It’s Never Too Late to Get Organized

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Just a quick post today, and one that is mostly me preaching to myself.

Do you ever have detailed plans and goals that you’re working towards, and then you get distracted or derailed? A lot of different things can pull you away from pursuing your goals. In my case, over the past few months, I uprooted my life and moved across the country, bought a house, had family come visit right after I’d moved in, and so on. Yes, that’s just an excuse, I suppose, but at any rate, I’ve fallen a bit behind on my writing goals for the past few months. Continue reading →

The Nitty-Gritty of Writing: Spacing

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It’s time for another nitty-gritty of writing post! Craft of writing and storytelling is important, world-building is important, and generally being creative is important. But so is the boring stuff like punctuation and spacing.

Spacing: One Space or Two?

Many people reading this, when learning to type, may have been taught to put two spaces after a period. Two spaces after a period harkens back to the 19th century (and earlier) when typesetters at printing houses had blocks of a fixed size to represent each letter and each punctuation mark. Typewriters were the same way. Even well into the 20th century, and even after typewriters and typesetting became more adjustable, the convention was still to put two spaces after a period.

On modern computers we can have proportional font – that is, wider letters like “W” take up more space than narrow letters like “I.” In fact, proportional font is usually the default setting in many word processing programs and on internet platforms. Older typewriters and typesetting generally had a monospaced font (each letter or other mark took up the same amount of space on the page); therefore, double spacing after a period made the text easier to read. Continue reading →

Music to Write By: Writing from a Place of Joy

Posted in Music, Movies, and other Muses by

Writing from a place of pain is incredibly valuable. Writing can be release, personal therapy, a way of overcoming a struggle or trauma. At a few times in my life, I’ve written from a place of sadness or pain, and the writing has helped me.

However, I write best when I’m happy or relaxed. Joy, exuberance, or contented peace are usually more inspiring to me than sadness or pain. Not that I always have to be a good mood to write (it’s about discipline, not just feelings), but being happy certainly helps to boost my creativity.

Music is one of my greatest sources of inspiration; and so here I’m sharing some of my favorite “happy” tracks. These are pieces of music (mostly instrumental) that fill me with joy and help me to get into writing mode. Enjoy! Continue reading →

New Dieselpunk Story!

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After several (mostly self-imposed) delays, my first dieselpunk short story is now available! You can find it here!

This story launches a new series of short stories, starring the enigmatic Roaring 20s heroine Cornelia Jones. If you like historical fiction, historical fantasy, pulp adventure, or even steampunk, then I think you’ll like the adventures of Mrs. Jones!