Day Off
dawn.vogel | June 1, 2020
It’s been a rough few days, and as such, I don’t have a post for today. Be kind to one another.
Guest Post: Gary Jonas on Mind Control
dawn.vogel | May 25, 2020
Today, I’m hosting a guest post from author Gary Jonas, whose story “Bluebird Killing in the Dead of Night” appears in Psi-Wars. Mind control. Two words that suggest so much more. Back in the 1950s, the CIA started Project Bluebird, a program designed to develop mind control techniques by using drugs on unwitting subjects. Initially, […]
Writing Practice
dawn.vogel | May 18, 2020
Whether you’ve been writing for decades or have only just started, writing practice is an important part of improving your writing. It can also be a great way to get unstuck, or to get your writing juices flowing. Most writing practice exercises have nothing to do with a specific writing project, at least not directly. […]
Music to Evoke a Sense of Time and Place
dawn.vogel | May 11, 2020
Since I’m currently spending most of my workdays listening to my old iPod, I’m getting hit with a lot of nostalgia based on the songs. Any random song might send me back to my days in St. Louis as a teen, to my college dorm room, the variety of concerts I went to, or the […]
Poetry Forms: Nonet
dawn.vogel | May 4, 2020
The nonet is a simple poetry form, in terms of the rules. It’s a nine line poem in which the first line has nine syllables. Each subsequent line has one less syllable, with the final line being only a single syllable. There are no rules about rhyming or any other bits of meter except for […]
Writing Games
dawn.vogel | April 27, 2020
Last week, I was able to do one of the online classes offered through Clarion West. The one I participated in was the Writing Sprints with K. Tempest Bradford. For the prompt for our writing sprints, Tempest used a game called “I Believe,” which is a lonely game that’s included in Of the Woods. The […]
Cool Alternate History Resource: Historic Cities
dawn.vogel | April 20, 2020
If you’re writing alternate history, historical fiction, or even fantastical history, check out Historic Cities as a great source of historical maps. The primary page makes it look a little Eurocentric, but if you click through to the list of city names, you’ll see maps for non-European countries as well!
Ideas for Overcoming Writer’s Block
dawn.vogel | April 13, 2020
If you’re finding yourself faced with an interest in writing, but you feel like you’re stuck, I’ve found a couple of articles on overcoming writer’s block that might be of interest. The first article offers 14 ideas that can help you overcome writer’s block, while the second article almost doubles that with 27. And while […]
Poetry Forms: Acrostic
dawn.vogel | April 6, 2020
Acrostic poems are a fairly simple form–you spell out a word with the first letter of each line of your poem. But there are variations that can make the form more fun! What if both the first letter of each line and the last letter of each line spell out two different words, or if […]
Balancing Writing with a Work From Home Job
dawn.vogel | March 30, 2020
When I’m working in the office, I’m able to draw a solid line between work and writing. I can get a little bit of writing stuff done in the morning before my work day starts, and during my lunch break. But now that I’m working from home full-time (and have been for a couple of […]