Archive for the ‘Keeping At It’ Category

Dear Editor

By Anatoly Belilovsky

Dear Editor,

Submitted herewith for your kind consideration is “My Little Tale,” a flash piece of 750 words. The author, a SFWA member, hopes you find it suitable for publication in “Awesome Stories.”

Finding That Elusive Writing Time

by Anthony Izzo

Next to people wondering where a writer’s ideas come from, the question I hear most is “How do you find the time to write?” Currently, I’m working on my 18th novel. Like many other writers, I hold a day job. With a 9-5 job, family obligations, and other responsibilities, how do you find time?

The Perils of the Flood

by Gargi Mehra

When 2015 dawned upon us one year ago, I, like all reasonable writers, penned down certain resolutions. One of them was to test the oft-repeated advice doled out on most, if not all, writing websites – write a fixed quota of words every day.

Guest Post: Set Powerful Deadlines

by Leo Babauta

I’m not always a fan of deadlines and goals, but it’s good to be able to use whatever works best for you. If you’re working great without deadlines and goals, then by all means, keep going. But if you’re struggling to push a project forward (or a learning project like language lessons), then you might try a self-imposed deadline.

Guest Post: The Work of Writing

by Theodora Goss

I keep reading blog posts that basically all make the same point: anyone can find time to write. You’ve probably read them too. The message is, if you want to be a writer, you can find the time. Get up early and write before work. Write on your lunch break. Write on your commute home. Write after everyone else is asleep. If you can write even a hundred words a day, eventually you’ll have a novel.

It’s not a bad message, but it’s aimed toward aspiring writers. And aspiring writers, I would argue, are very different from working writers, who are different, again, from professional writers.

Guest Post: Guilt and Shame for Writers

by Theodora Goss I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot. Several days ago, I posted the following: 1. Guilt and shame are the enemies of the artist. 2. Guilt is when you feel as though your time should be spent doing something else, for someone else. 3. Shame is when you think what you’re producing […]

Taking the Long View

Come the beginning of my pro career, in the early Eighties, women were discouraged from writing science fiction. (Hard, muscular SF was for boys.) Fantasy was deemed more appropriate, being so much softer and “easier,” or so one was told, and frankly it sold better. And here I had this monster of a thing that could best be called science fantasy—mages with space ships. And empire, of course. Must have empire.

Seven Days on Skokholm

by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

If I had a week with nothing to do, I would write amazing words. I would write a book. I would write a million words and then dream the story while I slept under the stars and then I would write another million words and the faeries would come out and dance around me and I would make novels like the miller’s daughter spinning gold out of straw.