A note: 20 October 2020. I have just now created a copy of a document I last opened in 2018. In 11 days, I will again try to complete NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The goal is simple enough: 50,000 words in 30 days – simple enough when broken down into elements of words, characters,…
Tag: writer
Shortlisted: Heroines and Deborah Cass
Surprising no one who knows me, I cried on September 4 and October 12. On September 4, I found out I was short-listed for the Heroines Women’s Writing Prize. This was news beyond expectation for the first short story I’ve written this year. It’s a story that rends apart the classic Russian fable ‘Ivan and…
By Any Other Name
On tentative little tiptoes I’m overjoyed to share that one of my weird short stories has been accepted for publication in a very cool (and meaningful) publication – but more to come about that later. It’s a precious ray of light in a year I keep euphemistically referring to as “challenging.” As part of the…
NaNoWriMo V.3
One thousand, six hundred and sixty seven. To complete NaNoWriMo, the annual, international writing challenge, all you have to do is write one thousand, six hundred and sixty seven words a day. Every day. For thirty days. To break it down in such increments makes it sound feasible, reasonable even. Kind of. It is an…
Pitching for writers: A personal post
I imagine it’s a bit like an audition for film role, a casting session, where all the potential actors size each other up in the waiting area. Ultimately they have the same aim, and they can’t all get the part. But they’ve been on a similar journey, fought the same or similar battles for recognition,…
Hunter Gather: Art and Writing
This is a different kind of post. I’ve been so focused on writing this year – finishing the first rewrite of Bury the Sun and applying for various unpublished manuscript opportunities for both Sun and Birch. I’ve been pushing myself guiltily into pursuing the first New Year’s resolution I’d ever made: planning to submit Birch…
Dead girl and heron: Joyce Carol Oates
Content warning: child abuse (reference), sexual assault (reference) Before reading her work, I’d assumed Joyce Carol Oates was one of those writers who churned out weepy family sagas. As many fateful reading habits begin, I picked up Daddy Love (2013) by accident. It was an entirely disturbing read, tracking the fate of a young boy…
Dasha Maiorova 