Category for all my writer-related stuff
With white writers writing more diverse characters, could we face a situation where the white writer with a diverse cast is seen as more diverse / given preference over a minority writer who choses to write a white cast? This question has been bothering me since a friend posted it. Read more
So you’re writing hard science fiction. You’ve spent a week researching the thermal control systems on space stations for a scene where you need a time-dependent problem for the heroes to fix. The problem is, you’ve got like an 80-page dissertation on exactly what goes wrong and how to fix Read more
I’ve often found myself frustrated that the stories I pick up are always from the point of view of the starship captain and not the person who swabs the decks. Everything seems to be about millionaires and industry leaders, super-stars. Once I asked a writer why he didn’t write more Read more
This is really aimed at Clarion attendees, but feel free to extrapolate out to any intense writing workshop you have to apply to get into and re-arrange your life to attend. You got in. Congratulations. Now you’re arranging your work time off, or you’re picking clothes to pack, and everything Read more
I recently re-read an old blog post I did on my rejection statistics for sold stories. I had sold 9 stories at that time (March of 2016) and averaged 10.1 rejections on sold stories, with 22 highest rejections and 4 lowest. How has that changed now that I’ve sold 40 Read more
When I started writing fiction, and thought of my potential audience, I knew who I wanted to appeal to: Everyone. Well, okay, that’s impossible, but I had this idea there was a sort of mass of “normal” people out there who were dominant. I should write for them, the normals. Read more
When I was starting out as a short story writer –and for longer after I started than I am proud to admit– I thought my stories should grow organically as I wrote them, that they should be spontaneous things unexpected even to myself. Writing without a plan is so prevalent Read more