Sex and writing. I know, these two topics are always on our minds, right? And I’m amazed at the parallels you can find between the two. For example, suffering from writer’s block is not unlike being afflicted with sexual dysfunction. Maybe you try again and again but just can’t reach a fulfilling conclusion. Or you can’t even […]
Category > Not-Writing
(Not) Writing My Way Through Stressful Times
The last two months have not been easy. Long hours at the day job, unexpected travel, a major death in the family, stressful Christmas, several close friends in distress, and almost six full weeks of both of us being sick on top of that. Muscle aches and joint pain can be caused by tension, as well […]
A Strange Contagion: SF Writers and Standing Desks
Mary Kowal at her standing desk. Photo by Marcia Glover (c) 2011. There’s a strange contagion spreading throughout the SF writing community. What is this pernicious pestilence that has infected inkpunks? Is it perhaps knocking at your door in a brown uniform bearing giant, back-straining Amazon packages? Remy, you say, we read the fucking […]
Being okay with where you are
A few weeks ago, the very wonderful John Anealio wrote a great blog post about getting out of the success grind. What he said made a lot of sense. Sometimes your ego makes the artistic experience painful and miserable, and it’s stupid to turn the joy of our lives into torment. Sometimes you have to […]
When projects die
Sometimes projects die. You can pour your heart into a story or a book and for some reason, it might never reach an audience. Even if it’s a good story–sometimes bad things happen to good projects. I don’t just mean that you sent your work out in the world and it failed to find a […]
Giving Yourself Permission to Take a Break
I don’t talk much about my day job on this blog. This is partly due to a desire to compartmentalize Andrew Penn Romine, the budding author from Andy Romine, the visual effects & animation artist – two careers that have, in my mind, always been separate and distinct. Two creative paths with their own trajectories […]
Sometimes We Need a Kick in the Butt
As new writers, the number one piece of advice we hear is to get your butt in chair and keep it there. Great advice, but what if we get our butt in the chair, but the words don’t want to come? There’s nothing more frustrating than fighting to get the words down. If you’re like […]
Popcorn time
You know what’s the only thing better than being a writer? Watching writers on tv. In honor of Labor Day, a holiday which demands either hard-core outdoor activity (camping!) or an escape to an air-conditioned home theater, here are my five favorite movies about writers. 5. Sophie’s Choice Only the most depressing movie ever […]
Summertime, summertime
So … summertime. I love it. As a kid, I spent summers reading. As in nonstop, around the clock reading–one wonderful summer I counted reading 125 books in two weeks. These days, I still feel like I should spend most of my summer catching up on my reading list. But I don’t dig into the […]
The Job Continuum
For the last week and a half, the Inkpunks have been in a pretty serious discussion of our work-life-art relationships. As artists, it’s almost impossible not to struggle to find some kind of balance between the need for money and the need to create. Sometimes it feels like the two needs are completely inimical and […]
