair amount of hope that it'll continue rejecting attempts to cram AI down everyone's throats. I also hope that smaller publishing houses thrive and prosper.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 8: Do you agree with Samuel Johnson, who said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money”?

Regardless of who said that or what the context was, no. I disagree with the basic proposition. What kind of grind/hustle-culture bullshit is that? Not everything needs to be monetized.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 9: Do you borrow settings, plots or characters from other works (without plagiarism)?

I'm not borrowing any of those at the moment, but I *am* borrowing (and slightly tweaking) a particular book from another work. It'll be a noticeable homage to that work, which is set in San Francisco.

And that's all I'm saying about that until it's published.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 10: Do you use dream sequences in your work? How do you feel about them?

Curiously, I've wound up in a situation where, because of some stuff about how magic works, certain characters *must* be getting prophetic dreams. So I'll need to depict at least 1 or 2 of those on the page, although more can simply be described after the fact. 1/2

In general, I'm a little wary of dream sequences, as they're easy to do poorly — especially for beginning and less-skilled writers.

I plan to approach mine carefully, and with respect for their difficulties and the ramifications of getting them wrong. 2/2

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 11: Do you write or imagine a backstory for your secondary characters, or do they pop into existence as required?

Absolutely the former. I figure out how old they are, where they're from, what they like to do in their spare time, all that kind of thing.

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 12: Do characters use words not in the language you write in? Italics for this, or not?

Nearly all of my characters speak at least two languages. In fact, using a non-native language can be useful in spellcasting in my world, since it forces you to concentrate more on your words.

Also, 3 of my 5 MCs are *natively* bilingual. 1/2