Category: writing

  • Writerly resolutions, January status

    A note on how my writerly resolutions for 2019 are going. On the novel front, I’m not doing so great. Only 1,664 words net gained on the novel. I should be doing over 4,000 words per month to meet my goal (well now, it’s more like 4,400). Short stories are both a bit ahead of…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Annie Dillard

    Now feelings lasted so long they left stains. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.

  • “Kiddush”: The Story Behind the Story

    “Kiddush” is the opening chapter of my novel in progress, We, the Rescued. The novel, in an Oulipo-esque fashion, takes its structure from the Passover Haggadah and in a sort of an ontogeny-recapitulates-philogeny fashion, the chapter takes its structure from the first prayer of the Passover Seder, the Kiddush, or blessing over wine. I took the…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Taylor Koekkoek

    The way she looked was something I felt in my guts. Taylor Koekkoek, “The Wedding Party.” 

  • Beautiful Sentences: Annie Dillard

    After all, I was the intelligentsia around these parts, single handedly. The intelligentsium. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.

  • Beautiful Sentences: J. Courtney Sullivan

    They were surprised that the nuns did not proselytize or try to get them to see the light. They just listened. Some only came once or twice. But the ones who returned again and again began to realize on their own that the conversations were about God, even if He was never mentioned. God through…

  • Writerly resolutions for 2019

    This will be the year that I finally get a full draft written of We, The Rescued. I currently have 25,000 words written, so it shouldn’t be beyond reason to write another 50K or so. Also, I want to clear out my backlog of half-finished stories and story ideas. My goal is to get a…

  • 2018 in rejections (and acceptances)

    After a few years of trying, I’ve finally hit my goal of 200 rejections (and then some). This meant that I got a lot more submissions out. The year started strong with a short story acceptance each month from January through April (plus a poem accepted somewhere in there), but then things went quiet for…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Nnedi Okorafor

    She got that plant to do the opposite of die. Nnedi Okorafor, “Tumaki.”