Announcement: Book deal & a new website

I can hardly believe this day is here, but I'm winding down this blogsite as of today. No more posts or updates will be going out.

New publication: DUST (a poem)

Grace to the mother says the emphysemic, but this is not the garden where all loves end—this is just the house where all doors close and journeys die.

Writer Alliance: Publishing Round-up!

I try not to do promo-type stuff very often, either for friends or myself, but I want to talk very briefly about my amazing online writer group. Good critique groups make all the difference in a long writing journey. I remember all too well the confusion and mild horror of sifting through one bad beta-read …

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On the peculiar joy of feeding trolls

Let's talk about Hairy Baguette.

Examples of Successful Query Letters

via Examples of Successful Query Letters Original article by Ellen Brock, featuring an (older) version of my ANCHOR query, and the successful version of Essa Hansen's NOPHEK query.

How to Write a Query (with examples of real successful query letters)

via How to Write a Query (with examples of real successful query letters) Original article and video by Ellen Brock, professional independent editor, but her video also features the query for Anchor (my second MS), and for Nophek (a ms by my critique partner, Essa Hansen.)

Introducing: my #retroscifi #bookcollection project

I've never really done much with Instagram, except be vaguely baffled by it. Hopefully, that will change. A couple years ago, my partner's uncle passed away (cancer is a bitch.) In addition to being a really awesome person, Gethyn had spent years and years cultivating a wonderful SFF book collection of around 4000 physical volumes …

How NOT to open a novel

How NOT to open a novel.

Querying, submitting, and publishing: a daunting series of hoops

Here is an abbreviated list of hoops that a trade published book often jumps through (apologies to those for whom this familiar); finishing agent querying pitch to publishers request & first reads second reads acquisitions (itself a multi-stage process) offer & contract negotiations At every stage the book can die. For writing, it might never …

Drafting a new chapter

The process of drafting a new chapter (for this particular pantser)

An introduction for writers looking to query literary agents

I wrote this as part of a general info post for a Facebook group I'm in. The level I’ve aimed at is introductory, so my apologies to those who are already well into the querying trenches; you can probably skip this. ### Basic Query Structure Info The query should be about a page in length, …

A tea-related rant that rhymes

A random tea-related rant from a couple years ago that I wanted to salvage before closing down my previous FB profile. It also happens to rhyme.  You’re welcome 😛 FYI, the original version was written on paper, and pinned meaningfully to the cupboard. *** My dear Gareth Dean I cannot help but observe The vast tons of …

A long dark coffee-time of the soul (or, how I found a literary agent)

I remember greedily hunting down as many of these kinds of stories as possible when querying for the first time, so perhaps someone else will find my data points useful. Warning: this is a little bit long and has some of my usual swearing.

A year of short stories

About this time last year, I started trying to figure out how to write short stories (inspired in no small part by reading Darby Harn's short fiction via Absolute Write.) I wanted to know they worked, how the fit together, how writers managed to put complete arcs in such low word counts. Since last July, …

‘Active Voice’ can suck it, and other musings on terrible style advice

I have a growing hatred of active voice at all costs mantra. It started with betas - not all of them, and always well-meaning - correcting my writing into active voice, but to the point where the sentences were sometimes bizarre or downright unreadable (e.g., missing verbs entirely). Lately, I find myself rebelliously writing in …

My Letter to Cynthia Voigt (circa 2010)

Dear Mrs. Voigt,                 I am writing to you in the hopes of being able to express how much I cherish your Kingdom series, in particular the third book, The Wings of a Falcon.                 I first read Falcon when I was eleven, in a small and recently-established private school in Hong Kong. (We had …

Progress

There's very little left to do for sections 1-3. Even my paid editor isn't making sweeping changes, and my betas are only doing tweak corrections as they go. And now, today, since my kids are sick and the baby's slept almost the entire day, I've somehow managed to complete a rough draft for the entirety …