When it comes to publishing, I’m pretty sure I won’t have a month like this any time soon. Between March 3rd and April 1st, I published four short pieces through some welcome coincidences.
Story Archive
When Words Fail Us
A couple of months ago, before Putin decided to level Ukrainian cities with his bombs, I wrote a short story for a science fiction collection called The Odin Chronicles, now published by Page & Spine. My protagonist was a man whose home planet had been blown to pieces by a mining company, and he’d been…
February 7, 2001 and 2023
2001 Twenty-one years ago today, I got off a plane at Sea-Tac International Airport as a fresh immigrant to the Unites States. I was exhausted after an almost 24-hour trip with a layover. It was only my second airplane trip ever, and I’d prepared poorly for it. Back in Bucharest, Romania, because I knew I…
Getting the Hang of Flash Fiction
Just six months ago, I was convinced I couldn’t write short fiction. Novel writing is just too different from building short stories. (I explained my apprehension in detail in a recent guest post on Stupefying Stories called Scared of Short Stories.) Scared as I was, I had to face my fears—that’s what I tell my…
History Is Alive and Well
My first drabble appeared today in Stupefying Stories together with Alicia Hilton’s, as part of a new Pete Wood Challenge. I’ve only recently learned what a drabble is: a piece of flash fiction of exactly 100 words. The constraints are surprisingly liberating. The story is just a moment in time, no space for backstory or…
First Place in Stupefying Stories Writing Contest
This is a quick note about a short story I wrote for a prompt contest run by Stupefying Stories, 500 words with the title “For Sale: Used Time Machine. No Refunds!” I’ve been working on novels for many years and haven’t practiced my short-story skills as much. But this piece of flash fiction worked, and…
Fifteen Years of Writing
People think that all you need to do to be a writer is put pen to paper. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t question that idea, though I should have. As a former software developer, I knew you needed more than just a keyboard to write code. Looking back at 15 years of writing, I see…
Why Publish Your Writing?
“If you like writing, why can’t you just write? Why do you need to publish it too?” This pointed question comes up in conversation once in a while. It usually follows my description of the hard road to publication. It’s a well-meaning question, but it still hurts. It seems that wanting to have a career…
How to Smell a Lie
I live in Trump’s America, and lies are the air we breathe here. I mean, the literal air in Seattle is literally not good for breathing because of wildfire smoke, but this is not what my post is about. This is about the last six months—no, it’s not about COVID-19 either—but about the novel I…
The End Is Always Near, Version COVID-19
I found Dan Carlin’s The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses in December 2019 at the book fair at my kids’ school, and I picked it up because of the great title and also because in my speculative historical novel characters live under constant fear of…