• Female Leads in Science Fiction Novels

    In a discussion with book reviewer Shaun Duke on Twitter, he made an interesting comment.
    He said that he couldn’t think of any lead female characters in Science Fiction books. When I tried to respond right away I realized all the books that were coming to my mind were more Fantasy or Speculative than true Science [...]

  • World Building with a Magic 8 Ball

    So perhaps I wasn’t as ready to start a new novel as I thought, but I needed to do something while I wait to see what happens to my novel “Ice Debt” (see this post – update 7).
    But I was stuck. I love building worlds but it wasn’t coming to me this time.
    I tried the [...]

  • Chinese Whisperings Promo

    Just wanted to give you all a quick update on the the anthology that holds my 5th published short story. It was going to be released on December 1 2009, but due to unforeseen events and deadlines the release date has been pushed back to January 1 2009.
    I’d rather the editors and owners do this, [...]

  • The 4 Year Plan

    4 years ago, on August 23 2006, I started blogging. It was a way of telling the universe that I was committed to writing – for real this time.
    I started on blogger, and you can read from the beginning up until August 2008 (when I moved to WordPress) @ http://dustandstrangerthings.blogspot.com/ – but only until the [...]

 

I’ve been a long time lurker on the Write Anything website. They have a lot of good articles on writing and every once and a while they post these fun little exercises.

I’ve normally just done them off-line, but I thought I would share this one.

The point of this exercise was to write a 10 line story about two estranged family members coming together after a long time. The story had to be 10 sentences long – max. Not only that, but each sentence had a prompt for it. They are broken down like this:

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This week is a week of firsts for me. My first spoken word story and now my first entry into this wonderful weekly event #FridayFlash (PS: if you’re looking for some great free flash fiction online, search #FridayFlash on Twitter every Friday).

My story this week is called “Shiny” and it has a cameo from a Steampunk Airship Captain that has been haunting my dreams for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure if the story itself could be classified as Steampunk but that’s were I’ve put it.

Oh and if you would like to listen to this story instead of reading it, you can listen to it below:
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Hello world. Long time no chat.

What better way to start off a come back (1: Yes I’m married now, 2: no I won’t be changing my name, 3: no, I do love my husband I just like Hunter, 4: keep it up and I will come over there) than by offering something for free.

To start, it seems like all the cool kids (other writers I know) have taken up with this new social site called “Audioboo” where it allows you to record a 5 minute snippet and post it online. I thought I would start my very first “boo” with a short story.

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I woke this morning to two realizations.

One:  I haven’t posted anything on my blog in well over a month, and

Two: I have an unreasonable urge to write.

The remedy to number one is of course to post something, but number two is a little more complicated since for the first time in a very long time I’m finding it hard to “find the time” to write.

I’ve always believed that “I have no time” was a poor excuse for not writing. If you really want something you will make the time, end of line. I won’t use that excuse. Instead I will say, I’m finding it hard to make writing a priority in my busy schedule.

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Games and Nonsense

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Comments

So I’ve been taking part in a few laughable activities over the last few days. First a quiz.

QUIZ: Which science fiction writer are you?

I am:

Ursula K. LeGuin

Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

I’m actually really flattered by this quiz result.

Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels (including the Earthsea Series), eleven volumes of short stories, three collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards.

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The 4 Year Plan

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 Comments

4 years ago, on August 23 2006, I started blogging. It was a way of telling the universe that I was committed to writing – for real this time.

I started on blogger, and you can read from the beginning up until August 2008 (when I moved to WordPress) @ http://dustandstrangerthings.blogspot.com/ – but only until the end of January when I’ll finally be taking it down.

That first post was anything but elegant, but it made it’s point:

So why start a blog?

I know people who have blogs. Many people who have them say they are a good release for what goes on in their lives. Others, who I’m sure I’ll relate to more, say it’s a good excuse to not write.

You see I’m an author. No, I’m not published yet, but stranger things have happened. I’m part of a writing group, I try to write part of my novel everyday, and I’m serious about what I’m writing… doesn’t that make me an author?

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    Reviews and General Love!

      Friday 17 April, 2009
      Love the cover!! Love the idea!!! Love the book!! The stories are all quite different and surprising. Some are a little creepy, but in a good way. This book is worth a read. I especially liked the nuns in Hell and the one about the old man who got his wish, but the rest are also good reading.
      Rating: 4 of 5!”
      by Glenda Carson via Absolute Xpress Seven Deadly Sins

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