writing | J.R. Johnson

Posts Tagged ‘writing’

It’s Good to Have Goals, Book Edition

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, artists, creativity, genre fiction, illustrators, inspiration, writing on June 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I recently signed up for artist Louisa Pressler’s newsletter. Because someday, I’d love to have her illustrate one of my books.

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Why Be Kind

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, aliens, free fiction, genre fiction, sff, Thoughts, writing on June 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

As a follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of animal crossings as one way we can be kind to the other creatures with which we share this world, I decided to resurface a post from last year:

We Are Mirrors | J.R. Johnson

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.

Go forth, and be kind.

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Climate Futures Contest

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, cli-fi, climate change, creativity, genre fiction, hope, Thoughts, Writers, writing, writing contest on June 1, 2024| 1 Comment »

Are you the sort of writer who can imagine a better future? Do you care about the climate? This may be the contest for you!

Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest 2024: Submit your story | Grist

Imagine 2200 is an invitation to writers from all over the globe to imagine a future in which solutions to the climate crisis flourish and help bring about radical improvements to our world. We dare you to dream anew…

In 2,500 to 5,000 words, show us the world you dream of building…

There is no cost to enter. Submissions close June 24, 2024, 11:59 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time.

Here’s an example of a climate positive / “hey, maybe we will get out of this alive“ story:

Fishy by Alice Towey – Clarkesworld Magazine

I enjoyed it. Because I too dare to dream.

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*Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash*

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The Future Isn’t Written (Yet)

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’m sad that I haven’t written a lot of things, but I’m incredibly happy that I’ve written as much as I have. Because there was a point when I was younger where there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t write anything – I was just too frightened.

— Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

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Help Wanted: Must Love Laser Sharks

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, drabble, genre fiction, must love drabbles, Writers, writing on May 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I set out to write a post about climate fiction or reading the geophysical landscape or talking plants, but instead I detoured to write a drabble. Because some days are just like that.

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Help Wanted: Must Love Laser Sharks

The day dawned cold and dispirited. Nila gently set her coffee on the table to keep from screaming. Her mother had ejected her from The Lair exactly one year ago.

She scanned the classifieds out of habit. A new ad caught her eye:

Assistant needed. Must:

understand the intricacies of shark breeding;

be comfortable with most weaponry (prepare for mortal danger);

be skilled in fire management (including molten lava).

Salary negotiable; you keep what you kill.

Yes, please. Six months, twelve max, and she’d take over this aging villain’s empire. Her mother wouldn’t know what hit her.

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Doesn’t Always Feel That Way, Though, Does It?

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, back to work!, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

So I wake up this morning with that age-old cliché in my head: You have as many hours in a day as [Leonardo da Vinci].

Fill in your own preferred goal setter.* Mine changes depending on my current mood and projects. Sometimes it even helps;)

Onward!

* ~~Also, remember that if your exemplar is pre-20th century, your life expectancy is probably double theirs.~~ Strike that, we’re all under enough pressure as it is.

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Stop Worrying

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, confidence, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.”

— David Foster Wallace

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Legend Reads Legend

Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, alice-munro, Fiction, goals, inspiration, short stories, the greats, Writers, writing on May 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

You may have seen that Canadian author and Nobel laureate Alice Munro passed away this week. A prolific titan of the short story genre, she published her first story in 1950 and continued to produce award-winning work in the many decades since. When asked how she got started in short stories, she said it was because that’s all she had time for.

She certainly made it work.

Here, award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood reads Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro.

In this exclusive recording, The Handmaid’s Tale author reads the eponymous short story from the late Munro’s first collection in 1968.

If you’d like to read more of Munro’s work, here are 25 Alice Munro Stories You Can Read Online Right Now.

Enjoy!

“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

― Alice Munro, Selected Stories

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