I have no forethought, only an inadvertent method-acting, the way that some travelers unthinkingly restyle their hair to local norms. I really don’t know myself, at all. Existential panic notwithstanding, it’s a huge timesaver.
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Quarantine Inspiration on The Inner Loop Radio!
The Inner Loop is a Washington DC live-reading group that hosts fiction, non-fiction and poetry writers at monthly events. I’ve been pleased and proud to read work there twice. They also run a terrific podcast on all aspects of writing. This week I’m part of …
Read MoreDestroying Budapest
My science-fiction work-in-progress is set in a single city, and I needed to see it to imagine living in it. Welcome to Pest! Only walk on gray parts…. Budapest was a proxy in the One-Day War between Greater Russia and Umoja East Africa. Buda is …
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New Demon trading cards!
As a promotion on social media for The Demon in Business Class, I created a virtual trading card deck. For cons, I printed card versions of the nine character pictures. They were done as a last-minute inspiration, made by shoving the cards’ original Instagram proportions …
Read MoreThe Inner Loop reading series
I had a great evening under twilit stars – and frequent, seemingly aimless helicopters – with The Inner Loop, a monthly DC reading series for poetry, fiction and non-fiction writers, at Colony Club. The headliner was Jennifer Atkinson, a poet drawn to human disaster, with …
Read MoreSticking to my knitting (opinions)
As Facebook gently reminded me — my professional media have been stale. It was less a writer’s block than a blind alley. Perhaps others will find my thinking instructive. Like everybody, I have opinions about the world, and in these contentious times, it’s very tempting to …
Read MoreLove your pile of words (first drafts)
I love my current first draft. This is a shocking and unfashionable thing to say. Everyone laments their first draft. It is the shoals of mediocrity on which our dreams founder, or at least so tells every clickbait online writing workshop. Complaining about the horror …
Read MoreRegaining the writing habit (hours not words)
I think it’s official now: I have fallen out of the habit of writing. I don’t mean to say “I’m not writing” or #amwriting – just that over the past year it’s been an ad-hoc effort, when the mood takes me. I’m not in a …
Read MoreMake time for new work
My main creative work since my book contract has either been editing my manuscript or developing my (approach to) social media. By any commercial measure, that’s what I should have done. Polishing and sharing best honors my creative expression. One has creative intention too, and …
Read MoreBooks at AwesomeCon need flair
AwesomeCon‘s sales and promotional floor is so big that guides and maps never refer to it as a unit bound by walls, only to its subsections. All of it is dense with visual stimulus and novelty. Vendors sell comics, books, movies, posters, toys, models, clothing and …
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