Important Announcement Regarding My Short Fiction
If you had asked me a year ago whether or not I would write a post like this, I would have laughed at you. Then I heard from an industry friend that the sf and mystery digest magazines were for sale. It looked like, he said, they would be selling soon.
https://kriswrites.com/2025/07/13/important-announcement-regarding-my-short-fiction/
#BusinessMusings #freenonfiction #OnWriting #AlfredHitchcockMysteryMagazine #Analog
@indieauthors
Having @CherylMorgan as an interviewer on a panel about writing was a very good choice. She has a great perspective and has thought a lot on writing and publishing. Having interesting people on con panels is an art in itself.
Cheryl Morgan: You have both written eco-scifi. Can you tell us a little bit about how you approach these difficult environmental themes?
#jeffvandermeer: I didn’t set out to write eco fiction. It’s just that I’ve lived in so many places with magnificient biodiversity, like Southern Florida. So, that’s just sort of seeped into my writing.
#EmmiItäranta: I didn’t set out to write eco fiction either. It’s just that I have a lot of anxiety about the world and what humans are doing to the environment. So, of course that’s reflected in my writing.
It’s true what they say, then: Life always finds a way (in)! #archipelacon2 #OnWriting #ecofiction #ecoscifi
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
What are three impactful books to me and why?
http://michaelleask.ca/2025/06/18/list-three-books-that-have-had-an-impact-on-you-why/
#1984 #animalfarm #books #EndersGame #fiction #impactfulbooks #OnWriting #reading #StarryMesenger #StarshipTroopers #TheHobbit #TheLordOfTheRings
Chris Long "On Writing"
https://archive.reclaim.tv/videos/watch/c51e54d1-4178-491c-86f5-02f8fb1b3e2f
You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, *you will.*
(I received this a bunch of years ago at an 826 Boston gala; been waiting for the right moment to crack it open.
(This was it.)
Business Musings: Putting Yourself Out There
I do most of my business writing on Patreon these days, but roughly once per month, I’ll put a post for free on this website. This post initially went live on my Patreon page on March 30, 2025. If you go to Patreon, you’ll find other posts like this one. Putting Yourself Out There I’m…
https://kriswrites.com/2025/04/30/business-musings-putting-yourself-out-there/
#BusinessMusings #freenonfiction #OnWriting #Plays #Gavin
@indieauthors
No Joke
I know, I know. It’s April Fool’s Day. And Dean Wesley Smith decided to launch a Kickstarter anyway. It’s for his Poker Boy series, which is one of my favorites. If you back it, you’ll get four Poker Boy ebooks and whatever stretch goals we hit. And writers, there’s some really great rewards here. So […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2025/04/01/no-joke/
#OnWriting #DeanWesleySmith #Kickstarter #onlineworkshops #PokerBoy
@indieauthors
Don’t stand in the shade
Remember we employed a visual to help us understand this. We said that the Dream is like a tree in the middle of a sunny meadow. The tree casts a shadow.
slip:4usego2.
I find Pressfield’s metaphor to be striking. The tree in the meadow casts a real shadow. I was struck by the layers in this metaphor: light and darkness, the singular clarity of lone tree in an open space as a symbol of a life’s purpose, the proportional relationship of the larger the tree the larger and darker the shadow, and that one’s ability to avoid or at least escape the shadow is a choice we make.
By extension then, if one attempts to nurture multiple callings, visions or projects, one has multiple big trees. That’s at least a copse of trees whose shadows merge together creating something much more significant to avoid or escape from.
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Glocalization (Generational Change)
I do most of my business writing on Patreon these days, but roughly once per month, I’ll put a post for free on this website. This post initially went live on my Patreon page on December 22, 2024. If you go to Patreon, you’ll find other posts like this one. Glocalization In the past year, […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2025/03/30/glocalization-generational-change/
#BusinessMusings #freenonfiction #OnWriting #Billboard #Glocalization
@indieauthors
Make Readers Buy Your Next Book
I’ll tell you how in the second workshop in the Quick & Dirty Craft Series. There are some simple things every writer can do to make their endings stronger, and I’ll explain that in this short class. Find out more here or watch the video below.
https://kriswrites.com/2025/03/23/make-readers-buy-your-next-book/
#OnWriting #classes #Endings #OnlineClass #QuickAndDirtyCraft
@indieauthors
Manual labor of the mind
Writing is essentially donkey work, manual labor of the mind. What makes it bearable are those moments (which sometimes can last for weeks, months) when the book takes over, takes on a life of its own, goes off in unexpected directions.
slip:4a1530.
#InspirationalQuotesBookReviewed_ #JohnGregoryDunne #OnWriting #Quotes
Printing 20 copies
Writing issues of 7 for Sunday has become familiar (not to be confused with “easy”). I have a checklist which I use when I’m writing each issue. It’s as much for scratch-paper thinking, as it is for ticking off completed steps. Originally, the checklist had a lot of notes about formatting, what goes where, how to typeset the specific parts, image sizing, etc. all nuts-and-bolts stuff. As I’ve modified it, it’s now mostly signposts and I use it to celebrate each phase of the issue’s development.
Today, I was down to just a couple of these checklists and I hit print. How many copies? Without hesitation I printed 20—because that would be checklists through issue 150. It simply struck me as interesting that I’ve moved beyond “should I continue” and even beyond “can I continue” for this neat little weekly missive that I enjoy putting together.
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#ScribesAndMakers Mar 6: Tell us about a book you go back and read over and over.
The task gives me pause for thought. I'm not sure if I've ever read a book from cover to cover several times - apart from children's books. Maybe Stephen King's ‘On Writing’?
The real fear
These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.
slip:4a1527.
#Creativity #Fear #InspirationalQuotesBookSelected_ #OnWriting #Quotes #StevenPressfield
Misunderstanding why
Exasperated, the therapist finally suggests that she could stop writing. “Stop?” says the writer, blinking in surprise.
~ Mandy Brown, from A battle with the gods
slip:4uaowi8.
The challenge is to realize that the error I’m making is in thinking the writing part sucks. Of course it’s not easy— that’s what makes it fun. (Is the lesson I need to continue to work to internalize.)
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Wrote a blog post about how cozy stories succeed where speculative fiction falls short, and what that means for activism and the literary world.
https://nebulos.space/cozy_lit.html
(ETA: Oops, actually correct link. Also, if you read this and find it valuable, please boost!)
#WritersCoffeeClub Jan 13. What’s your favourite trope? Do you lean into it for your work or shy away?
The Dragon Ball-style "chosen one" mantra, and I lean into it -- until I push it out of reach of the character and make him suffer to find it.
Okay, spoilers, the main character saves the day, empire, continent, and maybe the world, depending on who you ask. But there's more to come, and eventually, his luck runs out. He's got the power, but he doesn't understand it. Maybe he gets beaten within a centimeter of his life once or twice (or thrice). Maybe one of his friends saves the day instead of him, and the main character is reduced to a side character, despite his efforts. We're all human. Maybe a whole book goes by where he gets his groove back, tries to save the day, fails, and things wind up resolved but even worse than before.
Goku died twice (sorry, spoilers for a 40-year-old franchise). My MC doesn't die, but there is a point where he wished he did, much to the chagrin of the survivors (and the dead, if drug- and alcohol-induced dream sequences count for anything).
We all get beaten down and destroyed on a daily basis, some more than others. Here's hoping we overcome it and come out stronger on the other side with our strength and humility in tow.
> 'A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.'"...
I think Tolstoy was a first-thing-in-the-morning writer too!!
"something is offering you a guidance available only to those undistracted by anything else."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-e-stafford
#WilliamStafford #StaffordOnWriting #EarlyMorningWritiers #OnWriting
