News from The Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust: Odyssey has been a pioneer and innovator in holding live online classes since 2010. Live class meetings allow a virtual “physical college classroom” experience, in which students can participate in discussions, ask questions, and learn from an instructor who is responsive, in the moment, to students’ concerns, confusions, […]
by Nathan Nance,
So you’re writing SFF, and you’ve got spaceships to design. Engine systems to map. A haunted forest to populate. A talking badger to draw. If you’re not a rocket scientist writing hard sci-fi, how are you supposed to make your version of James S.A. Corey’s Rocinante, you know, fly?
by Dan Brotzel
Genuine idea theft and plagiarism are complete no-nos, of course. But I’m amazed how protective writers of stories, articles and posts can be about ideas that aren’t really worth stealing. Here are a few thoughts on ideation and originality…
by Paul Jessup
Let’s talk about that early stage of the story, when you have that bright gleaming idea in your head, burning brightly. It wants to be born, it wants to come to life. You spend days, weeks, months doing research, laying down pages and pages and pages of notes. Enough to be a small novel in itself. And then you start writing.
by Daniel Brotzel
Finishing a book sounds like hard enough work when there’s just one of you. Can working with someone else really help? Yes! says Dan Brotzel, who’s recently launched a novel he wrote with two pals. Here’s the why and the how…
by Luna Corbden
I have turned my inner narrative around with one simple new rule: “Count your successes.”
by Paul Jessup
Novels are hard, yo. I mean, books in general, maybe writing overall? But for me making that leap from short stories to novels was a difficult transition. I had to completely change my writerly habits, completely reinvent the ways I was doing things altogether.
The SFWA minimum payment rate for professional short fiction markets is now eight cents per word. In accordance with our mission to support and empower science fiction and fantasy writers, SFWA periodically reviews and adjusts the minimum payment rate for professional short fiction markets (known colloquially as the SFWA pro rate). On January 16, 2019, […]
by Ken Pelham
World-building is more than misty mountains, crumbling castles, dripping neon cityscapes, and talking rats. It’s also about psychology and language, and the language equation includes the everyday corruptions of jargon and slang.
by Filip Wiltgren
Want to be insanely productive? Check this:
I live in a country where the fruit comes with stickers on it. Meaning that before you eat your apple, you need to remove a piece of plastic, clawing at the little sucker, then going and tossing it in the garbage. This takes about five seconds.
So you want to be an indie author. Or maybe you’re scared to do it all yourself and are looking for a publisher but want to know more about the book business. Scott is a 30 year publishing veteran and chair of the SFWA Indie Author Committee.
Sharon Emmerichs is an Associate Professor of early British literature. She has been a writer all her life, from the time she scribbled ‘words’ and pictures on pieces of paper, stapled them together, and called it a book.
Register now for the 2024 SFWA Nebula Conference--A weekend of professional development, panels, and networking for ALL genre writers!
