History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Revisiting How Hybrid Work Impacts My Writing

| November 14, 2022

In September, I posted about a return to hybrid work (some days in the office, some days working from home) and how it was likely to impact my writing. Now that I’ve been doing this pretty regularly for a couple of months, I have more insights. Working in the office, along with the commute, is […]

Organizing Ideas into a DIY Idea Deck!

| November 7, 2022

Not too long ago, I realized that I had random ideas for stories all over the place–in my email, on my phone, on my computer, and in assorted notebooks. While it’s exciting to have so many ideas, it’s really inefficient to have them all over the place. But then I thought, “hey, self! You like […]

Spooky Writing Advice!

| October 31, 2022

Happy Halloween! If you’re wanting to learn more about writing spooky stories, there are a ton of resources available online. I really like this recent article on tips for writing spooky stories geared toward a very general audience!

Stephen Fry on Rhyme, Part 3

| October 24, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 2, Section 3, on rhyme. This section of the chapter talked a lot about bad rhymes, which might be better called “forced” rhymes. The words technically […]

Advice on Writing Horror from Tim Waggoner

| October 17, 2022

On the heels of the horror writing course I took, I’ve been writing a lot more horror. So it’s only natural to turn to some advice about writing horror, like this article by Tim Waggoner. It has a ton of great points on dos and don’ts that are invaluable to someone just getting started in […]

Writer Tools: TTS Reader

| October 10, 2022

One of the best ways for authors to proofread their work is to read it aloud. But it helps to read aloud with a partner, specifically having them read what’s on the page to help you notice what’s missing or extraneous. If you don’t have another human you can read with, try reading with a […]

Braindumping As Pre-Writing?

| October 3, 2022

Sometimes when I’m starting a story, I have a very clear picture of what it will look like. But other times, I have vague ideas and I need to do a bit of brainstorming in order to get to a point where I can start writing the story. In some cases, this involves braindumping, too. […]

Stephen Fry on Rhyme, Part 2

| September 26, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 2, Section 2, on rhyme. This is the shortest section that I’ve looked at so far, which mainly exists to introduce the ideas of the […]

The Balancing Act of Hybrid Work and Writing

| September 19, 2022

My day job has recently implemented our hybrid work plan, in which we work from both the office and home, depending on our position and needs. For me, that means that most weeks, I work from the office three days and from home two days. (My schedule is slightly flexible because my editing work is […]

Custom Planners through Agendio

| September 12, 2022

I like to start looking for my next year planner book a lot earlier in the year than some people might. And this year, it was a good thing–the people who made my last planner, which I liked for the most part, had discontinued that design. I had almost reached the point of just making […]