Category: Writing & Publishing

  • My Virtual Writer’s Desktop

    24 Jan 2014 » 2 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [W]hen I write, I try to minimize distractions. On my iMac, I do my writing on a separate “virtual” desktop from other things I might be working on to help with that. Usually, there are only two applications running in this desktop: Google Docs (in Chrome) Terminal for “stuff” One of the things I like…

  • Issue #37 of IGMS is out with My Story “Big Al Shepard Plays Baseball on the Moon”

    22 Jan 2014 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [I]n case you missed my announcement on Twitter yesterday, issue 37 of InterGalactic Medicine Show is now available. It contains my newest story, “Big Al Shepard Plays Baseball on the Moon.” For those who’ve been following my writing lately, this was the second story I wrote after finishing my novel draft back in September. It’s…

  • 180 Consecutive Days (Half a Year) of Writing

    17 Jan 2014 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [J]ust a few minutes ago, I finished up my writing for today, and with that writing, I officially reached 180 consecutive days of writing. Put another way, that is half a year without missing a day of writing. Here is what it looks like: For people curious about the numbers, the 180 consecutive days have netted me…

  • Story Sale: “Big Al Shepard Plays Baseball on the Moon” to Appear in InterGalactic Medicine Show

    15 Jan 2014 » 1 min read about story sales, Writing & Publishing

    [B]ack in November, I mentioned that I had sold a new story. That story is titled “Big Al Shepard Plays Baseball on the Moon.” Today I am pleased to announce that the story will be appearing in InterGalactic Medicine Show. My understanding is that it will appear in the upcoming issue, schedule to come out later…

  • Upcoming Appearances, January and February 2014

    10 Jan 2014 » 2 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [B]elieve it or not, there are enough to list here and I suspect that the number will begin to increase steadily over time. Here are the January and February appearances that I know about so far. January 22: World-Building Discussion at Arlington Writers Group I will be part of a 3-person panel that includes my…

  • Writing in the First 10 Days of 2014

    10 Jan 2014 » 2 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [T]oday has been my best writing day of the year so far, the first day in which I’ve broken 4-digits in terms of word count. I’ve written every day of the year so far (and every day for the last 173 consecutive day) but my word count is down. My 7-day rolling average is hovering…

  • How To Guarantee I Won’t Read Your Book

    08 Jan 2014 » 2 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [P]eople, please don’t do this. I’ve been seeing more and more of it lately: This is pretty much a guarantee that I won’t read your book. Especially when I see you spamming my friends with the exact same message. I have a documented policy on book reviews. But really, it’s just not polite to carpet…

  • 2013 by the Numbers: Writing

    02 Jan 2014 » 2 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [I] have already written about this in more detail here and here, but as a final end-of-year recap, I wanted to provide some interesting charts that summarize my fiction writing for 2013. I wrote a total of 274,373 words of fiction in 20131. These numbers come from my automated writing tracker scripts for Google Docs, which…

  • 7 Lessons Learned from 300 Days of Writing

    29 Dec 2013 » 7 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [A] few days ago, I passed another writing milestone for 2013. I’d written 300 out of the last 302 days. As of this morning, I’ve written 303 out of the last 305 days, and 160 consecutive days. Writing those first 5 or 10 days feels good. When I passed 50 days, I was sort of…

  • What I Had Published in 2013

    28 Dec 2013 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [W]ith just a handful of days left in the year, it seems safe to put up a definitive “here’s what I had published in 2013” list. It was by far, my single best year in terms of both numbers of things published, and variety of markets. Fiction “The Negative Impact of Climate Change on the…

  • How I Submit Stories

    27 Dec 2013 » 6 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [I] was asked on Twitter a few days back if I had ever written a post on how I sell my stories. It was a question I had not been asked before, and while I have written well over 5,000 posts here, I could not find a post on the subject of how I sell…

  • A New Reprint Anthology from InterGalactic Medicine Show (with a story by me!)

    26 Dec 2013 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    [I]nterGalactic Medicine Show has just put out a new anthology entitled IGMS: Big Book of SF Novelettes containing reprints of stories that have appeared in the magazine. The anthology includes my very first published story, “When I Kissed the Learned Astronomer,” among other great stories. Here is the official book description: Welcome to the surprisingly potent world…