“Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don’t just survive. Celebrate.”
― Charles Frazier
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, good things happen too, inspiration, Thoughts | Leave a Comment »
For various reasons, my new writing output has been a little slow, but today I thought to myself, “Self, if you don’t have any new material to submit for publication, you should submit some of your favorite reprints and see if they can find a new audience.”
I thought that was a great idea.
Perhaps you have the Next Great Novel all ready to go (more power to you, friend), but even if you don’t I bet you still have something you can send out.
If you use The Grinder for your submission tracking (and I recommend that site highly), it’s easy to search for reprint markets.
So keep writing and submitting, getting those ho hum rejections and delicious acceptances, as often as you can. It’s all part of the Great Circle of Writing Life™.
Submit early, submit often!
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, submission manager, submissions, The Grinder, Thoughts, Writers, writing | Leave a Comment »
Need a quick pick-me-up? Here you go:
Mischief reigns in a small Canada community after a kidnapping left a man’s garden vacant of the ten ceramic garden gnomes that resided there.
(Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending.)
I’ve had a soft spot for gnomes ever since my parents gave me a copy of this classic: Gnomes by Wil Huygenn (Rien Poortvliet, ill.)
#/media/File:Wil_Huygen_-_Gnomes.jpeg)
Most of my childhood books went by the wayside over the years, but I’ve slowly built my library back up with replicas of my favorites. I’m looking at a new copy of Gnomes on my bookshelf right now.
“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”
― Tom Robbins
May you never lose your childhood delights.
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, books, Fiction, gnomes, kindness, Thoughts, whimsy | Leave a Comment »
Aaaaaand, it’s back. Smoke from fires out west is making its way to us here on the East Coast. From the archives, let me again share this handy map with smoke forecasts.
Because, well, you know. We’re probably going to need it again.
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, climate change, tools | Leave a Comment »
I need to add the stories I’ve posted here to my Fiction page. I tend to post many of the shorter stories here and it’s easy to forget a piece or three.
I stumbled on this one the other day, from March 15, 2023.
I came from the stars to meet you. I was happy. Excited, even. First contact with your verdant world. Think of all that we could share with you.
“You” could have meant a lot of things. I started with one of the most populous. An insect.
I remember little of what it was like, a flash of light, a warm wriggle in a puddle after rain. The feel of wind in my wings.
It’s embarrassing to say this now, but I was promptly eaten.
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, aliens, genre fiction, sff, writing | Leave a Comment »
What are you working on today? Here at Chez J, we’re prepping three major house projects (okay, fine, Mr Man is currently the one wielding the power tools, but I am extremely supportive!), thinking up story ideas, and working the day job.
/cracks neck, ’90s action movie style
Let’s get this done, shall we?
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Posted in Other | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Thoughts | Leave a Comment »
The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970), U.S. novelist, poet, playwright, painter.
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Fiction, society, Thoughts, Writers, writing | Leave a Comment »
I could spend the next hour writing up a thoughtful treatise on some writing-related topic, edit, re-edit, and finally post. Or I could treat you to a pretty picture and go chill in the backyard with a book.
Hmm. Which would you pick?
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, me not writing, Thoughts | Leave a Comment »
“When it looks impossible, look deeper. And then fight like you can win.”
—Aloy, Horizon Forbidden West
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, inspiration, Thoughts, writing | Leave a Comment »
How does science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders record history that hasn’t happened, build cities that may never exist, and ground her stories in unreal realities? And what advice does she give for those of us working to build our own fictional futures?
…I kind of start by daydreaming the wildest stuff that I can possibly come up with, and then I go back into research mode, and I try to make it as plausible as I can by looking at a mixture of urban futurism, design porn and technological speculation. And then I go back, and I try to imagine what it would actually be like to be inside that city. So my process kind of begins and ends with imagination, and it’s like my imagination is two pieces of bread in a research sandwich.
Whatever works for you, works. So go ahead and dream.
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Posted in Writing | Tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, genre fiction, ideas, Writers, writing, writing advice | Leave a Comment »
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