The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Notes from the Management

  • New Year, New You? (Week of 6 January 2013)

    Winter is a time when things reset, readying themselves to be born anew when the weather warms up, and for assessing what needs to be done. And 2013 has a great deal of promise for us here at the Cafe. Several regulars have been published and are continuing to be published in the months ahead.

    But we wanted to take another look back over the past year and see if anything’s changed for us. Are we still writing in the genre of our choice? Why? Has our writing changed? If it has – why? On close inspection (or just off the top of your head) do you think you’ve changed as a writer? Grown? Gotten more or less confident?

    Why?

    Our awareness as writers has shifted, certainly, and it’s time to take that deeper look and see if we’re still the same as we were last Winter. Can some cycles be broken or should they be embraced?

    Pull up a chair, wrap your hands around that warm mug of tea, coffee, or cocoa, and let us regale you with our thoughts. We promise it’ll be informative.

  • Migrating Away from FeedBurner

    If you subscribe to the Confabulator Cafe RSS feed, please note that we are moving away from FeedBurner as our web feed management provider. Recent events have suggested that FeedBurner is no longer a viable option, and we are investigating other possibilities.

    In the meantime, you can directly subscribe to the Cafe feed by clicking the RSS feed button in the sidebar.

    Any of our readers who have a technical solution that would be better, please let us know in the comments below.

    Thanks,

    The Cafe Management

  • The Implications of Action (Week of 5 March 2012)

    The Confabulators came together on a Sunday afternoon last summer and began designing what would become the Cafe, where you’re reading this right now. Though it’s not a physical place, we imagine it being like the interior of a loft with a lot of brick and low-hanging lights that illuminate really only the centers of the tables they hang over, leaving the rest of the place in shadow most of the day.

    When someone comes into the Cafe and looks at the menu, there’s a promise implicit between the two: Here’s what we have to offer and it’s up to you to choose what might interest you.

    Our crew does its best to bring a variety of opinions and insights for your reading pleasure. This week we’re investigating the implications of action: showing versus telling and what that reveals about character. Some of us are exploring how much we trust our readers and how much description goes into our stories. It promises to be a very enlightening week of blogging. Come back as often as you can.

    Who had the tall mocha?

  • How Much Is Your Writing Like Your Favorite Author’s? (Week of 30 January 2012)

    Don’t try to deny it: everyone who does anything creative is influenced by another who has done something similar before. Sometimes the impetus to pursue a career is as simple as “I can do better than her” or even more basic, like “I wish I could do that like him”. What it takes is the courage to make the attempt. Jedi Master Yoda is famously and often quoted: “Do or do not. There is no try.” We are exhorted to “Just Do It” by Nike ads. But whose lead do we follow?

    For writers, we have to learn at the feet of the masters. Just who those masters are is up for grabs, though. Each person views their own hero as a master, whether or not the rest of the world does. That said, most of the names dropped this week in the Cafe are universally acknowledged as masters of the craft of writing. Many have won awards that are ultimately meaningless. Or are they?

    The Confabulators walk the borderlands between what’s real (coffee, for instance) and what’s not (imagination, as an example). Meshing the two is a lot of work. Creating believable settings for readers to get lost in takes practice, too. And each of us has aped a style made famous by someone else. It’s all part of the process. That said, we don’t take standing on the shoulders of giants lightly. Come in, pull up a seat and see what we mean by that.

  • How do you go about developing ideas? (Week of 23 January 2012)

    The Cafe is a busy place. There are only a few tables in the small space and all of them have at least one writer at them, working in different ways on different things. Literary Dr. Frankensteins assembling their creatures out of surreptitiously collected parts and amalgamated into something new, hopefully something better. Occasionally you’ll hear one of us shout “IT’S ALIVE” and you’ll see the others look up from their work and smile. We’ve all been there.

    This week the Confabulators offer another behind the scenes look into how their brains work on developing ideas, including when they need to be abandoned. This a rare glimpse into the deeper processes of how a writer goes about writing. Each of us is different and thinks so differently you might be hard-pressed to say that any of us is really talking about the same thing. Take a closer look though. A close read will reward you with deep insights.

    As always, let us know what you think in the comments. Come on in, have a latte, grab a scone.

  • What tools do you use? What’s your writing routine? (Week of 16 January 2012)

    In a place as diverse as the Confabulator Cafe, you’ll discover a wide range of things on each table as you pass through with your latte. Whether using a PC or Mac the writers type away in any number of word processors or software programs while creating their novels. There are even a couple of Confabulators who have written their novels completely on paper. Most of us take notes on paper whenever inspiration strikes and that’s just as wide a variety of pens, pencils and paper and napkins, too. (The napkins in the Cafe are heavy, 8″x 8″ luncheon napkins, by the way. We spare no expense because ideas have to be captured. There’s also a cup of pens on each table, usually left by previous patrons.)

    So this week, you’ll find what our bloggers prefer to use to write. What may be most revealing is that some of us change, some of us don’t. Routine is just as important as what tools are used. Everyone has his own way of doing things and that’s just how we like it around here. Never mind that sound of crashing cups, saucers and plates. It’s all part of the atmosphere.

  • What’s your favorite book? (Week of 09 January 2012)

    Welcome back to the Cafe. Part of being a writer is being a reader. Every writer’s got one book they go back to for various reasons. (Or maybe not. Several of us couldn’t pick just one book.) Anyway, we’re telling you this week what our favorites are. Maybe some of them are among your own favorites, maybe you’ll discover some new titles you’ll want to read. Hopefully you’ll be entertained by the answers and enlightened when you get to read some of the work our writers are producing.

    We’re glad you’re here for Week 2 of the Cafe. Get something to drink, pull up a chair and feel free to join the conversation in the comments.

  • Where Do You Get Your Ideas? (Week of 02 January 2012)

    This is the one question that everyone who is creative gets asked the most often. We thought we’d head off the obvious questions first so we asked our bloggers directly: Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Where Do They Come From?

    The variety of answers is telling and as individual as each blogger who took the time to let you into their head. You may find some answers satisfying, some not. That’s the way it goes. However, the insight is valuable for each of us in the Cafe. We need to know that we’re not alone, that what’s happening in the dark recesses of our minds isn’t cause for concern. Or maybe it is.

    Judge for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments.

  • About the Cafe Blog

    Hello!

    We’re the Confabulator Cafe, a group of writers based in Kansas (with one in Texas) at various points in writing careers. Some of us have already been published or are about to be, some of us are ready to start sending query letters to publishers and agents, some of us just plain enjoy writing. What most of us have in common is that we have participated in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. We also have in common a love of Story whether written, filmed, scored or told over a cup of coffee (or any other beverage). The Cafe is our campfire, if you will, the blog our very own Crier.

    What you’ll find here is us interviewing each other, asking about what we like, how we do what we do and why, how we’re influenced by each other and the world at large and so much more. Each week there’s a new question for the bloggers that’s answered Monday through Thursday and on Fridays everyone in the Cafe chimes in on the Ephemera question.

    We hope you’ll join us by dropping this blog into a feed reader or stopping by often to sample the foamy thoughts of our word baristas. We live on coffee and sweets (especially during NaNo) and we brew our own blends here. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments section of each post and let us know what you think.

    Your friends,

    The Confabulators

  • The Cafe is Open…

    Welcome to the Confabulator Cafe, purveyor of good food, strong drink, and stories by the fire. If you have just wandered in, please have a seat. A server will be with you momentarily.