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Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Note to self:

“A year from now you will wish you had started today.” 

— Karen Lamb, author

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Photo by Sergio R. Ortiz on Unsplash

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A Wonderful Thing

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I recently had an article featured in the Winter 2024 edition of Review Tales. (I’d share the essay but unfortunately it’s not freely available.) If you click through the magazine links, you’ll see my article highlighted in the bottom right-hand corner of the cover. I’m writing about something with which I am all too familiar! “When the Muse Takes a Holiday.”

* Find Review Tales at Amazon and B&N.

I will say that the promotional elements of creative work can be a little challenging. I’ve never been that comfortable talking about myself. 

It’s not about me, I want to say. Art is about us, and the world we create together. 

“It can seem like it’s about, Look at me! Like me! Approve of me!’, but I think it’s really about finding your people. It’s about connections, especially when you grow up feeling different and like you don’t have a community. Through art, you’re able to find that community, which is a wonderful thing.”

— Maya Erskine, on why she’s drawn to acting despite “a childhood in which she desperately wanted to blend in”

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Photo by Barry Weatherall on Unsplash

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Please Yourself

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.”

— Herbert Swope, American editor and journalist

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Photo by Nikola Bačanek on Unsplash

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New Interview Out Today

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

My interview with the lovely Kim Lengling of the Let Fear Bounce podcast is live today! 

We had a great time discussing writing, creativity, my experience with Writers of the Future and many other topics, and I hope you enjoy it too. 

Check out the interview on YouTube or Spotify, and enjoy!

Pen to Paper: Navigating a Writer’s Reality – Author J.R. Johnson

Let Fear Bounce – Tossing out nuggets of hope | Podcast on Spotify

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Photo by Georgia Mashford on Unsplash

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What We Can Become

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Released today, Grist’s Imagine 2200 contest brings new, more hopeful, visions of the future.

Imagine 2200: The 2024 climate fiction contest collection | Grist

Grist’s Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors short story contest celebrates stories that offer vivid, hope-filled, diverse visions of climate progress. From 1,000 submissions, our reviewers and judges selected the three winners and nine finalists you will discover in this collection. These stories are not afraid to explore the challenges ahead, but offer hope that we can work together to build a more sustainable and just world. Through rich characters, lovingly sketched settings, and gripping plots, they welcome you into futures that celebrate who we are and what we can become — and, we hope, inspire you to work toward them.

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Photo by Jonas Verstuyft on Unsplash

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Something Old Is Something New

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

When I’m reading and see a word that’s unfamiliar, I like to look it up. This weekend, that word was “tonitruous.” I ran across it while reading book three in The Salvagers series by Alex White: The Worst of All Possible Worlds.

Never heard of it? Neither had I. Neither had my Kobo’s dictionary, which is unusual. It was time to dig deeper.

Tonitruous Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

tonitruous from Latin tonitruum thunder

English use of the word was first documented in “The Challenge of the Knights Errant” by William Drummond in 1606.

And now I’m delighted to say that I’ve learned something new.

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Photo by Shashank Sahay on Unsplash

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Cherish the Oddities

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on January 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. To “Why am I here?” To uselessness. It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.

— Enid Bagnold (1889–1981), British novelist, playwright

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Photo by Dulcey Lima on Unsplash

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Why AI?

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Fellow Writers of the Future winner (2018) N.R.M. Roshak has started an excellent weekly newsletter on AI. Check it out if you’re interested in what’s happening in the field, how this tech is influencing social, business, and other arenas, or why I post results like this: Bright Colors, Happy Tone.

View back issues and subscribe here: Newsletter: AI Week.

It’s not for experts and it’s extremely readable. It’s really aimed at science fiction writers and readers: non-experts (like me) who are interested in the impact of this tech on society.

Enjoy!

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Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

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You Don’t Give Up

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don‘t give up.”

— Anne Lamott

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Photo by peace world 🌎 on Unsplash

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Bright Colors, Happy Tone

Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on January 17, 2024| 1 Comment »

I’d hoped to carve out some writing time today but instead I’m dealing with a lot of weird tech issues, some of which are concrete problems and some just disappointments.

Here’s an example of the latter. Note the prompt.

AI prompt: A metal cyborg unicorn bright colors happy tone

No, AI. Just… no.

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