I originally wrote this story back in February 2012, but, to be honest, I started having doubts about how it actually turned out. The plot hit the nerve in the way I wasn’t quite expecting, and I think too much of it spilled on the page. At the same time, the story was kind of necessary in terms of Urbis Arcana canon, so I wound up putting in the “ ( Read more... )

Since January 13, writer Thomas J. O’Gorman has been been writing a gossip/society column for Skyline community newspaper. He took over the beat after Ann Gerber, Chicago’s longest-running gossip columnist, retired late last year.

I said that there is never going to be anyone quite like Ann Gerber, and, to his credit, Thomas O’Gorman doesn’t try ( Read more... )

When I started submitting "Library Fantasy," my most recently completed short story, I knew that rejections were inevitable. Hell, I knew I would be lucky if anyone accepted it.

But that didn't mean the rejections didn't hurt.

The first rejection wasn't for "Library Fantasy" at all. It was for my spur-of-the-moment submission of " How Vasilisa the ( Read more... )

I haven't been writing as much as I would like to in the last few months. Granted, there are perfectly good reasons for this. Between chemo robbing me of half of my weekends and more work than ever, I haven't had that much time to write. Plus, I've been posting on this LJ more, and those posts can take time, too. It's a miracle I managed to get one ( Read more... )

Since the last time I wrote about it, I submitted my newest story to a few more places. Well, two more ( Read more... )

A week before my first chemo, tweelore and alliancesjr invited me to hang out at their apartment and have some fun. Among other things, Lore wound up introducing me to Sims 3.

I knew about the Sims games, of course, but I never actually played them. I decided to try to create some Urbis Arcana characters. For the sake of simplicity, I went with the characters that ( Read more... )

Back on November 14, a day before my 10th chemotherapy session, I submitted a short story to Chicago Reader's upcoming Fiction Issue. It's the story I mentioned in an earlier post. While it's an Urbis Arcana story, one that features a character readers of my earlier work will recognize, it doesn't really require you to read any of my previous work ( Read more... )

Over on her Facebook page, corrinalaw posted a pretty interesting challenge.

Post by Corrina Lawson.I couldn't help but feel intrigued by it - and, with her permission, I gave it a try. I just so happened to have an 8-page short story I've been struggling with for the past couple of weeks. One that's almost ready go. It's called "Library Fantasy," and it' ( Read more... )

I was working on a follow-up to How to Get a Boy Without Really Trying when I realized I had a bit of a dilemma.

And this is the part where I realize that I don't really know a whole lot about how women take care of their hair #Writing #UrbisArcana
- Strannik (@Strannik_REB45) May 23, 2014
I found that Twitter can be a surprisingly useful resource ( Read more... )

Every year, I try to write a story for Chicago Reader’s Fiction issue. Last year, I thought I had a pretty good idea for a story. But as I sat down to write it, I realized that it wasn’t working. And no matter how hard I tried, it kept on not working. So, with not a whole lot of time left, I decided to try something else.

When I wrote an initial ( Read more... )