dawn.vogel | February 11, 2019
We’re in the midst of some of the heaviest snow I’ve seen since I moved to Seattle, and because the temperatures are barely climbing above freezing each day, it’s sticking around for a while, too. It basically shuts down the city because we don’t have a good infrastructure for dealing with snow, since we normally […]
dawn.vogel | February 4, 2019
Acceptable Anachronism By Catherine Schaff-Stump Sometimes when you look at visions of the future, you cannot help but see the past. The two examples that come immediately to my mind, child of the 1970s that I am, are The Jetsons and EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth. The future comes in flavors of mod miniskirts, polyester jumpsuits, and […]
dawn.vogel | January 28, 2019
In recent weeks, I’ve had a couple different stories that I’ve started writing, and then realized that I was approaching it the wrong way. Either the plot was going off the rails, or it was too close to something else, or it just wouldn’t really get to the meat of the plot in any sensible […]
dawn.vogel | January 14, 2019
How many times have you been working on a writing project, only to have to stop to figure out some tiny detail, without which you can’t go forward? (Granted, there are some authors and advice-givers who say “go forward anyway, and figure it out later.” I’m talking more about the “this is not something I […]
dawn.vogel | December 24, 2018
If you’re struggling with a last minute gift for an author in your life, or even one who isn’t in your life, have you considered reviewing their book? If you’ve read a book by an author, they’d love to know what you thought of it. And other readers appreciate it as well! Even if you […]
dawn.vogel | December 17, 2018
If you search for writing advice on the internet, you’ll find all sorts of suggestions. But many of them aren’t applicable across the board, though they’re treated like they are. “You must write every day.” “You must not use ‘said’ too many times.” “You must only write what you know.” When writing advice is treated […]
dawn.vogel | December 10, 2018
There’s a book of writing advice currently funding on Kickstarter called The Writer’s Book of Doubt. It includes essays by a number of up-and-coming and well-known speculative fiction authors, and it looks like it’s going to be a delightful read. It won’t be out in time for holiday gift giving this year, but it might be […]
dawn.vogel | December 3, 2018
Last week, I came upon a really inspiring thread on Twitter about rewarding yourself for your accomplishments as a writer. This thread in particular was by a novel author who had wrapped up ten presents, each one to correspond with the completion of 10,000 words of a novel. In this author’s case, most of the […]
dawn.vogel | November 26, 2018
If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you might have noticed that I’m very organized and have pretty set routines. Last week was Thanksgiving, which meant houseguests (my sister and her boyfriend arrived on Tuesday and left Friday morning), a day off work, and otherwise abnormal plans. And then I had […]
dawn.vogel | November 19, 2018
I recently came across a great article by Forrest Brazeal, a relatively new author working in the speculative fiction genre, talking about his experiences writing and publishing short fiction. There’s a lot of fantastic knowledge imparted in this brief article, and it’s interesting to see this topic from the perspective of someone who is new […]
