History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Writing Tool: Freeform (iOS)

| February 26, 2024

Not too long ago, an author friend of mine mentioned using Freeform, an iOS app, to organize his thoughts on a story he was working on. He added photos of his cast, notes on each of them, and a day by day outline for each of the major characters, along with what happened for each […]

Bogging Down in Revisions

| February 19, 2024

I’m currently in the midst of revising a novella, and I’ve definitely hit the mucky middle. I didn’t feel like it slowed down substantially when I was writing this part of the book, but now I’m second-guessing everything I’ve written, all the parts I’ve revised, and all the parts I haven’t revised. It’s sort of […]

My Revision Wall

| February 24, 2020

I’ve been working through revisions on a novel since the beginning of 2020, and I’m finally reaching the end of those. But I wanted to show off the tool that I’ve been using to help with those revisions–my Revision Wall. Some people use post-it notes to do something similar, but I needed a) more space […]

Question from the Audience: De-Trunking a Story

| November 18, 2019

I’m back today with another question from the audience! Do you have any advice on trying to “de-trunk” and resuscitate a story you really liked? Like, how do I know if it’s time? How do I find the good bits without holding onto the ones that just aren’t working? So remember how I talked about […]

January 2016 recap

| February 2, 2016

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 16 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 13 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 14 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 18 Hard to believe that a month has already passed! I’m still putting 2015 on plenty of stuff, but I’m finally starting to remember what […]

April 2015 recap

| April 30, 2015

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 6 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 3 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 4 New Submissions: 0 Stories out at the end of the month: 6 The numbers this month seem a little low to me, but I think that’s mainly because I’ve got stories out at markets that have a longer […]

February 2015 recap

| February 28, 2015

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 5 Acceptances received: 0 Rejections received: 8 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 11 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 9 More good numbers for February! I finished up revisions on one story (code name: play) that I had written in […]

March recap

| April 1, 2013

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 2 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 3 Resubmissions: 2 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 2 March was a rather productive month for me. I finished one short story and sent it off to an anthology. Though the story […]

September recap

| October 2, 2012

Huh, September ended when I wasn’t looking! So here’s the recap, a few days late! By the numbers Stories out at the beginning of the month: 4 Acceptances received: 0 Rejections received: 3 Resubmissions: 2 New Submissions: 0 Stories out at the end of the month: 3 Numbers are a bit down this month because […]

Goals for the weekend

| September 7, 2012

So my friend Folly, posted about her goals for the weekend writing retreat. And I just spent a couple of minutes figuring mine out, in the form of a ridiculously formatted and color-coded word document. But I realized that while the color-coded word document is pretty, it does nothing to actually keep me on target. […]