Two years ago, I booked a trip which has now begun, and I’m so excited.
In my last newsletter, I dropped a big hint on where I’d be going:
If I have adequate internet access in February, while traveling, I’ll share some of this first adventure with you on the blog. Hint: Macaroni, Magellanic, Rockhopper, Gentoo.
Sharp-eyed animal lovers will peg those names as several species of penguin. Yes, I’m in Argentina and en route to Antarctica!
Today’s post is part of the February is Fantasy blog event, so you might want to look around and see what else is happening! Me, I’m talking about research for writing fantasy.
Yes, research for fantasy. If you want to see me flip out like an emo teen ninja whose parents were murdered by zombie pirates, casually mention how easy fantasy writers have it since they can just, you know, make everything up.
Do you guys remember back when I talked about an urban fantasy featuring Japanese youkai in the American northwest? K. Bird Lincoln’s Dream Eater was a fun ride featuring one of the less popularized youkai and Native American entities as well, in the fun setting of Portland. (Fun…
In case you missed my previous post, this month a lot of authors are participating in the Giftmas 2018 blog tour to raise money for the Edmonton Food Bank. Our readers have been great; you can check our final stats over here.
Each day of the tour, an author has posted a free story to support the effort. But it’s possible that you didn’t get to them all, or that you hate reading on a blog instead of in your favorite ereader or on traditional wood pulp.
Well, Merry Christmas! Because today we have an anthology for you.
It’s become something of a tradition to join editor and author Rhonda Parrish in her Giftmas blog tour to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank, and now we’re back again! I’m picking up the blog baton from author E.C. Bell. And this year we have something new and cool for you!
Every stop along the tour, starting December 1, will have a story or poem for you. It’s free — a gift, you might say. So you’ll have 24 free stories just for coming along with us.
We’ve just finished Thanksgiving here, complete with turkey and Beef Wellington and dinosaurs.
Thanksgiving is fundamentally about both gratitude and sharing. Frequently at the end of the year, I list some of my charities and invite readers to donate with me. We don’t talk amounts, there are no special prizes, it’s just me sharing some causes and the organizations I trust to do something about them. None of these links are connected to me, I get no kickback or prize for referrals or anything. This is just part of me thanking all of you for helping me to support these groups, who offer help to all in need regardless of identity, creed or worldview, etc.
So, in no particular order:
Me: “Hey, I’ve always wanted to do a Joseph retelling. Maybe I should think about that, now that I’m making such good progress on my final installment rewrites.”
Brain: “Yeah, you’re doing pretty well on those. Just trying to weave all those subplots together into a satisfying ending.”
Me: “Yep. It’s complicated, but I’m going to get there.”
Brain: “You sure will. And on that note….”
Last year at Realm Makers conference, I sat in a session with author Wayne Thomas Batson, in which he assigned us a writing exercise. I don’t remember exactly what the prompt was, something about tension, except that it had to be a scene with two people and we had to use two supplied, uncommon character names. (As I wrote in first person, my protagonist’s name is lost to my faulty memory. Ah, the sadness. Edit: Thanks to fellow attendee Andy for reminding me of Biff!)
Okay, rather than snarking at the separate statements which have combined into a irritating whole, I’m just gonna say this over here, as a sort of inspirational rant.
I’m going to use NaNoWriMo and myself as my talking example, because it’s general and won’t point blame to anyone, and also because it’s an easy example this month. But this concept goes well beyond NaNo.
So here goes:
EVERYONE HAS COMMITMENTS. EVERYONE HAS OBSTACLES. EVERYONE HAS EXCUSES.
Let’s talk about human nature, and how we let it boss us around.
Last year I entered the NYC Midnight Short Story Contest, my first try. There are three rounds of competition with a final prize of $5,000 for the winner and still-significant cash for the top ten.
I won my heat in the first round, with a story I love.
I got second place in my heat in the second round, making it into the final 75 — out of thousands of entrants — for the final round.
And then I tanked in the final round, turning in a story I knew was insufficient but just couldn’t fix by deadline. No placement. It was frustrating because I wasn’t just beaten by an excellent story (although I’m sure it was!), which I would have been fine with, but because I didn’t produce a competitive story, and I knew it even as I turned it in.
