Working on the write-a-thon I find myself approaching my laptop with much the same dread as a dentist’s drill. Do I gotta? Yes, young lady. You made a commitment. Now write! What happened? When I was a kid, you couldn’t stop me from writing! I filled entire spiral notebooks while Read more
Once again, I’ll be taking part in the Clarion Write-a-Thon to raise money for scholarships to the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop. Clarion was one of the best experiences of my life and I want to make it possible for other people to attend! What is a write-a-thon? Well, I Read more
For the 2015 Clarion Write-a-Thon I have pledged to write 50 stories by August 1. I’ve written 17 short story drafts so far. Here they are, in order: 1. The 7th Street Matriarchy – 1,700 words – a group of women trying to save their public housing project with distributed Read more
Why isn’t writing fun anymore? I asked in a previous post, and there was a simple answer. So: how to make it fun again? I can’t forget all the knowledge that makes me self-critical and slow to write. 1. Admit it’s not always fun. (I know, not what you wanted Read more
I used to think that writing would be like being an acrobat… performing breathless feats, leaving my audience stunned on the ground. Sure, there would be practice, grueling hours of it (didn’t we have “writing exercises” in school?) but that wouldn’t be the real work. I would practice and practice Read more
My dear friend Mary Turzillo prompted me in the last write-a-thon for “A cat falls in love with a chat bot.” This story, Kitten Lorelei ❤ CherryBerry24, was the result. Not since Zombie Hitler have I written something so marvelously silly. Drawing loosely on my early days as an online chat Read more
Okay so, I wasn’t going to do the write-a-thon this year. I feel like I spend too much time soliciting donations for various causes and I don’t want to bother people. Then I found out they did not have nearly as many authors this year as usual. So I kinda Read more