Tag: twitter

Busy Bee for Spring

One thing I don’t want this blog to ever become is a string of posts promising to write more. I figure, if there’s a prolonged period where I don’t have much to add, I’ll let the blog sit and hope that people see me tweeting or Instagramming to see what I’m up to. Of course, on Twitter and Instagram, I’m usually talking about hockey or terrifying beauty rituals if I’m not talking about writing.

That said, I realize it’s been a minute since I’ve posted; and I wanted to check in, especially since I already recapped a prolonged absence following the release of Without Condition. This time, my absence hasn’t been because of writing. I have some exciting things going on in my personal life, which I’ll talk about more once those pieces are in place; but I can assure you that they’re all good!

In between the hubbub, though, I’m doing some writing. I’m working on a piece for a food horror call for submission. Sadly, this call for submission doesn’t accept flash — otherwise, I’d totally submit Crust (which you should read if you haven’t yet!).

I’m also letting Little Paranoias sit before giving it one full read-through. I plan to send it to Evelyn for editing in June, and in the meantime, I’ve started working with Doug on what the cover will look like.

I’m a busy bee this spring, and I’m grateful for the energy warm weather gives me to juggle it all. In between new projects coming out soon, I hope you’ll pick up one or two of my books to read if you haven’t done so — I have four to choose from!

Happy reading, everyone.

Happy International Short Story Month!

It’s International Short Story Month! I honestly didn’t know there was a month dedicated to short stories until I saw #ShortStoryMonth on Twitter the other day. But now I know, and now I’m going to celebrate it. *throws confetti*

As you know from my writing, I’m a fan of short stories. A lot of my ideas begin as short stories, and a lot of them end up staying that way. While there have been a few times I’ve gone in with an intended length (heh), I prefer to start writing and see where it ends up. My gut has done a pretty good job of telling me when something needs to keep going and, most importantly, when something is finished.

I also enjoy reading short stories, though I don’t always gravitate to them as quickly as I do to novels. I’m more inclined to read a book of nonfiction essays than a collection of short stories. My biggest shortcoming here is the speed at which I read. I read quickly and I often find short stories to be over just as I’m starting to get pulled into them. I’ve had to train myself to not read through them too quickly, and I’m glad I did. Some of the stories that have stuck with me the most have been less than 5000 words.

I am celebrating Short Story Month on Twitter by recommending one short story a day in an ongoing thread. I’m also trying to find some short stories to read between the novels in my “To Read” queue and my work on my own novel (which, interestingly enough, began as an idea for a short story). If you have any recommendations, please share them with me in the comments!

I also hope you’ll read a few of my own short stories this month. My first collection, The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales, is available for Kindle and in paperback on Amazon. It features four stories and is perfect for a quick read.

Art by Doug Puller

Purchase The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales on:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble

You can also read one of my stories for free: All the Pieces Coming Together, which was the first story I wrote for The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales; and also the first story I wrote in several years when I returned to writing in 2016.

Art by Doug Puller

Read “All the Pieces Coming Together” for Free

Happy reading, everyone!

Progress Report: Heaps of Sand

I’ve been working steadily on my next book for the past week. It’s up to over 25,000 words, and the story seems to shape itself more with every day’s work (it also tends to shapeshift, but that’s all part of the process).

Despite this progress, it’s been hard to plow through because I’m reconciling with this being a first draft. Having completed a novel and several short stories, I figured I’d be familiar with the feeling of stumbling around an apartment looking for the light switch that comes with trying to write a first draft. I’ve even written about that feeling before.

Yet each day I open my document, start writing, and wonder why I can’t just magically have a complete story, one with all my questions answered and one without any bracket notes or paragraphs that basically summarize everything as opposed to narrating. It has all the things I see when I revisit my old drafts of Please Give. I know the words will eventually shape into the story I want. But my impatient self wonders, why can’t I have this now? I’ve done this before — I should be able to do this immediately.

But the truth is, I haven’t done this before — not with this story, at least. I think that’s what I forget when I get discouraged at my words feeling clunky or incomplete. It’s brand new to me, and I need to familiarize myself with the apartment and memorize its corners before I can just walk through and flick on the light.

I came across a quote on Twitter that helped put things in perspective for me, and helped me feel a little less discouraged at the state of writing my draft:

This is a perfect summary of the feeling I get when I write a first draft, that I’m tossing things haphazardly into Word and nothing’s making sense. But it will — and one can’t build the castle without piling in the sand first.

I want to close with my own interpretation of that feeling, inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, The Golden Girls:

Let’s Get Social

It’s a busy week at my day job, and most of my writing over the past week has been pieces that will eventually become a story. That’s always the goal, but I prefer writing more about them on the blog when they’ve settled into a proper groove. Right now they’re in the Sporadic Paragraph Stage, hanging out in random Word docs or the notebook I keep in my purse.

I may not be writing enough to post story updates on the blog today, but I am writing in a few other places. I wanted to take some time to invite you to join me there.

My Twitter page (also linked to in this site’s banner) is quite active. While I do talk about writing, it’s also a space where I talk hockey (Go Caps), television+movies (expect short versions of this post when I’m watching something), beer (drinking and writing about it), politics (no rants but plenty of thoughts), and work grievances. Work grievances are especially fun and loaded with GIFs – and some of my thoughts on boring meetings provided the blueprint for passages in the book. If any or all of these sound up your alley, or even if you just want to connect on Twitter, give me a follow – I’d love to hear from you.

I also blog semi-regularly for Stouts and Stilettos, a women’s beer blog. Most of my posts are beer reviews, conference/event reviews, and beercation guides (beercations are totally a thing). You can find my articles here, but I encourage you to visit the whole blog – there are some excellent pieces there from many talented women.

Those are my main non-writing blog residencies. Related to the blog, I wanted to remind you all that The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales has a page on Facebook. If you’re interested in getting more updates down the road – especially as it gets closer to publication – then please like and follow the collection’s page.

See you all across the Internet!