Blathering
Mother’s Day
I was too young to babysit, and had no allowance, so all the money I had came from the sidewalk or from returning glass bottles to the corner store. The week of Mother’s Day I shook out my tootsie-roll shaped Read more
Blathering
How I Spend My Time
Other writers frequently ask me how I get so much done, what my schedule or writing practice is like. I decided to actually track my activity for a week and see what it looked like so I was answering honestly. Read more
Blathering
Innocence
We’re re-watching Gargoyles, a favorite cartoon from my childhood. In the most recent episode, Demona, the Bad Girl Gargoyle, is trying to show how humanity is evil, and one things she shows is a purse-snatching, and she stops her friend Read more
Writing
Showing a Decision
How do you show a character doing something that is inherently non-visual? Many stories hinge on a character making a decision. What does that look like? It can be easy to fall into listing all the options, writing out the Read more
Excerpts or Whole Work
Free Words Because Awards
Big news: I have made the long list for the British Science Fiction Association Awards – for both Novel and Short Story. Because hey, it wouldn’t hurt if people who vote for awards could actually read things, I have made Read more
Blathering
When Did You Learn You Had a Class?
“We live in a classless society,” I’d been told as a kid in a white suburban school where most of my classmates were from comfortable middle-class families. I’d been told it so many times I regurgitated it myself, in a Read more
Writing
Works in Progress
Every time I finish a writing journal, I start the next one with a list of Works In Progress. These are unfinished things which I genuinely intend to finish (like all writers I have a truly epic pile of never-intend-to-finish Read more