[A]fter my recent post on “A Good Word Process for Writers Should Do 3 Things Well,” I got several questions, both in the comments to the post, as well as in Twitter, as to why I don’t use Evernote for my writing. The assumption, I think, is that what I write would then be readily…
[I] spend most of my day in a word processor of one kind or another, and have done so for the better part of 20 years. With that volume of experience, I have developed a few thoughts on what constitutes an ideal word processor for writer. Well, for this writer at the very least. Before discussing…
[A]n aspiring writer typically divides their rejection letters into two categories: (1) form letter rejections, those rejections that are completely impersonal, but don’t really provide any feedback on the quality of the story, other than the fact that it has been rejected from the market where it was sent; and (2) the elusive “personal” rejection,…
[L]ast year, I had two fairly simple goals for my fiction writing: (1) write 500 words each day; and (2) concentrate entirely on short fiction. I certainly managed to achieve the second goal, but I was very, very far from achieving the first. Still, I had my best year ever in 2012, in terms of…
[E]very now and then, when I write about the vast number of story rejections I’ve collected over the years, I get asked why I don’t self-publish some of the stories that I haven’t sold elsewhere. The short answer is that self-publishing is not for me. To be clear I am speaking only about me and my…
[L]ast night while dozing off, I was thinking about the stories I’ve sold this year and the momentum that I’ve built up, and worrying a little that I’d be able to maintain that momentum next year. Another great science fiction writer, Brad Torgersen, has pointed out that you can’t really set a goal to sell…
[I] just discovered this review of  my story “Lost and Found” over at Diabolical Plots. The story appeared in October in Daily Science Fiction. It is always nice to see a good review and this is what Frank Dutkiewicz of DP had to say about my story: This was very well written. It took a while to…
[D]ear Jamie, I know what you’re thinking. This is either something you are imagining, or a prank that Dan or Rich is playing on you. But let me assure you this is no prank. It is really me–that is, you, twenty years in the future–writing you now as you begin to write stories that…
[A]s I announced on Facebook yesterday, my story, “Situational Awareness” will appear in Issue #2 of Blue Shift magazine, a new magazine making its debut early in 2013. The magazine is edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and he announced the lineups for the first two issues (here and here) on Facebook yesterday. Those lineups look pretty…
[I] am a member of the Young Gunns, a group of writers who have completed one of James Gunn‘s science fiction writing programs1 and yesterday I was updating the other members on my recent writing accomplishments. As I made the list of recent sales and story appearances, I was rather astounded at just how many…
[I]f  you have not yet read Robert Silverberg’s Reflections essay, “The Raft of the Medusa” in the January 2013 issue of Asimov’s, go read it now. (Yes, the full piece is available online.) In it, Silverberg begins by talking about writers like Updike and Cheevers and their relationships with one another. In the literary world, it…
[Q]uite a while back I submitted a science fiction story to my writers group. It was my second attempt at a science fiction mystery, after I sold “Take One For the Road” to Analog. I liked the story and was pretty self-satisfied with it, so I sent it to the writers group to get their feedback.…