They say — or, at least, a lot of famous writers say — that to become a good writer, you should also read a lot.
This makes sense to me. I try to learn from whatever I’m reading — even if it’s ad copy in a magazine. Even if it’s from bad writing. At least I can learn how not to write an ad, a book, a short story.
No reading is ever wasted if you learn from it.
Continue reading “Current reads”Perhaps for the writer, beginner’s mind can begin with the notion of writing as a journey, an exploration with no specific destination in mind.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
but in the expert’s there are few.
— Shunryu Suzuki
I’ve only been at this creative writing thing for a year, but sometimes I forget that I’m a beginner. With that in mind, I’m trying to embrace and understand anew the concept of beginner’s mind. So in an attempt to wipe the slate clean, I’m going back to the beginning, or near beginning, of this writing journey by republishing a post from exactly a year ago. I post it to remind myself how much I need to still unlearn — and to remind me that I ain’t no guru.
Continue reading “Beginner’s mind and the writer”‘Never self-reject. You never know who might buy what!’
Her background in journalism and television production no doubt has helped Angelique Fawns establish herself as a prolific writer of speculative fiction. And she’s one terrific and imaginative storyteller. The Canadian writer has published over 80 short stories since launching her short story writing career in 2018.
She’s also persistent, pushing aside those 500 rejections over her first three years to rack up an impressive catalog of publications.
And she’s generous. She’s turned her experience of researching the writing market of her chosen genre into a free collection of 13 of her sold stories and a look at the editors who bought them. She also has a guidebook for other writers listing a comprehensive guide to current speculative short story market. Think of it as a Writer’s Market for speculative fiction. (Subscribe to her paid Substack to obtain your copy.) She supplements that resource by posting the latest calls for submission, complete with details about each magazine, on her Substack and blog.
Continue reading “Friday Five: Q&A with speculative fiction author Angelique Fawns”Today my flash fiction piece “The Bad Like” became my first published short story of the new year. It was published by the literary humor magazine Witcraft. My thanks to Witcraft editor Doug Jacquier for accepting this story.
Image via Pexels
How to ‘let bits of your work see the light of day’
Note: This post has been revised to incorporate information about serialization that I’d overlooked previously.
This week, as I hunker indoors amidst a deep freeze here in Middle America, I’ve also been wading into the thick slog of my novel in progress (NIP). It’s been slow going at times, as I press on through the morass, a bit like an explorer who has lost his compass and looks backward to see if it’s too late to turn back. It feels daunting and lonely, and in more than once I’ve wondered if the slog is worth it.
Continue reading “On repurposing content from novels and other longer works”
