History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: Images of the Coming Spring

| February 12, 2021

Today, we’ve got some images around a theme of spring, though in a variety of different ways to make them inspire writing that doesn’t necessarily have to do with the change of seasons. (Images deleted.) The first image is of a castle in Prague, though the castle is in the background and intentionally blurred, to […]

Promise Me Nothing Out Tuesday; Facebook Takeover on Thursday

| February 11, 2021

My new young adult contemporary fantasy novel, Promise Me Nothing, comes out on Tuesday, February 16th. That’s next week! If you haven’t already pre-ordered it, you can! Print books will also be available (soon)! In addition to the book release on Tuesday, next Thursday, February 18th, I’m taking over my friend Jesikah Sundin’s MoonTree Readers […]

Reading, Watching, and Listening To: Early February 2021 Edition

| February 10, 2021

Reading: Still picking up books to review here and there, and trying to squeeze in some other books and stories when I can! I’ve also been reading a lot for an online flash fiction contest, which takes up a lot of my free reading time. Watching: We’ve finished Runaways, and are keeping up with WandaVision. Still working […]

A Treat for Brass and Glass Fans

| February 9, 2021

Another result of some recent cleaning I’ve been doing was finding the hard copy of a map that I sketched for the Brass and Glass series. It didn’t appear in the books because it never went farther than this very rough sketch, but in case you’ve ever wondered where the various cities in the Brass and Glass […]

Titling a Story

| February 8, 2021

Last week, I talked about starting with a title and writing a story to fit it. This week, I’m looking at something like the opposite: when you’ve got a story, with no ideas for a good title. The first thing to think about when you’re trying to title a story you’ve written is whether it’s […]

Fun for Friday: Story Starters

| February 5, 2021

When I’m writing a story, I have to start at the beginning. I have to come up with a first line that I like, and then I can get started writing the rest of it. If you’re stuck on finding a first line, check out these story starters for some ideas! If you want to […]

Sarah Castille’s Las Capas House

| February 4, 2021

When I was writing Sure Shot in Las Capas, I knew the book was going to start with the scene in Sarah and Daisy’s kitchen, as Sarah was washing the dinner dishes. And I had an image in my mind of what her view out the window would look like. It was only when I took […]

TV Show Recommendation: WandaVision

| February 3, 2021

We normally don’t watch new shows as they air, because it’s hard for us to commit to sitting down to watching something weekly. But we’re making an exception for WandaVision, because it’s wonderful and weird, and we love it! It’s equal parts homage to classic television sitcoms and creepy weirdness. In some ways, it reminds […]

January 2021 Recap

| February 2, 2021

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 216 Acceptances received: 4 Rejections received: 106 Stories withdrawn: 1 Resubmissions: 83 New Submissions: 4 Stories out at the end of the month: 192 I’ve continued keeping stories in circulation as best as I can, though I feel like this month was a little […]

Writing to a Title

| February 1, 2021

Many authors find that coming up with a title is considerably harder than writing the story (or book, or poem) that needs the title. However, some authors start with a title and write their story to fit that title. But first, you need a title. The good news is that there are random title generators […]