Who are you writing for?

 I’m going to push the schedule for Introspection Week. Yesterday was an in-clinic day for my wife, and sometimes we can take these in stride but other times they end up consuming the entire day, as happened yesterday. So given that I already have a really terrific guest column lined-up for Friday and the Introspection Week wrap-up scheduled for tomorrow, rather than...

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Why do you write genre fiction?

I grew up in a house full of books. I never realized that this was unusual. My parents were both teachers. My Dad, I think, was a frustrated historian turned basketball coach, because public school boards find winning basketball coaches much more valuable than history teachers, while I know my Mom had had some minor success as a poet. She’d belonged to a literary sorority...

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Intermission

I am so proud of myself. This morning I saw a heated debate erupt on another writer’s site on the subject of pulp magazine page layout and typography, and I stayed out of it. Honestly, I felt like I’d blundered into the Old Sci-Fi Writers’ Home and into the middle of an argument over whether Smith-Corona, Remington, or Underwood made the best typewriter. [“And don’t you...

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Why do you write fiction?

 Yesterday’s post seems to have touched a nerve, so let’s continue with the line of introspective questioning. We’ve established that you want to write; perhaps even that you need to write. (You’d be surprised by how many successful writers answer the question of why they write with something on the order of, “I can’t not write.”) We’ll assume for the moment that you...

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Why do you write?

 The longer I consider the question, the more it begins to resemble a dance. We circle each other; writers both accomplished and aspiring ask for that “one piece of advice” that they believe will do… something for them, and I keep finding I can’t answer that question without asking my own questions, first.• Why do you write?• What do you hope to achieve by writing?• What...

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“What Makes the Measure of a Novel?” • by Bruce Bethke

 Jason Wittman writes:“Finished a rough draft of another novel last week (though it's barely long enough to qualify as a novel, clocking in at a little over 49,000 words, and it will probably be smaller after I've trimmed off the fat). It takes place during the golden age of Hollywood, and it involves vampires, the afterlife, and fictionalized versions of famous movie...

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Talking Shop: Eric's Writing Challenge Update

As promised, I'm checking in with an update on the writing challenge, which is also an update on the space opera I'm working on for Bruce. So, writing challenge first.As of Thursday night, I've written 5875 words, give or take a small rounding error. That means I'm averaging a little under 850 words per day. I'm not destroying that 500 words daily goal, but I am meeting it....

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Tourist Trap • 5

 ___________________________This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was pretty simple. In keeping with this being the first week of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and therefore of summer vacation season, the challenge was to write a 100-word story centered around the concept of “tourist trap” without resorting to any of the ideas that have become shopworn and threadbare...

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Tourist Trap • 4

 ___________________________This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was pretty simple. In keeping with this being the first week of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and therefore of summer vacation season, the challenge was to write a 100-word story centered around the concept of “tourist trap” without resorting to any of the ideas that have become shopworn and threadbare...

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Tourist Trap • 3

___________________________This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was pretty simple. In keeping with this being the first week of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and therefore of summer vacation season, the challenge was to write a 100-word story centered around the concept of “tourist trap” without resorting to any of the ideas that have become shopworn and threadbare...

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Tourist Trap • 2

 ___________________________This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was pretty simple. In keeping with this being the first week of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and therefore of summer vacation season, the challenge was to write a 100-word story centered around the concept of “tourist trap” without resorting to any of the ideas that have become shopworn and threadbare...

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Tourist Trap • 1

 ___________________________This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was pretty simple. In keeping with this being the first week of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and therefore of summer vacation season, the challenge was to write a 100-word story centered around the concept of “tourist trap” without resorting to any of the ideas that have become shopworn and threadbare...

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The State of the Loon • 20 June 2021

 Work is chugging along on SS#24, albeit more slowly than I’d like. While my ultimate goal is to grow Stupefying Stories to be a monthly magazine, at this point I’ll be happy when we can hit quarterly release targets on a consistent basis.Yes, that is the cover teaser for SS#24. More teasers to follow as we ramp up to release._____I have been watching the metrics very...

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SHOWCASE: “Signs and Symptoms” • by Judith Field

 Mark slid open the secret drawer of the desk in the spare bedroom that he and his wife Pat used for the Court & Anderson office, and removed the ash wood wand. The warmth from the power stored in it spread through his fingers and the wood throbbed like a heartbeat. He took a breath, gave a dry, hacking cough, and closed his eyes, trying to will his power into the...

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Talking Shop: Quantity, Quality, and Fiction Writing • By Eric Dontigney

Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the question of quantity in fiction writing. The long-standing argument is that quality takes time when you’re writing a book. It takes a lot of time. It can take a year, two years, even five or ten years if you happened to be named Thomas Harris. You can’t rush genius, so they say. I’ll grant you that genius works at its own...

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Notes towards a manifesto • 5

 The Department of Useless Prescience checks in, reinforcing the idea that I am trapped inside a time loop. As I was writing this morning’s post I began to get a profound feeling of déjà vu all over again, so I checked and—yep.From the July 2005 issue of Strange Horizons, with a few pertinent edits:Lynne Jamneck: What's your opinion on the current state of SF writing?Bruce...

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