Tag: blog

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A Whole New Year

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2019 is almost over, but hey! I get a whole new year tomorrow, brand new and sparkling with promise. (At least, I think that shiny stuff is promise. It could just be glitter. Not gonna lie, there’s a lot of leftover Christmas glitter lying around. And pine needles. Especially pine needles!)

Before moving forward, here’s a quick look at 2019…

Writer things

  • The first draft of a fantasy novel written, which I then decided to rewrite completely; I’m now a third of the way through the rewrite.
  • Two short stories published in anthologies; another sold but only coming out in 2020.
  • Three interviews given (see my press page).
  • Two Cons as panelist and one doing a reading (Boskone in Boston, Worldcon in Dublin, and Eurocon in Belfast).
  • An international book launch! We released our collaborative women’s sci fi anthology DISTAFF during Eurocon in Belfast. There were cupcakes and robot chocolates…
  • Attended the New England SCBWI conference and the NESCBWI ENCORE event.
  • I passed on organization of our local SCBWI meet and greets but took on a new role as co-director of the 2020 and 2021 regional conferences! 
Our anthology
Boskone panel
Con badge and con nails

 

Fun stuffs

  • Favorite books this year include Holly Black’s fabulous Folk of the Air series, S.A. Chakraborty’s City of Brass and Kingdom of Copper, Maggie Stiefvater’s Scorpio Races, Peter McLean’s excellent Priest of Bones, and Matt Fraction’s run of Hawkeye graphic novels.
  • Some of the movies I loved were Captain Marvel and Charlie’s Angels. Shazam was a delightful surprise — lots of fun and one of the best found families I’ve seen in a while. The Rise of Skywalker was a good and satisfying conclusion to Star Wars. As for Endgame, no comment. I’m still in mourning!
  • TV shows! I finally caught up on the Netflix Marvel shows, and the last season of Daredevil was truly excellent. Derry Girls is fabulous and really good fun; thanks to my daughter for introducing it! We binged The Umbrella Academy as a family and thoroughly enjoyed it (great soundtrack). Other faves were Good Omens and Carnival Row, which I’m almost done with. And the CW end of year Arrowverse crossover has been a blast, with tons of fun cameos. Oh, if you like cooking shows, please go and watch Jon Favreau’s The Chef Show on Netflix! (I don’t even watch cooking shows and I love this one. I think my fave episodes so far have been Skywalker Ranch and the oyster farm…)

 

Personal bits and pieces

  • Our rescue pup Misty is now a year and a half, and tons of trouble but also absolutely adorable.
  • We went on a family trip to Washington DC in spring — my first time there. We arrived at peak cherry blossom time, beautiful!
  • Summer took me to Ireland for two weeks on my own to meet writing friends, attend a couple of conferences, and do a bit of sightseeing on the side.
  • We also had summer visits from my mum and my mother-in-law, always a good excuse to get out and do some local touristing.
  • I now have a child with a driver’s license… Scary stuff!!
  • We had a French exchange student come to stay for two weeks, a great experience for all of us.
  • I’ve joined a gym, am trying to eat more healthily, and am learning to do divination with crystals (a good meditation tool!) — investing in a bit of TLC for both body and soul.
Misty!
Northern Ireland
Washington DC

 

Coming in 2020

  • In February, I’ll be at the NYC SCBWI Winter Conference and at Boskone, checking in with both my kid lit friends and the SF/F community. In May it’ll be time for the NESCBWI regional conference, which I’m helping to organize this year!
  • The Not All Monsters anthology from Strangehouse Books arrives sometime in autumn, containing my short story The Sugar Cane Sea.
  • Writing, writing, writing. Goals for 2020! I have a short story I’m rather pleased with that I’m polishing up to submit soon. I plan to finish the rewrite of my fantasy novel and get it submission-ready. I also plan to finish revising the SF YA I wrote in 2018, and get back to my stalled draft of Star Blade. Busy, busy!

 

WISHING YOU ALL A WONDERFUL 2020!

 

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A Tale of Firsts

I wrote a guest piece for Jo Zebedee on writing and taking risks. Besides being a talented author herself, Jo runs a great blog with lots of extremely honest advice on writing and publishing. You can find my guest post and Jo’s excellent blog here.

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The Write Stuff: author blogs

So you’re a writer. Perhaps you’re still at that fledgling phase, taking those first word-steps into the world of stories and looking for some guidance and support. Or perhaps you’re on your tenth novel and just looking for a jolt of inspiration. Wherever you are in your journey, inevitably there will be moments where a little craft advice comes in handy.

The Internet is full of free (FREE!) blog posts written by us writer-type folk out there. There’s something for everyone, for all tastes. I used to feverishly check out dozens of blogs by my favorite authors back when I was first starting out on my own writing journey, looking for pearls of wisdom from the Great And Published that resonated with me. Over time, I discovered a few that I love enough to keep checking on a regular basis. Here are JUST SOME of my many personal favorites – author blogs that give great writing advice or provide information I can apply to my own work.

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Chuck Wendig, for the writer’s blog equivalent of a shot of very dark espresso, or tequila perhaps, depending on the time of the day. Chuck’s blog isn’t for everyone – his writing advice is very sweary and tongue-in-cheek, but so much fun to read.

Jo Zebedee writes extremely candid blog posts on writing and publishing, and you really can’t go wrong for an honest breath of fresh air in the blogosphere. Her posts are always useful and to-the-point.

Thaddeus White’s blog has a mixture of writing posts, book reviews, and gaming write-ups. He’s always interesting, but my favorites are his history posts: prime inspiration material for muse-hungry writers. (I rather like this one on Eastern Empresses.)

The Winged Pen is a writing craft blog run by a group of both published and unpublished writers; there’s always plenty of good advice and they also have a monthly critique session contest.

Jim Butcher’s website has a hidden gem: if you click on his now inactive blog and scroll down to the very first entries, dating from 2004, you’ll find a ton of writing craft info written in Jim’s trademark hilariously snarky style. This was literally the first ‘proper’ writing advice I ever read when I decided to take my own work seriously. I owe Jim big time for helping me complete my first ever novel, back in 2012 when I was still trying to figure out how things worked.

Juliet McKenna has a wonderful blog, with plenty of writing-related posts to browse. If you’re looking for great pieces on writing about subjects such as gender, history, or mental health, this is definitely the place to visit.

Dan Koboldt runs an amazing series of weekly blog posts named Science in Sci-Fi, Fact in Fantasy, which he describes as “a blog series for authors and fans of speculative fiction”. Each week he’s joined by specialists in a number of fields – from biology to space travel – offering their expertise so that writers can get the details right in their work.

Latinxs in Kid Lit has a nice series called The Road to Publishing that focuses on the query/agent/editing side of things. Some great personal stories and information. (And it’s a very nice project that’s worth checking out!)