I wrote this post and then realized that I’d read it somewhere before. It was on the blog of my friend and fellow Inkpunk Andy, who had a very similar experience to the one I just had: We both found out we could write science fiction. No, really! It’s a real discovery. One of the […]
Archive > March 2012
Guest post from Tracie Welser: On the First Sale, and Believing the Impossible
Today’s guest post comes from Tracie Welser, a graduate of Clarion West. Many thanks to Tracie for her contribution, and congratulations on the subject of her post! Scenario: a seemingly Impossible Thing occurs, and you freeze. Then your body ceases to behave normally, and your jaw works up and down but no sounds escape. The […]
Rules of writing: the auto-tune of literature
No one can tell me how to be me. The same goes for being a writer. Yet, I can’t help myself. The internet is full of mostly well-intentioned advice on writing — forums, essays, lists, and opinionated rant — and I soak it up. Chuck Wendig’s blog, one of my current favorites, is full of fun […]
Motivational Quotes for Writers
When I competed in fitness competitions, I used motivational quotes to help me put my best effort into every training session, to stick to the strict diet and to keep my enthusiasm high. I had them all over the place, in my workout journal, in my competitoin scrapbook, on the fridge and in my travel […]
Interview: Jay Lake
An October 2009 LiveJournal post about acceptances and rejections by Jay Lake led to an email exchange about his submission statistics. He graciously sent me a copy of his spreadsheet and I was going to compile some pretty, pretty graphs based on the data. I began a drastic life change (divorce) a week later and […]
Getting a Handle on Your Short Story Queue
At the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, there was a friendly competition to see who who could win the highest word count (for my session, it was Keffy, who did most of a NaNoWriMo in 3.5 days). I, on the other hand, was putting down more calories (in the form of brownies and cake baked each day […]
Time to Regroup
Like Wendy, John, and Sandra, I was at Rainforest Writer’s Retreat last week, too. I went with the purpose of working on my first novel, a beast I’ve been wrestling with since last year. I’d done all the necessary elevator pitches, outlines, synopses, and so forth, and had over 22k words written, so I figured […]
Satisfactory Sub-plots, Now With Pictures
Howard Tayler is the writer and illustrator behind Schlock Mercenary, the Hugo-nominated science fiction comic strip. Howard is also featured on the Parsec award-winning “Writing Excuses†podcast, a weekly ‘cast for genre-fiction writers. Howard’s artwork is featured in XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, a role-playing supplement by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, as well as in the […]
Let’s get away from it all!
I just got home from The Rainforest Writers Village writing retreat, which Inkpunks Sandra Wickham, John Remy, and Andrew Romine also attended (last year Adam Israel came, too). I stayed in a cabin with super-roommate Sandra, ate amazing meals (including a fantastic lunch cooked by kitchen wizard Mary Robinette Kowal), went to some incredibly informative […]
To Follow the “Rules” or Not: That is the Question
Rules. Advice. Words of wisdom. We writers are bombarded with information on how to write better, how to make our work more saleable, how to increase our daily word count etc. There are books on the subject. Blogs (including this one, which I hope you all find helpful ~winsome smile~). Whole conventions, with scores of […]
