dawn.vogel | November 21, 2024
Cross and Circle was one of the first long-form pieces I wrote and published. I originally thought it would be a short story, but the word count kept creeping up, and I realized it was actually going to be closer to a novella length (it’s a little shorter than the official SFWA novella lower limit, […]
dawn.vogel | August 26, 2024
Now that the 2024 WriteHive Online Conference panels are available on their YouTube channel, I’m catching up on the ones I missed during the conference itself and sharing some of the things I gleaned from them here! The Afronauts presented How to Write When You Don’t Want To, which was a great place to start […]
dawn.vogel | August 5, 2024
If you are prone to making excuses to not write or doubt your skill, check out this article about self-awareness and writing. It has a lot of good advice for dealing with those self-conscious doubts that slip into our minds, and how to be aware of their toxicity, while also giving pointers on how to […]
dawn.vogel | July 22, 2024
Last week, I talked about my revision process for very short pieces (drabbles, microfiction, and flash). This week, I’m talking about my revision process for short stories. First, I always try to finish the first draft before tinkering with it. The struggle is real, because I’m an editor, so I’m always tempted to start revising […]
dawn.vogel | July 15, 2024
I had the idea to write a post about my revision process, but it occurred to me that it’s different depending on the length of the piece I’m revising. When I’m writing novella or novel length pieces, my revision wall is my go to method. But the revision wall is way too much when I’m […]
dawn.vogel | July 1, 2024
Many writers who are not perfectionists in other aspects of their life suddenly seem to develop this trait when faced with an imperfect draft. They become certain that if their first draft isn’t beautiful, it’s not worth calling it finished, and they tinker with it ceaselessly. I’m here to say: let it go. Your first […]
dawn.vogel | March 25, 2024
Every so often, burnout rears its ugly head. For me, it usually happens most often when I’m trying to cram too much into too small of a space of time. But it can also happen when my day job gets particularly hectic, leaving me feeling drained and unable to do anything more when I get […]
dawn.vogel | January 1, 2024
It’s 2024 now, and I’m spending the first day of the year working on a whole bunch of writing tasks, both creative and business of writing related. In the coming weeks, I’ll post my 2023 recap and my plans for 2024. But for today, it’s just a busy day off work when I can devote […]
dawn.vogel | November 13, 2023
One of the panels I watched from the WriteHive online conference was Believable Technology in Fiction. It was a great panel about how to make technology work in your fiction, most often but not always science fiction. The panelists started by talking about technology on the whole, defining it as something that solves a problem […]
dawn.vogel | October 30, 2023
One of the panels I watched from the WriteHive online conference was Breadcrumbs in Fiction: Building a Mystery. Having written a mystery novella, and wanting to write more in that series, I was particularly interested in learning how to do it better! The panelists talked about the differences between breadcrumbs, red herrings, and facts, and […]
