-
Get Fiction in Your Mailbox Each Month
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.
This site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Monthly Archives: October 2012
Adventures in E-publishing: The Rationale Behind It
One of the things I’ve decided to do over the next six months is release a number of my stories in small mini-collections in electronic form. Each of these will consist of 2-3 already published stories, with 1-2 ones original to the collection. The first is Halloween Quartet, which contains “Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know” (appeared originally in Clarkesworld), “Niobe in the Rain” (appeared originally in Serpentarius), “So Glad We Had This Time Together” (appeared originally in Apex Digest), and “Pumpkin Knight,” which is original to the collection.
Continue reading
Recipe: Autumn Soup with Dumplings
As some readers know, I do like to cook. I’d mentioned this soup on Facebook and people wanted the recipe. It was an improvised soup, so I’m recreating it a bit. I christen it….Autumn Soup with dumplings.
Continue reading
Facebook Advertising: Is It Worthwhile for Writers?
As you may know, the effectiveness of Facebook as a social media platform has recently changed for those of us who don’t usually pay for it but maintain a social media presence in order to publicize ourselves. It’s hard to find a good overview of what’s happened, but it boils down to several things.
Continue reading
Free Fritz Leiber
In prepping for the WFC panel, I found there’s a bunch of Fritz Leiber stuff available free on the Kindle. Here’s some links for fellow Kindlers. The Big Time Bread Overhead The Creature From Cleveland Depths The Moon is Green … Continue reading
World Fantasy Schedule for 2012
I will be reading at 1:30 on Friday in the Aurora room. I will probably read a recent space opera piece that I think will do well aloud.
Continue reading
Posted in conventions
Tagged andy duncan, danel olson, fritz leiber, panels, s.t. joshi, secrets, violette malan, wfc, world fantasy convention
Leave a comment
Shaping Stories With Characters: How Characters Affect Your Plot
We’re currently covering characters in the Writing F&SF class, so I thought I’d pull out a little from my notes.
Some simplistic stories have characters that seem like placeholders, as though any individual could fit into that slot. Fairy tales, for instance, tend to have generic characters: the princess, the prince, the witch. One delightful strategy for working with them, in fact, is to pick a character and flesh them out to the point where they shape the story.
Characters need to do this. They need to influence the story and make it one that could only happen to them.
Continue reading
Recent Reading From September
I went through the usual slew of books in September, but I thought I’d mention some of the more notable ones. Links go to the Kindle edition when available, because I do most of my reading on that.
Continue reading
Final Version of the Postcard
So I wanted a postcard to put on con giveaway tables advertising my classes because I’m always trying to scare up new students. I know that once they take one class, they’re very likely to take more from me, which really pleases me, but the trick is getting them into that first one. Yeah, it's not particularly pro looking, but the colors are bright and pretty, so perhaps a few people will be intrigued enough to pick it up. Note that the postcard itself trims some of the edge off, so what you see here is not entirely representative of the final result.
Continue reading
Posted in classes & workshops
Tagged advertising, classes, gimp, online workshops, postcards, publicity, vistaprint
3 Comments
