It was at a fannish gathering--at my house, I think--that I first heard the term "Mary Sue". Some large person with a beard was using it to put down the work of a female writer. I protested. I didn't see anything wrong with the very competent female character he was taking exception to ( Read more... )

So, there I was, happily writing on the current novel, when I realized we had to leave right away (in the middle of a climactic scene!) or we'd miss Mystique​'s doctor appointment. The sun was shining, the cats were playing, and all was well with the world. Well, the outer world. In the world of the novel, all was definitely not well, and was ( Read more... )

This weekend is the Torn World Muse Fusion (if you are so inclined, we'd love to get your questions or topic suggestions, whether they are specific to Torn World or just inspiration in general ( Read more... )

This is Denel's reading, posted here for EllenMillion. It's a little long to post as a comment in the card draw, so I'm giving it its own post ( Read more... )

So, this is a continuation of Tom and Jeri's story. Hmmmm...writing it that way, well, I have to admit that my subconscious self must be laughing at my conscious self. I hadn't realized until right now that these characters are namesakes of that famous cartoon! I do want to keep him as "Tom", but now I wonder if I should change Jeri's name. (You ( Read more... )

Sandie read the local papers obsessively, though most of them weren’t even on paper any more. They had kept her finger on the pulse of her City, so she could sell feature articles and humor pieces to the magazines. Now she also read the #Chicaugwa twitter stream and various local blogs and Facebook pages too. Chicaugwa was endlessly fascinating ( Read more... )

We've been working on the goal of Making Room lately. It's hard to not feel overwhelmed, we bought this house from a family of hoarders, and while they removed a lot of stuff, they didn't get rid of it all. One of the ways we have made things manageable is to have smaller goals. One is to fill the trash bin every week ( Read more... )

With thanks to Ankewehner, for the prompt, here is another Catkin ficlet. I am also posting this as my #flashfriday story. I'm hoping to do this more often, though I've been focusing on finishing a novel, whose working title is Clockwork Dragon.

H is for HelpfulBindi walked the frozen alleys restlessly, changing from human to cat form when the moon rose ( Read more... )

I still owe you folks a bunch of urban fantasy worldbuilding ficlets. So, with thanks to msstacy13 for the prompt, here we go:

G is for GlassesKatie scowled and followed her mother into the store. It just wasn’t fair. She pulled and dragged and stomped her feet, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she imagined swishing her tailmight be. Not that she ( Read more... )

I know, this is my space, I can do whatever I want here, as much or as little, and so on and so forth. But I do value this space, this connection with other thinking, creating people. And I am not using it as much as I want to ( Read more... )