Hi Writers! No matter where you are in your publishing path, you’re going to want to create a website and keep it updated. Not only is this useful for agents and editors curious about you, it ALSO gives you something pretty to look at when you are feeling a little gloomy about all the waiting built into publishing. Plus it’s great, nerdy busy work to procrastinate when you’re tired of writing about dragons or blood witches or whatever.
Ryan
Interview: Write or Die Podcast with THE Claribel Ortega
UPDATE: Episode now available for download, or streaming @ Write or Die. Click here!
I’m going to be the guest of episode 4 of the Write or Die Podcast, hosted by THE ONE AND ONLY Claribel Ortega! The episode will be out this Friday, May 18th! I’m delirious with excitement, but also super nervous. More on that later.
Read moreInterview: Write or Die Podcast with THE Claribel Ortega
I’M GOING TO BE PUBLISHED. TWICE.
Permit me this one moment of unabashed pride: I GOT A BOOK DEAL. FOR MY VERY STRANGE, VERY QUEER FANTASY BOOK. MY FIRST BOOK. MY ONLY BOOK. AND SOMEHOW, THE DEAL IS FOR TWO BOOKS. I HAVE TO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK??? OH NO!!!
Interview: How I got my agent via Twitter
Anyone that’s been following my writing journey probably knows two undeniable truths about my so-far-success:
- My boyfriend’s iPhone X has portrait mode and I’m not afraid to use it
- I owe a tremendous amount of my success to a contest on twitter known as #DVPit
I’m attending the NYC Teen Author Festival!
Some more fun travel news! Right before I head to Texas for the Writing Barn’s Rainbow Weekend Intensive, I’ll be in New York City dropping in to the Teen Author Festival organized by David Levithan! Not speaking. Just watching. From the back. Just ferociously yearning, all the way in the back.
I’m going to Texas in March!
Some big news! This past month I applied for and got accepted into a weekend intensive writing program at The Writing Barn, in Austin, Texas! Woooo! The Rainbow Weekend Intensive, to be specific. A whole weekend full of writing, workshops, lectures, and I think at one point I get to paint a rock? I’m deliriously excited. I’m also anxious. Not about the rock, though. I am confident I can paint a rock. But a writing workshop?? For me?? Very suspicious.
Getting away with magical murder
Last weekend we murdered our good friend, Anna.
Actually, I murdered Anna. Did it with some poison and then a bludgeon. See below.
Our apartment doesn’t have a ton of places to murder someone, so we had to crowd the whole party in the entry, which was actually the “Courtyard” for the evening. Everyone got real close. Jess made a big announcement that the lights were going to go out in three seconds, and that she sure HOPED no one was murdered during the resulting darkness. The lights went out. I cut the twinkling fairy lights we’d hung earlier that day. The room went black and the party counted down: 3, 2, 1!
And then I murdered Anna.
I’m writing short stories again
I began a new short story yesterday. It started as a warmup for a day of writing, but a few hours later I was still within it, toiling away. I think this was a trick I played on myself. I’ve already resolved to write short stories this year, though yesterday was not the day I planned to start. So why was it the thing I started with? Probably because it’s the thing I should be writing.
Writing in 2018
I didn’t write a ton in 2017, mostly because I was busy revising a project, revising it again, and then creating auxiliary resources (like a series synopsis) for submission. Once that all got handed over, my job as a writer became: WAITING. For the first time in two years I was without a project to hold my attention, and it was a feeling that was both liberating and stupefying. What was I going to work on next? I’ve avoided asking myself this for ages, for two reasons.
Creating our Hawkmen cosplay for New York Comic Con
At some point this summer, Sal and I fell into the habit of using our gym time to discuss cosplaying. We’d gotten tickets to New York Comic Con (NYCC) and needed to figure out something spectacular. Our deliberations looked like: one of us rhetorically debating the pros/cons of being the Thundercats while the other suffered underneath a bench press; one of us rhetorically discussing how to make the Demogorgon into a ‘Sexy Demogorgon’ while the other dangled from a pull-up bar. It was a very specific and odd series of vignettes and I think a lot about what we must have sounded like.
Read moreCreating our Hawkmen cosplay for New York Comic Con