Category: Blog

My critique group seems to believe that if there’s a winged-otter in the first act, it will be explained in the third. (a.k.a. Chekov’s Winged Otter) Unfortunately, that’s apparently not necessarily how my stories work… Because winged otters?

The Horde alt I started a few months ago is now the same level as the Alliance main I’ve been playing for more than a decade. I’m not sure what to make of that.

5-yr-old: “Can we go to a toy store?”

Me, trying to redirect: “We were thinking of going to a restaurant for dinner.”

5-yr-old: “A… toy restaurant?”

If I had watched Tomorrowland when it came out, I absolutely would’ve gotten myself a red NASA hat. I guess, by coming to it late, I’m saved from having a hat I can’t wear.

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I wish this went without saying but it really, really doesn’t — not only does Tomorrowland center on a little girl robot & teenage girl chosen one, it does not sexualize them AT ALL. Think about that — girl robot & girl teenager who are allowed to simply BE AWESOME. Continue reading “Thoughts from Watching Tomorrowland”

That feeling when you’ve almost worked through all of the novel critiques you’ve received, and then one of them says, “Do a global search for ‘that’ and delete as many as possible.” And it turns out there are more than 1000 of them in your manuscript.

–arrange toys around my computer
–scroll through twitter
–google galaxies
–tweet about googling galaxies
–describe a planet as being like a honeydew melon bobbing on the ocean

That’s a good amount of work, right?

Apparently, today is Unicorn Day.  So here’s a fresh hot cup of unicorn stories, newly available here at Deep Sky Anchor:

• Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn — The Dragon and Unicorn come calling.    [~1,000 words]
• Feral Unicorn — Janie’s in over her head when her pet unicorn’s horn comes in, and he starts working mischievous magic around the house.       [~4,800 words]

And if you need some more, we do have a few stories that have been rattling around the site a bit longer:

• Cyclops on Safari — A normal day on safari, in a different world.    [~800 words]
• The Carousel of Spirits — When Artie finds a ghost haunting his carousel, it’s time for him to build a new horse.     [~3,700 words]

Enjoy!

And Happy Unicorn Day!

Me, picking out ice cream: “Let’s get rocky road.”‬

‪4-yr-old: “Broccoli road??!!”‬

Bizarrely, a moment later he added: “Okay.”

Apparently, in the mind of a ten-year-old, it’s easy to mix up Bernie Sanders and Frank Sinatra.

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The ten-year-old in question tried to clarify her position, leading to the revelation that she’d also mixed up Frank Sinatra with Brian Wilson.

Two feet from the stage at a They Might Be Giants concert is probably the most entertaining place I’ve received a story rejection. ‬