dawn.vogel | June 8, 2020
While writing practice is important to improving craft, writing play is also important to work into your routine. To me, the idea of writing play is that not every word that you commit to paper (virtual or otherwise) has to be publishable or even usable. Sometimes, it’s just important to write things that are fun–to […]
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, […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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!
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 […]
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 […]
dawn.vogel | March 23, 2020
Many authors I know have recently found it a lot harder to get any writing done. Whether they’re adjusting to a new work-from-home lifestyle, or have more of their family members in their previously quiet house, social distancing and self-isolation have an impact on productivity. So too do the frequent news updates and the overall […]
dawn.vogel | March 16, 2020
One of the things that I realized when I was working on the synopsis for my novel was that it’s a fantastic way to find all of those plot holes that still exist in your manuscript. When you have to break down all of the things that happen in the novel, you realize where you’ve […]
