Laura's blog

This July was the first year I "won" National Novel Writing Month. Every year, the same site hosts two write-a-thons on the off-season; one in April, and one in July.  I started with zero words and ended up with 50k+ words. Now November approaches, and the main month-long write-a-thon begins.  My feelings about NaNo are a little mixed. It's not for everyone, and there are some pitfalls to be aware of. However, it can get you started on establishing consistent writing habits and generally getting your own head unstuck from your posterior when it comes to actually putting words down on the page.  The most helpful thing to me were the forums. Here are some tips on how to use them to your advantage. The Forums Are Your Friend If you, like me, aren't super great at structuring your time, then the Word Wars, Prompts, and Sprints Forum will be your best friend during NaNo. From "word war" challenges with other writers to Harry Potter -themed "word cr...

Remember that story I blogged about a while back? The one I wrote with the goal of creating a gender-neutral/gender-undisclosed protagonist ?  Well, I submitted it to a literary magazine online, and it was accepted for their next anthology.  The litmag is called Smoking Pen Press . For inclusion in their next anthology, I will receive a bit of money and a copy of the published book. I'll blog again when it goes live, I suppose.  I've won contests and had submissions accepted before, but I'm writing about this one now because I've never done any of that with short stories. I don't consider myself very good at short stories. For the story I submitted, titled "River Road," I just had a whim to sit down and write a short story -- even gave myself a wordcount of 2,000-ish -- with the conceit of seeing if I could be deliberately vague about the protagonist's gender. When it turned out better than expected, I figured, what the hell? and submitted it.  ...

I received Ghosts of War to read and review. It's the sequel to Virtues of War , my review of which was one of the casualties of the examiner.com site change. (Still mad.) Since this book deals with issues of mental illness, namely PTSD and depression, I'm including it in my Diverse Reads review series. Recap: In Virtues of War, we're introduced to the Terran space military force and the crew of the Rapier, a small fast-attack craft. The team has interpersonal drama as they struggle to do their part in an inter-space conflict between Terran (Earth) forces and the Centauri colonies, who want independence. There's a war, shit goes down, everything sucks, and then they "win." Or at least, until the next book.  Can I just say, I love these covers. Totally badass. Ghosts of War:  Summary After the Terran-Centauri conflict, the different crew members of Rapier have various levels of success adjusting to their new normal. The team is split up: Thomas...