Category: writing
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Writerly resolutions: January Status
January was a crappy month. I did very little writing on the novel. I started a new project which I’ve since discarded as self-indulgent garbage. The lone bright spot was an acceptance for a story and the slow decline of the size of my submittable queue (down from 53 to 31). I can only hope…
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Writerly resolutions for 2020
2019 was a disappointing year on many fronts, so I figure 2020 can’t help but be better. My goals for the year Finish a complete draft of We, The Rescued. Rewrite and revise to get it in a state where I can have some other eyes read it. Cut way back on submissions. I’m not…
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Writerly resolutions for 2019—the post mortem
I had two goals for the year and failed on them both. I aimed to finish the full draft of We, The Rescued. This entailed writing some 50,000 words over the course of the year. I made steady progress (as the graph above shows), but not steady enough and I had more than a few…
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2019 in rejections (and acceptances)
2019 was a grim year for me publishing-wise. I had only two acceptances, one each of fiction and poetry, the worst rejection rate since 2012 and for the first time since I sold my first story, I went a year without any income (not even a token sum) for any of my writing. As the…
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Beautiful Sentences: Ann Patchett
There was no logic to the way any hospital was laid out—they grew like cancers, with new wings metastasizing unexpectedly at the end of long tunneled halls. Ann Patchett, The Dutch House.
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Beautiful Sentences: Yiyun Li
Words fall short, yes, but sometimes their shadows can reach the unspeakable. Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End.
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Beautiful Sentences: Jayson Greene
I glance up at her, and her heartbreak is so acute it is like the sun—I can’t look at it. Jayson Greene, Once More We Saw Stars.
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Writerly resolutions: November Status
November started strong but life interfered to slow things down dramatically in the second half of the month. Chapter 17 of the novel came together reasonably quickly, but I had trouble getting into chapter 18 (it’s finally beginning to flow, at least). Meanwhile in short story land, I’ve been working on a new story which is…
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Beautiful Sentences: Yiyun Li
What if life could be saved by clichés? What if life must be lived by clichés? Somewhere tomorrow and somewhere yesterday—never somewhere today but cliché-land. Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End.