Category science fiction
Writing Prompt: Noise
“Clack, clack, clack.” The metallic sound woke her, as it had every night since she was left alone. She lay still, feeling the chug, chug, chug, of her new heart. She’d never noticed the clacking before. Was it new? Was it a sign of some malfunction? Maybe just the new quiet of her house. No […]
Writing Prompt: A Struggle
Back to some writing. A short piece for you. I’ll say more on the other side… Why couldn’t she have a simple problem? Lots of her friends’ parents were divorced. They shuttled between them like that little fake-feathered thing in badminton. Shuttlecock. That was it. Perfect. Back and forth. If it’s Tuesday, this must be […]
Revision or Work in Progress II
Following up on my “Work in Progress” post, I got back the notes for my next book. The good news is that I did not want to cry. And I don’t have to drastically rethink the story. And I do feel overwhelmed. But I’ve already buckled in for the revision ride. Which promptly came to […]
Works in Progress
I’ve been MIA on the blogging front. Ironically because I’ve been busy promoting Endurance but also distracted by life as well as crunching out a draft of Book 2, which follows Endurance and is now safely out for critique. With that off my desk, I launched into Book 3, which is incredibly exciting. I love […]
My First Solo Author Reading
Last week I gave my first solo reading. And it was in person. I hadn’t done any public reading since my short story collection came out, but that hardly mattered. There’s a huge difference between being given five to ten minutes with a bunch of other authors and having to fill an entire hour by […]
Setting: A Sense of Place
Have you ever been on a cruise? I’ve only done it once, a small-ship cruise in Alaska’s Inside Passage. The ship had about a hundred tourists and we were able to go into smaller coves and closer to the glaciers than the big Princess ship we saw a few times along the route. The contrast […]
So, Back to Writing
I’m reading a very cool book, In Search of the Canary Tree, by Lauren E. Oakes. It’s early yet, and in it she’s just starting her Ph.D. research project analyzing yellow-cedar forests on an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska, near Sitka. What does this have to do with writing? I’m enthralled by […]
Is It Bad for a SF Writer To Be Unimpressed by the Webb Telescope?
The long-awaited first images from the James Webb* Space Telescope were revealed the other day. Would it be heresy for this writer of science fiction to be meh about them? After all, I just released a novel about, well, space exploration. But like much of what I like to read, it’s about more than that. […]
In a Word: Endurance
I’m pretty bad at coming up with titles for my stories, but I love discovering the meaning of titles in other works so should use that as a lesson. One of my favorite books is A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. The title is a little off-putting. Long, weird. It’s about the aftermath […]
Opening Endurance
My wife once asked me what I like about writing. Depending on the day, like today as I struggle with a scene, I’d say not much. To describe writing as frustrating completely understates the feelings you have when you a) can’t think of what to write about, b) can’t remember that great idea you had […]
Elaine Burnes 