It’s been an age since I posted an update. Today seemed like a good day to do that. I’ve been with two critique groups for nearly four years now. They’ve been great for spurring me on and keeping me real. Two members have self-published books. You can read interviews with them at SouthWest Writers, which…
I created an avatar to help me explore this world I’ve created beyond the stories I’m already writing. From this meta-perspective, I hope to make those stories better. The avatar is an aspiring writer. When we first meet him (in an unfinished scene), he frequently visits a pub and drinks a bit more than is…
This Space Fable is a lesson for space-born children. The idea behind such lessons is to think through the environmental and social dangers aboard a Village Ship and then write stories that would serve as warnings to the children who live there. Here’s part of the story. There once was a child who loved nothing…
This is a very early draft of the first scene of a story I’m working on called “Prepper Ranch”. This story will mark the split in humanity between those that remained on Earth and those that went to space. It explains this split from the perspective of a young couple who are trying to survive…
Two men climbed a desert peak. The peak stood out lonely, tall, and majestic from far away. Even so, it was a worn version of its former self, its slopes weathered away, leaving behind only the neck of the volcano it had been millions of years before now. Two men climbed a desert peak, starting…
Welcome to my website!Here I share my writing process by posting first-draft scenes of the various stories I am working on. They are organized by story but may well be posted out of order. In addition, the working titles may well be simply named after the major characters of the story. When I have a…
March was a hard month for fiction writing. I needed to finish a conference paper, which I did. So, I’ll take that as a win. I also traveled for the conference, which threw off my writing routine. When I was writing, it was all world-building. World-building is a fun and dangerous enterprise. This bout of…
Hi all! I continue to work on Ory’s story. This has meant adding some relevant world-building, fleshing out characters, and writing scenes. I found that I was writing too much for the first scene without finishing the scene. So, I’m going to try something I heard on a Savannah Gilbo podcast: I’m going to set…
I just wanted to update you on what I’ve been up to since my last post in November. I’ve been concentrating on Ory’s story: outlining, writing scene summaries, and going back to the outline. I’m at a stage where I have scene summaries for about the length of a novella. That’s about 24 scenes and…
Dear friends, I knew at some point in the fall the school year would catch up with me. That time has come. I have no scheduled posts for the rest of the month. On the upside, I’ve subsequently paused billing for December at my Patreon site to give you access to my longer posts. You’ll…
His trip through the Canteen line was mostly uneventful. He scanned his credit band verifying his citizen status, picked up his tray, and navigated the various food stations. He got a salad, choosing a variety of fresh vegetable toppings and a simple dressing, and a cup of soup. They had mushroom soup today. Then he…
Why share my works in progress? First off, I want to thank my family and friends for supporting me in this new adventure. My audience may be small, but it helps to know that there are folks out there routing for me and looking forward to my posts. After two months of posts, I think…
