Writing | J.R. Johnson

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

(Drumroll Please) The Nebula Award Finalists

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, Nebula Awards, Writers, writing on March 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Recently announced, here are the finalists for this year’s Nebula Awards! I don’t know about you, but I could use some alternate worlds to explore.

From MetaFilter, links for most stories in the short story and novelette categories:

Nebula Award for Novelette

“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video,” Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld)
“Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka,” Christine Hanolsy (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
“Another Girl Under the Iron Bell,” Angela Liu (Uncanny)
“What Any Dead Thing Wants,” Aimee Ogden (Psychopomp)
“Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being,” A. W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld)
“Joanna’s Bodies,” Eugenia Triantafyllou (Psychopomp)
“Loneliness Universe,” Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny)

Nebula Award for Short Story

“The Witch Trap,” Jennifer Hudak (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet)
“Five Views of the Planet Tartarus,” Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed Magazine)
“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole,” Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)
“Evan: A Remainder,” Jordan Kurella (Reactor)
“The V*mpire,” by PH Lee (Reactor)
“We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read,” Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine)

See the complete list here: SFWA Announces the 60th Annual Nebula Awards® Finalists!

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It Will All Make Sense

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, advice, art, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity — what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense.”

— Austin Kleon

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A Simple Act

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 14, 2025| 2 Comments »

If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.

— Mark Manson

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What One Can

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, inspiration, Thoughts on March 12, 2025| 2 Comments »

A great warhorse comes upon a tiny sparrow lying on its back with its feet in the air, eyes squinched tightly shut. The horse asks what it’s doing.

“I’m trying to help hold back the darkness,” replied the sparrow.

The horse roars with laughter. “That’s pathetic. What do you weigh, about an ounce?”

And the sparrow replies, “Well, one does what one can.”

— fable, recounted by Anne Lamott

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What AI Needs, Part 2

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, AI, creativity, technology, Thoughts on March 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

One thing that often happens when writers talk about writing is a discussion of the creative voice. Separate from the critical voice, the creative voice has been described as “a two-year old who just wants to play.”* It is key to writing.

Problems occur when that urge to play is shut down by the critical voice. That is the side of your mind that is trying to keep your child self from running out into the street without looking both ways, from getting baked** in public, from forgetting your homework, or otherwise making mistakes.

The critical voice is very little help when it comes to getting words on the page. It is pretty good, however, at keeping you from being run over and/or caught making up cases in legal filings. Just, you know, for example.

Bad ChatGPT, bad!

It occurs to me that in some ways, AI is that two-year old running around, trying to give you answers without thinking too hard about whether or not they are the right answers.

It needs a parental figure.

Am I thinking of a caretaker program that follows the AI around like a nanny, keeping it from sticking its finger in a light socket and cleaning up after it?

Yes, yes I am. (Fun story idea idea, too, my inner two-year old must be on the job.)

And hey, we’re already teaching AI mindfulness, why not this?

* I’m sure lots of people have said some version of this but I’m thinking specifically of Dean Wesley Smith.

** I meant to type “naked” but this works too.

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Your Light, Bright

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, haiku, poem, Thoughts on March 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Embrace the world’s gems
but know, of all that you see,
your light shines brightest.

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Free Fiction for You

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, free fiction, speculative fiction, Writers on March 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Oh hey, I think I missed sharing this collection of free stories from Reactor Magazine. I haven’t read all of these but Reactor tends to have very high-quality fiction, and all for free free free! Check it out, browse, and enjoy.

Some of the Best from Reactor: 2024 Edition!

The 2024 edition of Some of the Best From Reactor is out today! This bundle features just some of our favorites from the thirty-five original stories published on Reactor in the past year.

Of course, you can always read the selected stories—and all other Reactor stories—for free whenever you’d like! To make it even easier to catch up, we’ve gathered all our stories from 2024 in one convenient post.

Because life’s too short to read bad stories.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

― Philip Pullman

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Aim High!

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, creativity, goals, inspiration, Thoughts, values on March 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

— Michelangelo

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I Remain Optimistic

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 4, 2025| 1 Comment »

The good news is that I’m writing. The less good news is that I am not writing as much as I might want, but hey, that’s pretty much a requirement for the position of “Writer.”

In 1974, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a paper titled “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of ‘Writer’s Block.'” It contained a total of zero words.

— Mental Floss

I remain optimistic. Time to spend more time in the writing chair!

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