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Things My Son Has Said
I’ve had a few interesting conversations lately with my six year-old son. We call him “Bubs” online. (Here’s an autobiographical video I helped him put together about a year ago.) I’ve been meaning to write these stories down, and I figure the blog is as good as anywhere else, and maybe you’ll get a kick out of it too. First story, a couple weeks ago we’re driving home in the car… Bubs: Can we watch Boss Baby: Back in Business when we get home? Me: Um…no I don’t really want you watching that show… Bubs: Why? Me: Because I feel like it’s just kind of stupid. Bubs: Well, you don’t…
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Adventures in Albuquerque
Last Friday my little family packed our things and piled into the car for a trip to Albuquerque (and I CAN NOT say that word without getting the Weird Al song stuck in my head). One of Nathan’s relatives passed away and his family was planning on holding a memorial on Saturday morning. Of course events like this are really important for all sorts of reasons, but on top of the obvious, a lot of Nathan’s extended family were going to be there, some of whom the kids and I were looking forward to meeting for the first time. And of course, the kids were stoked to see Grandma and…
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2018 Storymakers Report
Okay kids, I’m back from the Storymakers 2018 writing conference, and it’s time for a play-by-play. First, Christina Parks came ten days before the shindig. She’s one of my best buddies (and one of the best writers I know). This year was extra special because she brought her five year-old daughter and 10 month-old daughter. We even hung out with our buddy Kris Atkins and her kids in Denver, and stayed overnight. It was a lot of kids! Much fun was had. Driving to and from Denver, I started reading I Feel Bad About My Neck out loud to Christina and it made the time fly. Christina and I happen…
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Who’s Winning All the Hugos?
In the world of science fiction and fantasy short stories, getting a Hugo Award is like winning an Oscar. As a short story writer currently in the throes of submitting her work, I’ve been really interested in which anthologies tend to get their stories nominated for, and win, Hugos. Of course getting something published in one of these carries no guarantee of success, but it does demonstrate the fact that there are Hugo-voting eyeballs looking at these collections. I figure if I want to make the team, it’s a good idea to show up for tryouts. Since making bar graphs is apparently my definition of fun, the following charts are…
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25 Best Blog Posts by Patrick Rothfuss
A while ago I mentioned that Patrick Rothfuss has, in my opinion, the best author blog on the internet. Although, like his books, his blog is a bit of a behemoth. Where to start a book is simple–at the beginning (unless you’re one of those monsters who reads the last chapter first). Where to start a blog with eleven years’ worth of posts written by a famously (infamously?) verbose author is another matter. That said, the effort is well worth it. And since there’s nothing I love more than subjecting people to my obsessively organized passions, I’ve curated a list for your convenience. Who is Pat? 1) A Guy Game: everything…
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What I’m Working On: Spring 2018
Whew! Things are getting interesting over here in Tyler Land. I have a number of writing projects I’m working on right now, and I thought it’d be fun to keep you updated on my progress! Current Projects: 1) “Honeybee” Sci-fi short story I’d like to be about 5k-7k words. My original draft was 5k, but the premise is kind of far out and so many of my beta readers had so many questions, I decided to let myself wax verbose on the second draft and answer all the questions. This resulted in the story swelling to 9k (almost twice the length of the first draft). I figured I could review…
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Top Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Magazines (that accept unsolicited submissions!)
For anyone interested, here is my list of science fiction and fantasy magazines/anthologies I plan on submitting my short stories to. These are, in my opinion, the very best SFF collections out there that accept unsolicited submissions. In other words, you can submit your work to them without an agent. I’ll be updating this information as time goes on. I haven’t numbered or rated the venues because they each have different strengths and specialties. Zoetrope, for instance, is the most literary on this list, while Beneath Ceaseless Skies only publishes second-world fantasy. I think it’s a good idea to peruse the list with a specific story in mind and consider…
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If You Can Dream and Not Make Dreams Your Master
I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. this morning looking at dresses. Let me tell you about that. The 2018 Writers of the Future Awards Event was held yesterday in Los Angeles, California. I started watching it at midnight, and well, it’s almost three hours long. I’ve entered the 2019 contest, so I don’t have any skin in the game for 2018, but after watching the event for a while, I started daydreaming about what I’d wear if I were one of the finalists someday. Here’s a link to the Pinterest board. You might notice I like gold dresses. And floral dresses. And golden floral dresses. I’ve mentioned how important it is…
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Five Things I Got Wrong about Blogging (and the One Thing I Got Right)
Full Disclosure: this isn’t my first blog. In December 2010 I created a blog that lasted almost exactly three years. I had 98 posts and 81,592 views. All things considered, that ain’t bad. So what went wrong? Why’d I quit? And why is the blog nowhere to be found? Well, as far as I can tell, I made five crucial mistakes. 1) I gave unqualified advice. I talked a lot about things I had no experience in or real understanding of. I gave advice on how to write a query; I’d never written an actual query. I wrote about reducing your novel’s word count; I’d never finished a novel. I…
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Time Capsule
Hey. I’m Christine. I’ve thought a lot about what I want to write as my first official entry in this blog. I imagine that someday, when I’m published, I might wander back here to remind myself what things used to be like. I hope there may be a person or two who will enjoy my work enough to be curious about where I started. So my aim here is to create a Time Capsule, to capture a bit of who I am, what I’m working on, what’s important to me, and where I want to go with it all. First and foremost, this is a writing blog. I create YouTube…
