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  #WritersCoffeeClub Oct 10: Do you have a guiding principle as a writer? What is it? (Or why not?) Get it right and tell the truth.

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  #WordWeavers Oct 10: What is one thing your antagonist genuinely admires about your MC? Carl admires Melissa for her looks. Her other qualities he never really thinks about until she's gone.

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  #PennedPossibilities 151. What is your MC’s relationship to what modern society considers the paranormal or supernatural? Neither Melissa nor Steven quite believe in anything they can't put their hands on in some way.

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  One of the weirdest coincidences of my author career to date: back on August 9, I recorded a podcast episode with Drinking with Authors, scheduled to air on October 10 (today). No one could have known that a hurricane would have hit the eastern edge of the American Gulf Coast the day before it was broadcast. The section where we talk about hurricane preparedness really hits differently today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo1bJ8kPf3Y

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  Latest blog post! https://julieliddellwhitehead.com/2026/10/11/happy-sunday/

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  #WordWeavers 12. Which relationship in your story changed the most from what you originally planned? Patterico and Steven. And I take the Fifth on as to why.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub – 11th Oct. What's a turn of phrase you've 'inherited' from someone else? "Would it hurt your jaws to say yes sir?"

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  #PennedPossibilities 1152. MC POV: A time you ran out of options was… Melissa: Whan I decided to leave Carl for good. Steven: When Sandi called me from the New Orleans airport.

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  #ScribesAndMakers – 11th Oct. Is there a word whose meaning is benign that still grates on you for some reason? Oof. That's a hard question.

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  #ScribesAndMakers Oct. 12: Do you ever talk to people in song lyrics? Oh, constantly.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub 12 Oct What do you specialise in, prose-wise? Only book is fiction. But the largest body of work is newspaper articles.

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  #PennedPossibilities 1153. Do you ever incorporate elements of horror into your work? No. I'm easily grossed out. I don't want to read that kind of thing out loud at an event and make myself sick. So I don't write it.

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  #PennedPossibilities 1154, MC POV: Name a time you laughed the hardest. With whom, and why? Melissa: God, I have no idea. Steven: Patterico let out a blue streak of cussing last week after a management meeting where he had to keep his cool with a vendor. He came in my office, shut the door, sat down, stared out my window, and cussed the guy back three generations. I couldn't help it.

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  #ScribesAndMakers Oct 13: Schadenfreude? It is an almost-irresistible impulse at this point in my life. But I do try to fight it.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub Oct 13th: What writerly weakness do you overcorrect for? I would say that I explain everything a little too much. But it depends on what the story is actually trying to accomplish whether I lose that material or keep it.

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  #WordWeavers Oct 13: What is something your MC would risk their life to protect but would struggle to explain why? Steven: ANY woman in his orbit. Whether he knows them or not. Melissa has never taken any risk in her life without a reason she can explain.

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  #WordWeavers 10/15: What piece of backstory did you invent just for yourself that readers may never learn? Why Steven Burr calls his father-in-law Dr. Taylor.

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  #PennedPossibilities 1157. Tell us a random, interesting fact about your WIP. It almost became a Southern Gothic contemporary with major elements of the supernatural in the plot. But I cut all of that.

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  #ScribesAndMakers 10/15: How confident are you feeling about your work today? Six on a scale of 1-10.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub Oct. 15: What's the last thing you read to really impress you, prose-wise? Oof. No idea.

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  #PennedPossibilities 993 — As we are approaching Prompt 1000 and there’s been a lot of reflection on this project (for the host, floofpaldi), let’s reflect on our writing journeys, how far we’ve come, friends we made, what we’ve learned along the way, etc. I've learned that the main impediment to reaching my goals is . . . me. If I don't put in the work, NOTHING happens. If I put in the work and nothing happens, at least I can sleep soundly at night knowing I tried my best.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub Feb 27: Do you edit while you write? Yes. I like to get the sentences as good as I can in that moment before I write the next one. That doesn't keep me from editing after the piece is complete, but I don't like just spilling things onto the page without looking at the, again in the moment.

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  #ScribesAndMakers 20 Feb: What's a misconception that bothers you in popular media? That all situations/characters/moral choices boil down to black and white binaries.