Deep Sky Anchor

I’m watching Underwater (2020), and it seems to have a monster that should interest me… but I’m barely paying attention.

Now, sure, I could TRY HARDER to pay attention, but I’m watching it for fun. And also, I’ve learned from being a slush reader to trust my instincts… Continue reading “Baseline Normality in Ocean Horror Movies”

Me: *time to write!*

My brain: *hmm. writing is hard. how to avoid it?*

Spouse: “Jeff Daniels has a kind of Bill Pullman vibe.” Continue reading “Bill Pullman Vibe”

I’m trying to work out a schedule for the book I’m writing, and my desire to finish the book soon is very much in conflict with my desire to not require myself to write very many words per day.

I’ve been kind of floundering with writing this book, and I think it’s partly because I thought I could rely on the same strategies as I used for the previous book in the trilogy, which I wrote last fall. Continue reading “Tricks and Gimmicks”

Tuca & Bertie is like furry fiction raised to the power of furry.

The anthro animals eat anthro food that goes into their anthro stomachs. They send anthro texts to each other on anthro phones. All inside anthro buildings filled with anthro appliances.

Everything. Is. Furry.

I’ve received more than 1700 rejections. I keep track of them in a spreadsheet.

I’m really practiced at being rejected, and most of them roll right off me.

But even after all that practice, some rejections hurt more than others.

Sometimes, a rejection can still knock me flat. Continue reading “Knocked Down Flat”

Well, I watched The Blair Witch Project. I feel like the witchy stuff would’ve been more effective if I hadn’t spent most of the movie thinking those characters were doomed to die in the woods anyway, just because they were unprepared, lost, and running out of food & water. Continue reading “Blair Witch Project”

In a little over two weeks, Zooscape is going to announce that they’re raising their pay rate, with the goal of becoming a SFWA-qualifying market by the end of the year.

In order to afford the increase in pay, Zooscape will have to publish fewer stories. Continue reading “Zooscape Going Pro”

Somewhere between Sonic the Hedgehog and the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, the seven-year-old’s favorite word has very much become “sonic.”

Everything is sonic. Continue reading “Sonic”

—green jello
—feral cat
—cauldron of bees
—swiss cheese
—babbling toddler
—easily distracted but stubborn dog
—evil sorcerer whispering from other dimension
—writer swearing they’ll never write again
—writer’s boss refusing to accept resignation letter

Regularly having your fiction nominated for awards is obviously a good thing, and it’s probably basically not cool to say this…

But regularly losing awards is kinda hard.

I used to have the energy to excitedly congratulate everyone who actually won awards I was up for… But after more than a decade of losing multiple awards per year, I kinda just want to hide under a rock and ignore the whole thing.
Continue reading “Labels, Nominations, and Things We Don’t Say”