As I said in my last post, it turns out that when you send stories regularly in answer to calls for submissions, you sometimes get stories accepted! I’m very excited to break my long publishing silence with a release in a new magazine, Storyteller, with a story that’s been a particular favorite of mine (even when…
Category: Writing
Aqua Vitae
Jenes Inarya wants to live to experience everything, and it just might be possible. Her quest for immortality leads her through myth and legend to the farthest reaches of the galaxy (well, so the Jericho magazine article said, although it’s prone to exaggeration). And it’s only the beginning. The rest of a very long life…
12 Words to (Almost Always) Cut
Strong stories are not necessarily short. They don’t need to be Hemingway-esque masterpieces of bare prose (even Hemingway didn’t always write that way). And it would be hypocritical to argue for only short sentences or short paragraphs when I have to make a conscious effort to write either. But in a strong story, every word…
The Big List of Writing Writing Resources, Part One
You can write your story with nothing but a reasonably flat surface and something that leaves a mark, but it’s a lot easier when you have the right tools. Happily, there are a lot of useful resources out there. Here are some of my favorites. I encountered a few while writing The Starter Guide for Professional…
Living With Imposter Syndrome–Guest Post Live on Fictionvale!
The first mercy of impostor syndrome, in my experience at least, is that it isn’t constant. Instead it attacks at intervals, at moments of either my deepest despair or highest success. Of course success attracts this psychological beastie’s attention: in the grips of impostor syndrome, my jerky brain is happy to dismiss any achievement as…
All the Grammar Knowledge You Need for NaNo
National Novel Writing Month is not the time to become a grammar expert. The entire idea of this challenge is to stop worrying and write, that is, to churn out 1600+ words of prose each day, prose whose main glory is that it exists, not that it is perfect. Stopping to study capitalizing, punctuation, and…
Where You Can Get the Starter Guide for Professional Writers
I’m happy to announce that The Starter Guide for Professional Writers is now available at most online retailers! The Starter Guide for Professional Writers contains everything to know so that you can begin earning money for your writing. Ten chapters address every stage of writing, revising, releasing, and promoting your first (or second, or third) published…
“The Queen’s Arrival” in Liquid Imagination, and a Christmas Gift Idea
My mythic fantasy piece “The Queen’s Arrival” has been reprinted in Liquid Imagination Issue #19. It’s actually been up nearly a week, and I apologize for posting the link so late–though as you can see, things have been busy. I’ve only just got around to making my Christmas card & gift list and am starting…
Happy National Novel Writing Month!
For several hundred thousand writers, the great challenge of the year has just launched: for the next 30 days, they will be scrambling to maintain a semi-functional life while also producing 1,667 words per day, to end with a 50,000 word story on December 1st. I wish them luck. While I can’t deny the glories…
Useful Things of the Week
I don’t know if I’m actually going to make this a weekly post, but I suppose it depends on how much cool and useful stuff I find over the course of the week. An excellent quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Airman’s Odyssey comes to mind as I revise another article: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing…