There was a time when I was a card-carrying member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, otherwise known as SFWA. I let my membership lapse for a collection of reasons, specifically including the fact that a huge amount of its energy was being spent defining who could be a part of it […]
Read More ...Get With it, February
Nice news comes today in the form of an email from Matt Bennardo, who is accepting my work for the One Sentence Story anthology he’s working on with Katie Sekelsky. I’m terribly excited to be a part of this project, as it sounds like great fun. Can’t wait to get hold of it. My story […]
Read More ...Second Drafts
It’s always good to finish the second draft of a story. Using the Anne Lamott version of the writing process, the first draft is just for getting everything down, and the second draft is for fixing everything up. Let’s skip her definition of the third draft (and beyond!) right now because she calls it the […]
Read More ...Me: The Upset Reader
Today I read a short story that really bugged me. I won’t mention titles or names of writers for several reasons, not the least of which is that I could be wrong–or, better said, what I think might not be what you think. You might love this piece I’m going to talk about. And, in […]
Read More ...Writing Fiction: Resolution Check-in #3
As we’re drawing toward the end of the month I’ve been touched on progress toward my resolutions of the new year. The only one I haven’t commented on yet is: “Write fiction every day.” The fact is that I’ve missed three days. Well, technically I guess I’ve only missed two days, but I admit it’s […]
Read More ...Marriage and the Ability to Responsibly Create
I generally attempt to stay away from deep politics here. Not completely, of course. I’ve talked about health care a little, and I’ve touched very lightly on guns and our latest epidemic of mass shootings. In the old days, I wrote a bit on the Clinton impeachment that got some play on the main SFF.net […]
Read More ...Stories of the Month: Resolution Check-in #2
Here’s step two in my check-up on my New Year’s Resolutions. To (once again) remind, I made three resolutions. They were: Average over 20K steps a day Write fiction every day Read a short story every day I’m going to talk about the short fiction I’ve read this month (yeah, the month’s not over, but […]
Read More ...Resolution Check-in #1
Since we’re nearing the end of the month, I thought I would take a look at my New Year’s Resolutions. To remind, I made three of them. Average over 20K steps a day Write fiction every day Read a short story every day Today I’ll talk about he first one–personal activity. Let me start by […]
Read More ...My So Tough Life
Yesterday I received an email from a writer acquaintance who said she was working her way through “Five Magics,” and enjoying it. I can tell you that these kinds of things can be filed under “Things that Ain’t Too Bad.” # I suddenly find myself juggling three short stories, a series of novellas, and at […]
Read More ...In the Moment
I put another 1,200 words onto my “found” story idea this morning, bringing it up to something around 2,700 total and counting. It’s an interesting process right now because I’m moving forward without any real clue to where each section is going. It’s really a full discovery mode process, unnerving in ways, and thrilling in […]
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