Anyone who regularly reads my newsletter knows I’ve been working on my Dragon Eater trilogy for five hundred years a very long time. I’d originally intended to query agents for the first book while I worked on the second, but my editor pointed out that I already essentially had the first two parts of the … Read more
I like studying faces in a parking lot Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything I like driving backwards in the fog Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything –Audioslave, Doesn’t Remind Me I was talking with my art teacher from high school on Facebook Messenger the other day – what an amazing world we … Read more
Damn, it’s been a week. The earth is shaking, a country is falling, and a virus is surging across the land. Mark and I find ourselves trapped inside our house again, staring out the windows at the excessive heat (and sometimes the wildfire smoke) and feeling like it’s 2020 all over again. My writing is … Read more
I just finished reading The Bantam by RJ Theodore (review coming soon). I really enjoyed it – it’s like a crash course in writing a relatable alien. So how did the author do it? When writing truly alien characters, we have to discard everything we know: Why should they be bipedal? Why should they have … Read more
When crafting a story, every writer has to make some key choices: What’s the genre? What’s the tone? How about the setting? Who are the characters, and what’s going to happen to them? How will they react? And will it all end? But there’s another choice we all make, consciously or unconsciously, that can have … Read more
I’ve been a bit stuck on my WIP novel The Hencha Queen for a couple weeks now. I’ve also sent my previously-written short stories to most of the magazines on my list. So it seemed like a great time to write a new short story – exercise those writing muscles and have something sparkly and … Read more
Sometimes I forget that I got into this whole writing gig because I love writing. No, not just love it. Need it, like an addict needs his fix. I’m not happy if I’m not writing. And yet, lately, I’m not happy when I am, either. I blame a few things: My never-ending agent search, which … Read more
Today is my fifty-third birthday. When I was younger, someone who was my current age was old. They dressed in slacks and cardigans, walked a lot slower, and ate things like green beans and beef stroganoff. Now that I’m fifty-three, it doesn’t seem so old anymore. Part of this is the Boomers’ fault – they … Read more
Every author reading this knows what this column will be about, just from reading the title. Well, at least every self-published author. You have done everything right. You have a website, a blog, a facebook profile (and page/group!). You’re on Twitter, the ‘gram, Slack, Zoom, Discord, and a hundred other apps you probably forgot you … Read more
“What’s your damage, Heather?” We all carry damage around with us in some way, shape or form, like an unwanted hitchhiker. Damage from things that were done to us as children. Damage from things we did to others. Damage from the world and society at large. I carry the damage of homophobia. Of being called … Read more