I’ve been seeing a lot of “which quarantine house would you choose?” memes. So, on this night plagued by insomnia, I decided to take one such meme and make up a flash fiction about each house on one such meme.
Category: Stories and Me
The TLTLBU Sequel Woes
I’ve had a number of people approach me about when I’ll be releasing the sequel to TLTLBU. The truth is…I have no idea. I’m in a PhD program right now, nothing to do with fiction writing, and that really should take precedence. That said, I’m a firm believer that nothing should be prioritized above personal…
Isobel’s Quandary
My mother and I used to read a lot of Eva Ibbotson romances. And by “a lot,” I mean “all of them.” It was my mother who started giving me straight-up romances, instead of my usual fantasy or mystery novels with romantic subplots. She tried this several times—I don’t know if it’s because she liked…
The Irresistible Lure of Failure
Have you ever heard of the secretive, bizarre 60-hour over-100-mile race that has only been completed by 15 runners since it began 30 years ago? If you answered no, we’re in the same boat. I’d never heard of the Barkley Marathons until this week. When I’m tired, I often watch the Today I Found Out…
Counterbalancing (a Tiny Bit of) Our Biases
Apparently yesterday’s (by an hour) post was more personal than I was quite ready for… Let’s detox with something less personal! Counterbalancing a Tiny Bit of Our Biases An Unofficial Crash Course in Cognitive Science for Writers: Pt. 1 Have you ever reflected on a memory, and brought it up with a family member or…
Variable Comforts
A Talk about “Writing Diverse Characters” I gave a talk at the Japan Writers Conference about writing diverse characters. Like I said in my post leading up to the conference, I chose to go in with practically no preparation. I ended up so tense that I foolishly rehearsed talking about certain things—and those things were,…
Off to the Japan Writers Conference!
I’m flying to Otaru for the Japan Writers Conference today! It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and I’ve been a mess all day today: rushing out of a room to go do something only to realize that I left behind something crucial. But most things are done. Just 2 things left: submit my scholarship…
How to Write an Asexual Love Story—and Why
I’m trying to write an asexual’s love story right now. No, I don’t mean a non-sexual love story. There will in fact be a bit of sexual content, because the protagonist has to learn that not wanting to have sex, not enjoying the rush of hormones, is not the same thing as either prudishness or…
On Blogging and Vlogging and All That Jazz
As you might have noticed, I’ve been dabbling in vlogs and video essays lately. Don’t worry about breaking the news to me—I’m aware that they’re not that great. I don’t think it’ll ever be my medium the way writing is. I have to script a video to be happy with it, I’m not an engaging…
(The Start of) An Impassioned Defense of Fan Fiction
**This blog post is cross-posted from my review blog, The Storybooker.** As a general rule, I don’t post reviews of fanfics on my review blog. Certainly, there was one notable exception—an instance in which said fanfic was eventually published as a book for sale, incidentally. Lately, I’ve begun to ask myself: Why is that? This…