In honor of the fact that my thesis classes give me even less time for mindless surfing – I offer up this new poem 🙂 Think Outside the Box PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE!Scroll away from the screen.Never read the comments.Trolls can kill.That slop is AI.And the IRL world is beautiful and bright.Not perfectBut breathable.And the…
I don’t know if I can fully convey, unless you are also a sci-fi and fantasy author, how rewarding it is to do a web search on a fictional name or future tech term you’re wanting to use and having Google tell you it can’t find any search results. It makes me want to do…
The class I’m taking right now for my MFA is Speculative Fiction Writing II – it’s one of the classes I have looked forward to the most, and even though we’re only a couple of weeks in I’ve already learned so much! The slightly scary thing is that this is the class where we finally…
Please read that post title in the voice of your preferred version of Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy. This is a continuation of my earlier post about celebration. In my MFA program, I’m currently in Speculative Fiction Writing I – only a few days in and it’s glorious. I take forever to get the actual assignments…
I’m a hundred percent convinced that most of us creative types don’t celebrate our victories enough. Just deciding to be creative and inventive in a chaotic world is worth taking time to honor. So in keeping with that, here’s my little celebration – One more class down toward my Master of Fine Arts in Creative…
Before the pandemic, and trying to get tenure, and relocating to a new state, and… I was a writer in search of an agent. I researched, queried, went to conferences, entered contests, followed up on leads, and tried to take each rejection as just another step in the process of becoming a traditionally published writer.…
I’ve been working on editing a novel today – it was that great feeling where you get sucked into a project and don’t want to stop. It felt great. Then I decided, “Maybe I’ll spend a few minutes working on getting rid of my filler words.” Filler words are those words that 90% of the…
I did this last night as part of my effort to better stay motivated on my writing goals this month. This is a trick that a lot of writers use – I’ve even done it using Post-It Notes on the wall, but in this case I wanted my tasks to be a little more portable.…
I love the idea of National Novel Writing Month. Love the idea of clear goals and a deep commitment to finishing a project and working every day. The organization it’s attached to is so encouraging and has awesome resources – the whole concept of it makes me feel a sort of sunbeams and chocolate and…
Wow! I can’t believe it’s been July since I posted last – the one downside to full time job, plus grad school, plus life is that it doesn’t leave a lot of time for extras like the blog. I’d like to promise to do better, but I hate breaking promises. This last week I’ve been…
Jenel Alan 