Romancing the Writing - How to Take Your Writing on a Date

(Setting the mood with some candles and a mysterious raven)

*

I think we've all heard the advice that "you need to write every day" and "you need to treat your writing like a job" and "you need to have a writing routine." I'm not saying any of this advice is wrong. I'm saying, if that works for you, do it. All of this advice is yours to keep and do with what you will. However, if you're burned out, bored, or just not getting the writing done, I say change it up! Try something flirty and adventurous with your writing!

So, like the title says, this post is about how to take your writing on a date. The nice thing about this kind of date is that it doesn't have to cost very much and you don't necessarily even have to go anywhere, unless you want to. You might need to kick other people out of the house so you and your writing can be alone together, but maybe not. Maybe you live with people who know how to keep a low profile when you're trying to get some writing action. 

Here's what you do. First of all, make plans in advance. This is not a spontaneous writing booty call. This is a respectful and loving date. Pick an evening when you can have a few hours to spend with your writing. Don't double-book your time or keep your mind open to canceling if something better comes along. Set a reasonable amount of time, like two or three hours. Anything shorter than an hour is not really giving the date a chance. And planning on a super-long date is kind of presumptuous, don't you think?

Second, create some atmosphere. If you're staying in, pick a nice room, maybe somewhere you don't usually write. Even if your space is small and you don't have a different room available, you can make the same room feel different. Clean it, tidy it, change the decorations around. If you can, add some candles or some other special lighting. Decide where you're going to sit and get that all set up with a notebook and pen, or a laptop, or a recorder to dictate into. If you only, ever, always write on a desktop computer, then you can set up your nice atmosphere wherever the computer is if you want, but may I suggest considering a temporary change of methods for the date instead? Because this is supposed to be a special night. That's your call.

If you're going out, of course, pick a place you'll enjoy and take your writing things with you. From now on I'm going to act as if this is a home date, but you know how to proceed if you're going out. Adapt ideas as necessary.

Plan out, acquire, and prepare an appetizer or small meal that feels a bit fancy. You don't have to be really extra about this, but try to make your food something you'll look forward to and enjoy. Same for what you'll drink. Something that feels a bit luxurious, whether it's hot or cold, alcoholic or non-. I like to have a glass of wine, but you can choose any kind of date-like drink you want.

Add some music and/or subtle background noise. I use my iPad to play both music from Pandora, and a loop of coffee shop background noise (people talking, cafe noises) with Coffeetivity, which can play at the same time and be adjusted so that it doesn't overwhelm the music. This really adds good atmosphere! It promotes that feeling of being somewhere else without going somewhere else. I'm pretty sure that I've also read a study that said moderate background noise can boost creativity. Almost positive that's why I got the Coffeetivity app in the first place.

You may think this is a bit over the top, but I also suggest dressing for a date, and doing whatever special-occasion things you might do with your hair, face, and body for a date. The fact that your writing isn't actually a person is not something you need to focus on right now. You're making this night special for YOU, and pretending you're going on a real and actual date. This means you can even wear whatever fragrances you want in whatever quantities you want, if you're so inclined, because you don't have to worry about anyone else's preferences (unless you're not technically alone in this scenario, but let's say you are. For the sake of my premise). You can consider comfort when deciding what to wear, but spiffing up will do things for you psychologically. You're making the effort.

All right? When it's time for your writing date - and I do hope you respect your writing enough to be on time for this - make absolutely sure that you put away your phone and stay off the internet, because scanning distracting other stuff is extremely rude and inattentive to your companion. Try to show up with some good "conversation starters," otherwise known as ideas about what you'd like to work on. Will you do some free-writing first? Or make a list of things that will happen next in your story? Maybe you'll start by writing down some questions, and then answering them. Another idea would be to pretend you're sitting across from one of your characters, getting to know them as you would while going out for dinner or drinks with someone. You could play the role of yourself, or of another character. Write down the conversation as you go. Or if you already know what's supposed to happen next in your story, you can seduce yourself into writing it down. 

Once you get to the end of the time you've set for the writing date, you can make plans for the next one, or stay with your writing longer if the evening's going really well. There's really nothing to lose by doing this. Ideally, you'll have a good time while getting some writing done, but at minimum, you'll have delicious food and a drink you enjoy in a space that you've beautified. That's a good, happiness-boosting way to spend an evening. Self-care is its own reward, and the reduction in stress will ripple through the rest of your life and the next day's writing. 

Don't Call it a Crisis

Hey, I'm in the middle-aged years of my life.

And this summer I've been doing a thing.

One might examine the characteristics of this thing I've been doing, and consider the implications of my age being 44, and think this thing might plausibly be called a "midlife crisis." But I don't think that's a very kind or fair label to apply to the thing, so I'm going to call it my Midlife Thing.

It's happening because of good reasons. I've survived to the age of 44 and a half! I've achieved many of the standard life goals for which one can find readily-available advice, such as having the relationships and children that I've wanted, and a series of houses. I've taken some trips that are widely considered to be desirable, to Italy and England. I've learned decent chunks of a couple of different languages. I've even done some things that are a bit less usual, like selling my original paintings at art shows, and publishing some of my short stories and the two original anthologies that I've edited.

My Midlife Thing is not coming from dissatisfaction. It's coming from the feeling that I've crossed off many goals from my original list, and I'm looking at the goals that remain on the list to see if they're still goals that I want to do. And I have this other blank sheet here, and a pen, waiting for me to fill it in with my next set of goals, preferably next-level challenging ones that will feel invigorating.

The way I noticed the beginning of my Midlife Thing - which probably started brewing quite a while before I noticed it - is that I suddenly had this SUPER INTENSE NEED to decorate my bedroom IMMEDIATELY. Summer is a hard time for me to write, because of loud boy-children living life echoingly no farther away than the room adjacent to the room I am in at any given time, so I tend to do more artsy, projecty stuff in the summer. But this need to decorate basically pounced on me, dug in its teeth, and consumed my entire personality for a few weeks there. The photo above is one I took when it was not even as decorated as it is now. YEAH. I've got this "if a goth discovered boho" vibe going on in the room. And I love it.

I love it! But after I did that, I wondered why exactly I needed to do that decorating, that hard, that minute. My conclusion is that I was subconsciously trying to invite in some more creativity so that I could do something bigger than what I had been doing. I was bored and I didn't have any big goals to attack, so I needed to create the kind of bedroom a creative, big-goal-attacking person would have. I just don't usually have to launch my own subconscious at myself in order to figure out things like that.

Once I got my motivations sorted out, I started to spend a lot of time in my magnificent pageant of a bedroom, reading books that seemed relevant and writing many questions and answers. I also started to watch YouTube videos made by some inspiring individuals. I don't even know how I found Marie Forleo's channel, but I watched a lot of her videos, especially her interviews with other people who had written interesting books. I recommend this course of action, because she's interviewed some fascinating people. The first book I read as a direct result of watching her interviews was Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I had picked up and put back down in bookstores I don't know how many times before that. It took seeing Gilbert being delightful in an interview to get me to read it, but at that point I was definitely in the right state of mind to read it. Apparently, despite not being particularly woo-woo oriented, I am in a state of willingness to try out acting as if some woo-woo thinking might work for me even if I don't thoroughly believe in it. Just putting on some woo-woo shoes to walk around in for a while and see if they take me somewhere good.

Which means I also found it useful to read The Fire Starter Sessions, by Danielle LaPorte. It's not ENTIRELY woo-woo, but it's, you know. Pretty spiritual, philosophically. At the same time, it's loaded with personality and good ways to figure oneself out in many areas of life, not just the spiritual side of it.

I CAN ALWAYS TAKE OFF THE WOO-WOO SHOES LATER.

I'm going to end this series of links with one to my new favorite human discovery, Brendon Burchard. He has a long playlist of short videos I've been tearing through. This guy has so much sparkle, it's like watching sentient glitter confetti tell you how to get your shit together. That's the kind of person I want to learn from!

I also have a huge new section of my list of things to read, and I suspect I'll tell you all about that as time goes by, but I've clarified my ambitions a lot already.

What I'm saying is that I've never written an entire novel before, and I still very much want to, and it's time. I don't know what other goals will go on the new list, but this goal is now written at the top. I even know generally which novel I want to start writing (some assembly will be required on the details). So that's my next-level big goal that I'll be working on when the kids are back in school.

The Friday Report for February 12, 2016

One of my images for this week...

You can see more on my Instagram page.

I'm going to have to make this week's report a quick jog through the highlights, because I'm starving AND I have to go drop off books at the library. So here we go!

My projects:

Writing: Last week, I decided that I wanted to have my current story pretty much finished by today--everything but the final polishing edit done. I did not reach that goal. I don't feel too bad about it because I'm about halfway there. I've worked on it every day this week, but it's a weird story and I keep getting new ideas for what to do with it, so that's a bad news/good news scenario.

I did find a couple of anthologies I want to write my next stories for, though. They're both due on May 1st: Ghosts on Drugs, and Survivor. 

Reading: Still the same books as last week, but I've also added two.

• Year's Best Fiction Volume Two, edited by Kathe Koja and Michael Kelly
• Fire Up Your Writing Brain, by Susan Reynolds

February's Other Project: I nailed the back onto my new desk. Next up: assembling and installing the drawers and keyboard tray. DESKS ARE COMPLICATED.

The Friday Report for February 5, 2016

One of my Instagram images for the week!

(I surrender to my need to make more than one per week.)

Hello! This Friday Report is here despite the fact that I had sick kids at home for three out of my five work days, including today. Nothing too serious, just some coughing. It's February. This is what happens in February.

I've even written a decent amount of fiction! I finished a very rough draft of my new story yesterday, at five thousand words. It's a good thing that I went back and checked the guidelines, because I had been thinking it could be six thousand words long, but it could not. Five thousand was, and is, the limit. Does this mean the story is done? Not even close, because when I say "very rough draft," I mean "nobody sees this version but me." But after today's work of starting to convert "rough" to "readable," I feel good about the first thousand words of the story, and I just have the remaining four thousand to turn into prose that I would want to submit.

I feel like it's time to start thinking about what kind of a story I'll write after this one, so that I'll have a project to work on after I finish this draft, while I'm waiting to do the final version. I like to do three drafts: 1) very rough; 2) pretty much finished; and 3) thoroughly polished. After a story is pretty much finished, I like to leave it alone for maybe a week so that I get some distance, and then I print it in a different font from what I used when I wrote it, and I read it out loud while walking around the house. That gives me a few different ways to notice things like repeated words, typos, and most importantly, the way the sentences sound. I mark the printout with any changes I want to make and then incorporate them, and make sure the final file is in Standard Manuscript Format, and then I send the story to its destination. 

So now I must figure out what to write next. I'm currently most interested in writing The Weird as a subgenre of speculative fiction, but that could include all sorts of things. I'm also going to look for themed anthology calls that will involve actual money being paid for stories, because that's been my route to publication every single time, so far.

My Projects:

Writing: I have two weeks to get this Weird West story to the thoroughly polished stage--because that's what I promised my writing buddy--so I'd like to have it pretty much finished by next Friday. And I want to have a new story idea forming by then, too.

Reading: 

• City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I'm re-reading this because I want to refresh my memory before I read his new book, City of Blades. I STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOU BUY AND READ BOTH.
• Undeniable, by Bill Nye

February's Other Project: Still my new office! This is taking a while! But I have the desk halfway assembled, which is more than I could say last week.

The Double Friday Report for Januarys 29th and 22nd, 2016, Because I Missed Last Week

Double the Instagrams, double the fun!

(Click the link to see so many more, you will be BOGGLED)

Good day to you! Last Friday my eldest son gave a presentation at school, so I went to that instead of blogging. I thought I'd just blog on Monday. GUESS HOW THAT WORKED OUT.

Last week, I did some good work on the story I'm writing. I had the realization that, for once, I had started it at a point too far into the story, and it could use a new beginning that would show the inciting incident. Usually it's far too easy to start a story too early in the character's timeline, which can slow down the pace by including unnecessary information. I felt good about figuring that out, but I still didn't know the ending.

I'm about to do something that's a bit uncomfortable for me, but I've been inspired by Austin Kleon's awesome book, Show Your Work!, so this is his fault. I decided to figure out the ending of my story by writing a sonnet, because I love writing them--they're like making up your own puzzle and solving it as you go along--and I thought it would trick my subconscious mind into revealing a solution for me, which it did. The uncomfortable part is that I don't tend to post this sort of stuff, because it's not finished, it's more like poetic notes, but I'm going to take Kleon's advice and post that sonnet. 

*

A young child weeping helpless on the ground,

And half-hid under bushes, turned away,

Reveals a secret, once she has been found,

Her eyes a mix of power and decay.

A kindness met with slash of sudden claw--

A fever builds, unconsciousness, abyss--

Awake anew and see with horrid awe

The world beneath the surface is amiss.

So enter, now, the traveling milieu

Where poison--posed as healing--fakers give,

Then thread the maze, a pathway shown to few,

And heal the sickness, only then to live.

The wound received has turned into a gift,

The wicked ones returned back through the rift.

*

This is not a sonnet that tells a story clearly by itself, but it's like a message from my subconscious mind to me. A few of the lines came out as complete surprises that showed me exactly what to do in the story, and now I know my ending. I still have to write it all out, but I do much better with that part once I have an outline, no matter what form the outline takes.

My projects:

Writing: I've written over 3,000 words on the story, and I would like to finish a rough draft of about 6,000 words total by the end of next week. 

Reading: 

• Ruby and the Stone Age Diet, by Martin Millar
• Craft, Inc., by Meg Mateo Ilasco
• Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, by Bill Nye

January's Other Project: My new office. I've moved furniture around and hung an organizer thingy on the wall--it's a chalkboard on one half, and has wire mesh to clip things on with mini clothespins on the other half. I have yet to assemble my new desk, office chair, and small set of shelves, but there's not much procrastination between me and those tasks!

The Friday Report for January 15, 2016

This is one of the two images I posted on my Instagram page this week. 

(I know I SAID I'd only do one per week, but sometimes I need to make more art!)

This week I had a lot of Life Business to attend to. I AM NOT A FAN OF LIFE BUSINESS. But it has to be done. There's a great big oak tree in front of my house, looming over my roof, which is missing a large patch of the outer bark that's supposed to be on the trunk, and it has dead branches and a tendency to drop chunks of dead branch even when there's hardly any wind blowing. I live in the Midwest. We are kind of KNOWN for wind, and I've been nervous about that tree for several months now, without being able to do anything about it. The rule about oak trees, around here, is that they are not to be trimmed or cut down in the warmer times when the healthy oak trees might catch their diseases. We had pretty warm weather (for Wisconsin) into December, but now that it's well and truly cold I can get the tree, and its buddies that need trimming way back, dealt with. 

Between meeting with the tree guy and dealing with a long list of additional Life Business Items, including car issues, the week has been one of those blink-and-it's-gone weeks. I wrote a little bit and expanded the outline of my new story a little bit, but I'll need to do a lot more of both next week if I'm to reach the goal I set up with my writing buddy: 3,000 words, otherwise known as half of the rough draft of this story.

My projects for the week:

Writing: I'm up to a little over 200 words on the Weird West story, so I will have to basically lock myself in all next week and work on that at my highest intensity setting.

Reading: 

• The New Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

January's Other Project: Setting up my new office. This week I pulled off some of the painter's tape around the newly-painted walls, which is the kind of annoying little job I could avoid forever, because my messy painting makes the tape hard to remove. I am a tidier painter when I don't use the tape! But this time I was nervous about the prospect of intense deep ocean blue paint getting all over the place, so I bowed to my fears and taped around the edges. I'm sure there's a lesson in there. I also assembled a small storage cabinet. There's still a lot left to do.

The Friday Report for January 8, 2016

My latest photo edit for Instagram!

I happen to think it's pretty awesome to have a lot of interests and do a lot of different things. Which I do. Copiously and with thoroughness. But while I get a lot of satisfaction out of that, there's a trade-off that comes with it: very little linear progress in any one area. Because of that, I end up sometimes feeling like I'm getting nowhere, even after I've made bunches of things. 

And I have goals. I do. NO, I DO. I've just been doing my own little butterfly-flight-style interpretive dance method of getting to them. I've decided, though, that this year I want to work on a more linear, forward-going approach, with more emphasis on writing. Instead of making an image for Instagram EVERY DAY, as I was doing for a long stretch of last year, I'm going to make one each week, and apply the 30-to-60 minutes each one usually takes toward story development and writing down words. That way I still get to enjoy that activity, but clear more time for the story-writing.

Here's what I've been working on this week:

Writing: My current story is my first attempt at the Weird West genre. I like the way it's going, but I haven't figured out the ending yet. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens! And I want to finish it by the end of this month.

Reading: I'm in the middle of reading three books:

• The Best American Essays 2014, edited by John Jeremiah Sullivan
• The New Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
• Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity, by Keith Sawyer

January's Other Project: My new office. My office has been in a room next to the kitchen, where I can't completely close off the noise of the household because there's a pass-through window to the kitchen. You would think this would be the dining room, but my house is odd and it is not. Anyway, when I moved in here I set up my art things in another room, and then promptly started to do more digital art than painting, so now I'm giving myself an hour a day to transform that into a combined art-and-office room, with the hope of being able to get more writing done in the evenings, with the door closed. 

2015: I Had a Super-Eclectic Year

I recently read a post by Amanda Palmer, in which she mentioned Henry Rollins. I don't even know if this is true, but what she said is that Henry Rollins is in the habit of taking an Inhale Year, followed by an Exhale Year, meaning that when he inhales for a year he is reading, absorbing, thinking, relaxing, and getting his mental state ready for a year of exhaling bunches of cool artistic output in whatever form it may take for him. I hope that's a fact, but I don't care if it is or not because it is a damn good idea either way. I want to try that system, but maybe on a shorter-cycle plan, like monthly. That's because, in looking back at 2015, I feel like I've been subconsciously trying to make that happen for a long time, but fighting it because I felt guilty about not producing enough. I'm starting to feel that I would produce more if I fought that less. If I planned to mentally respirate in a sensible manner and stopped feeling so stressed about it.

So! What did I actually do in 2015? Here you go:

• Got a pretty decent grasp of how to speak basic Swedish by studying it for a few minutes a day with the FREE, and AWESOME, Duolingo app, which offers bunches of languages you can learn in a very useful, fun format. If you are interested in learning a new language, you should absolutely try this. Jag tycker om Svenska!
• Started the writing of two different novels, and did not finish either (yet). 
• Wrote one story for an anthology after being invited to submit one, and it was published: "Tipping Point," in Ghost in the Cogs, which contains steampunk ghost stories. My story got a nice mention in this very positive review of the whole book!
• Made over 200 digital abstract images that I posted on my Instagram account.
• Put many of those images into my DeviantArt print store, where they're available to buy in a variety of formats. I used my discount to get a framed canvas print of one of them, to check out the quality, and it is BEAUTIFUL. It's printed with acrylic paint and it looks like a very smoothly-rendered painting, and the frame looks good, too. So if you're looking for abstract art, please check it out because your purchase will help me make more stuff to put out there, both for sale and for free.
• I read 50 books for my 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge! And here is my Goodreads Author Page, where you can friend me and follow along as I attempt to read 60 books in 2016.
• Posted a bunch of tweets on Twitter, even though I took a big break from that in the summer.
• Posted different items of interest on my Facebook page. My policy on social media is to diversify my posts so that it's worthwhile for people to join forces with me in more than one place. 
• I blurbed a book for the first time, too! A comment of mine can be found on the cover of Indelible Ink, by Matt Betts.
• Worked at an EXCELLENT and very scary haunted house called The Insanitorium, in New Glarus, WI, for all of the weekends of October.
• That's on top of, you know, getting my kids fed and to school on time day after day and having them at home for most of the time in the summer and taking them to see their grandparents and all the life maintenance stuff that goes on, and whatnot, so I am feeling pretty good about my 2015!

So now I'm thinking about the things I want to do in 2016 (hint: one of them is posting in this here blog on at least a weekly basis), but I think this post is long enough for now! Happy New Year! 

Getting My Voice Back with NaNoWriMo

This year has been very stressful and strange for me. I'm separated and living in my own place now, but getting here involved a lot of work, tension, and pain, and I just could not write fiction for most of the year.

My NaNoWriMo novel cover.

CC image by J.K. Nilssen, with title added (no other modifications).

I had a few promising fiction ideas, but nearly every time I thought about writing, an awful feeling of emptiness would stop me from doing it. Then I saw friends of mine excitedly getting ready for NaNoWriMo, and I thought that maybe the speed of writing required, and the friendly competition, could get me to set aside my perfectionism and self-editing and really allow myself to write a ROUGH draft, an approximation of the story. Anything that I could work with later, because writing something is much better than writing nothing. So I'm doing it! I started late, on the third day of the month, and I'm up to 6,300 words so far. That's short of the target for today, but not by much, and I still have time for at least a couple more writing sprints today. I'm rewarding myself with bragging and chocolate every time I finish a sprint!

In the meantime, the Kickstarter for my next anthology is almost at its end, but not fully funded yet, so if you'd like to be a helper, please check it out and tell your friends about it! Not Our Kind: Tales of (Not) Belonging. 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Amanda C. Davis

Note from Nayad: Last interview of the series! I've been posting interviews

with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination, which is all about the conflicts and problems that make people want to predict the future, followed by the new problems that come from trying to find out what's next.

It's also the last day of the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, and although we are fully funded (yay!) you can still get in on it to pre-order the book and get awesome rewards until 8pm Central TODAY, July 14th, 2013. All extra help we get will go toward the finishing details for the book and making more books like it possible, because we want to keep on creating anthologies and paying authors the pro rates they deserve.

You can easily tell your friends about the project by using this page to give us three clicks. Time's almost up!
 

Amanda C. Davis writes short stories in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her work has appeared in Shock Totem, IGMS, three Triangulation anthologies, and others. She works in the combustion industry by day and spends her nights baking, live-Tweeting horror movies, and embarking on the occasional harebrained scheme (with varying results, but at least her failures make entertaining blog posts).

Amanda's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination, "The Scry Mirror," shows how managing one's expectations is a crucial element of happiness, and it digs into some seriously creepy depths.

Here's Amanda with her thoughts on writing and what looks like an awesome egg recipe: I'm going to have to try it! *for a solid three minutes, mirrors around the world reflect the wrong images*

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Depends. Put enough coffee in me and I'll lecture for hours. On the other hand, I'm constantly telling my crit partners that I'm always wrong about everything. I'd probably better just stick to that for now.

Which subjects and themes do you write about often, and why?

I'm definitely one of those writers who pulls the same themes over and over again. I love sacrifice and loss, dread, the realization that you've been wrong for a really long time. Following your duty to a terrible end. I like to treat magic like science and science like magic. And I've got this stable of character types who keep appearing in various shapes and sizes, to the point where I've named them, and can recognize them and their hybrids even where I didn't expect them. I couldn't speculate on why. It'd just get embarrassing.

What's your favorite story of all the stories you've written, and why?

I don't necessarily have a number-one favorite, though within genres, I'm more satisfied with some than with others. Can I pick two? People seemed to like "Drift" and "Shimmer."

What do you like and dislike about the process of writing a story for a themed anthology?

I pretty much love everything about it. I thrive on deadlines, and I approach prompts and themes as puzzles where I have to find the approach that's maximally appropriate, unique, and interesting to write. The only downside might be that stories written to theme can be harder to place elsewhere, which is why (shh, trade secret) I often incorporate a second or third element that's in regular demand. And anthologies! I adore them. Don't get me started. I'm so excited about the table of contents in What Fates Impose, so excited to read it.

Where can people find other published work of yours?

All my published work is linked from my bibliography. Earlier this year, World Weaver Press released a collection of my sister Megan Engelhardt's and my fairy-tale retellings, available in a vast bouquet of formats, and we're very proud of it: http://worldweaverpress.com/books/wolves-and-witches/

What else would you like to tell people about any subject?

One egg. Quarter teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper. Half tablespoon crumbled feta cheese. Two tablespoons chopped baby spinach. Scramble, fry on medium-high, flip when the bottom holds together on a spatula and the top is solid enough not to slide off. Fold in half. Top with ketchup or hot sauce according to taste, but you don't need it; that's a lot of black pepper.

*
 

Last day to get involved! The WHAT FATES IMPOSE Fundraising Campaign closes TODAY, July 14, 2013, at 8pm Central. Join us and be a part of making history!

Become a Beloved Backer on Kickstarter!

*

Other posts in this series:

GUEST POST: Jennifer Brozek and her Karen Wilson Chronicles
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Wendy N. Wagner
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Alasdair Stuart
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ferrett Steinmetz
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Sarah Hans
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Lucy A. Snyder
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Beth Wodzinski
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Tim Waggoner
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Jamie Lackey
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Remy Nakamura
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Cat Rambo
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: David Boop
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Andrew Penn Romine

AUTHORINTERVIEW: Erika Holt

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Erika Holt

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read twisty tales about struggles with destiny, this anthology is for you. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this posting we have only 30 more hours to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, and WE ARE FULLY FUNDED. Yay! We're up to $5,185 from 217 Beloved Backers!

You can still pre-order the book and get awesome rewards until 8pm Central on Sunday, July 14th. All extra help we get will go toward the finishing details for the book and making more books like it possible, because we want to keep on creating anthologies and paying authors the pro rates they deserve.

You can easily tell your friends about the project by using this page to give us three clicks.

Erika Holt lives in Calgary, Alberta, where she writes and edits speculative fiction.  Her stories appear in Shelter of Daylight Issue 6, Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, and Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales.  She is also co-editor of two anthologies from EDGE and Absolute XPress: Rigor Amortis and  Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring ’20s, and assistant editor of Nightmare Magazine. I can give you my personal guarantee that she's fun to drink with!

Erika's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination is called "Murder of Crows," and it's a chilling tale about the nature of trust, belief, and terrible choices.

Now here's Erika to tell you about her methods of developing stories, some of her favorite writing themes, and her thoughts on divination. *all the crows in the world startle into flight*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: David Boop

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read twisty tales about struggles with destiny, this anthology is for you. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this afternoon we have only three more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $4,663 from 192 Beloved Backers. That's an amazing 93%, but we still need $337 to get to $5,000. The Countdown Is Happening. We're SO CLOSE. :)

If you'd like to help out, you can easily tell friends about the book by clicking here. If you contribute any amount from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page, you will get our first bonus art download in addition to whatever rewards you choose, and we're only 8 backers away from making that TWO bonus art downloads. Will you help us? Because we would love to create this book and pay our authors pro rates for their work.

 

 

David Boop is a novelist, short story writer , and super-friendly guy. I first met him after he was on a panel at NorWesCon. I don't remember the topic of the panel, but I remember the title of his book, which was such a good title that I needed to compliment him on it: She Murdered Me with Science. He's is also in a table of contents with me in Space Grunts: Full-Throttle Space Tales #3, edited by Dayton Ward, as well as having stories in a bunch of other tables of contents! He offers flash fiction critiques for one of the reward levels in our fundraising campaign.

 

David's story for WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination is called "Dipping into the Pocket of Destiny." It shows how trying to get an edge over the competition depends on both the quality of your information and the context around it, so you need to keep an eye on cause and effect.

 

Here's David with some context for you! *as the strand of fate that brought you here is woven into place, Events of Significance begin to play out*

 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Cat Rambo

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read strange tales about predicting the future, you've found the right book. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this afternoon we have only four more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $4,356 from 183 Beloved Backers. That's 87%, but we still need $644 to get to $5,000. The Countdown Is Happening. But we're so close!

If you'd like to help out, you can easily tell friends about the book by clicking here. If you contribute any amount from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page, you will get our first bonus art download in addition to whatever rewards you choose, and we're only 17 backers away from making that TWO bonus art downloads. Will you help us? Because we would love to create this book and pay our authors pro rates for their work.

 

(Photo by On Focus Photos, http://onfocusphoto.com)

Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” from her story collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012.

Cat's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "To Read the Sea," is a powerful and unsettling flash fiction story about the magical objects that come from the ocean, and the dark motivations of the people who want them.

Here's Cat to tell you about divination and the many ways to do it, as well as her thoughts on writing. *tides around the world impossibly rise all at once*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Remy Nakamura

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read strange tales about predicting the future, you've found the right book. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this afternoon we have only five more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $4,267 from 178 Beloved Backers. That's almost 85%, but we still need some help to get to $5,000. The Countdown Is Happening.

If you'd like to help out, you can easily tell friends about the book by clicking here. If you contribute any amount from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page, you will get a bonus art download in addition to whatever rewards you choose! Will you help us? Because we would love to create this book and pay our authors pro rates for their work.

Remy Nakamura is a graduate of the Clarion West workshop, and one of the excellent writers contributing to Inkpunks, and I personally covet at least one of his shirts (the one he was wearing when I met him in the middle of the night at WorldCon in Reno). His story for WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination is called "Pick a Card." It features Tarot cards and a tortured man in prison who seeks a way out.

I'll let Remy take over now to tell you about his reasons for using Tarot cards, his themes, and the way he came up with the idea for his story.
*Ferris Bueller-style group dances start up on stairways across America*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Jamie Lackey

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read weird stories about fortune-telling, this is the book for you. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this morning we have only five more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $4,116 from 171 Beloved Backers. That's 82%, but we still need some help to get to $5,000. The Clock of Let's Get Serious is now ticking.

If you'd like to help out, you can easily tell friends about the book by clicking here. If you contribute any amount from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page, you will get a bonus art download in addition to whatever rewards you choose! Will you help us? Because we would love to create this book and pay our authors pro rates for their work.

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cat. Her fiction has been published by over a dozen different venues, including The Living Dead 2, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Daily Science Fiction, and she has appeared on the Best Horror of the Year Honorable Mention and Tangent Online Recommended Reading Lists. She reads slush for Clarkesworld Magazine, works as an assistant editor at Electric Velocipede, and helped edit the Triangulation Annual Anthology from 2008 to 2011. Her Kickstarter-funded short story collection, One Revolution, is available on Amazon.com.

Jamie's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "Another Will Open," gives us a look at the difference between easy answers and hard choices, and how to pick a direction. Here she is with her thoughts on where that story came from and some advice for aspiring writers.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Tim Waggoner

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read weird stories about fortune-telling, this is the book for you. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this morning we have only six more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $3,879 from 160 Beloved Backers. That's almost 78%, but we still need some help to get to $5,000. The Clock of Let's Get Serious is now ticking.

If you'd like to help out, you can easily tell friends about the book by clicking here. If you contribute any amount from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page, you will get a bonus art download in addition to whatever rewards you choose! Will you help us? Because we would love to create this book and pay our authors pro rates for their work.

Tim Waggoner is a popular, award-winning horror writer who has published over thirty novels and three short story collections, and also a creative writing teacher at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. His story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "The Goggen," is a creepy modern fairy tale about the darkness lurking behind waterfalls and inside human minds.

Here's Tim with great stuff about his writing themes, writing advice for you, and how the I Ching gave him the right wisdom to get him started as a professional writer. *out of nowhere, an orchestra starts playing dramatic classical music*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Sarah Hans

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week and next I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. FACT: I am pleased and proud to be able to work with each of the authors in this book, because they're all great people. I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only nine more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $3,448 from 140 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Sarah Hans is a writer, editor, teacher, and steampunk enthusiast. Her first anthology, SIDEKICKS!, contains one of my short stories, and has inspired at least two short films that are in development right now. Her story for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "Charms," explores blackmail, identity, and difficult choices, using runes as a method of predicting the future.

Here's Sarah! Sharing her thoughts on Tarot, reluctance to get her fortune told, and writing from the perspective of characters different from herself. *showers of glitter confetti*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ferrett Steinmetz

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week and next I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. KNOW THIS: every one of these authors has a shot at becoming your next favorite author, because they're all that good. I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only ten more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $3,398 from 137 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Ferrett Steinmetz is a Nebula Award-nominated author. He has been mentioned by Neil Gaiman in at least one public speech as an example to show that creative writing can, in fact, be taught. His story for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "Black Swan Oracle," gives us a chilling look at how predictable people and their choices can be, and the outcome of making such predictions.

Now here's Ferrett! Who can explain to you how vacuum cleaners lead to Deep Thoughts about the divination prospects of social media, and also give you solid, get-to-work writing advice. *a thousand muppets flail at once*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Alasdair Stuart

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week and next I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. ADVISORY: every one of these authors is full of talent and marvels. I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only eleven more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. We're up to $3,368 from 136 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Alasdair Stuart's introduction to WHAT FATES IMPOSE is the kind of inherently interesting piece of writing you often see as a non-fiction article but rarely get to have at the beginning of a book, because someone wrote in some Publishing Scripture somewhere that nobody actually reads introductions, but you still have to have one for Reasons. Well, you're going to want to read this one. I mean, first of all, it's called "Singing from the Book of Holy Jagger." It must come from a different sect than that Publishing Scripture I mentioned. But you don't have to just believe me about how good it is. You can listen to Alasdair reading the heck out of a portion of his intro on the project's page by clicking that great big arrow in the middle of our cover image.

And here he is! It's Alasdair! With ideas about divination, and thoroughly correct writing advice. *cheers*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Wendy N. Wagner

Note from Nayad: This week and next, I will post interviews with as many authors as possible from WHAT FATES IMPOSE, in addition to anything else I write about. BE ASSURED that every one of these authors is an interesting person I would gladly hang out with for an evening (and I have done so, in many cases). I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only twelve more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. We're up to $3,223 from 134 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Wendy N. Wagner's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE features fortune cookies. It shows a struggling couple coping with an unexpected stop on their road trip, with much larger consequences than they could have expected.

Here's Wendy, sharing her thoughts on fortune-telling and writing! *applause*