History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Writing Productivity: Location

| January 26, 2012

I read a blog post recently, which I sadly didn’t bookmark or otherwise save, that talked about how the author had tracked where and when she wrote to determine where and when she was most productive. Although I haven’t been tracking my productivity quite so closely, it did get me thinking about where I write, […]

Discarded Scenes

| January 25, 2012

While working on my latest short story, I ended up writing a few scenes that ended up not working out in the story. I would start writing, and then realize that either a) there was no good way to put conflict into the scene, or b) the scene was not going to get me to […]

Writing with Music

| January 24, 2012

I’m one of those authors who frequently listens to music when I write. Sometimes, it’s so that I can focus more closely on what I’m doing in a crowded space. But more often, it’s for a bit of inspiration when I write. I normally make playlists for any longer piece that I’m working on, but […]

Friday Recap

| January 20, 2012

Since I’m doing the Write1Sub1 challenge this year, and also because one of the fine ladies from the retreat is checking in with the Seattle contingent weekly to see what we’ve done during the week, I’m taking a careful look at what I’ve accomplished each week. So here’s my first Friday Recap! I got two book […]

Review of Gaslight Arcanum

| January 19, 2012

Nevermet Press has started a new feature, Clockwork Reviews, and the first review up is by yours truly! I reviewed Gaslight Arcanum, which is an anthology of stories where Sherlock Holmes meets the supernatural.  So pop on over to the site to check out my review! I’ll have other reviews that will appear there in the […]

Character Backgrounds

| January 18, 2012

One of the projects that I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks is a character background for a Changeling game that I’ll be playing in, beginning later this month. I’ve been writing character backgrounds for most of the games I’ve been in for more than 10 years now. Even if they’re not […]

The Retreat Recap

| January 17, 2012

The Location: A beautiful rental property on Harstine Island. Overall, it was great! There were some minor oddities that could have become an issue, but didn’t. Like the fact that it only had 2 bathrooms, and only one of them had a shower! With 9 women in the house, that could have become disastrous, but […]

Time to Retreat!

| January 13, 2012

In just a few more hours, my ride arrives to drop me off at my other ride, which will then take me to a writer’s retreat. We’ve got 9 women writers who are renting a house for the long weekend in order to get some writing done. I’ve personally got seven different projects that I […]

Year in Review

| December 29, 2011

So it’s not quite the end of 2011, but I thought I’d post a quick update about my writing over the course of the year. I wrote four new short stories in 2011, one of which I just finished on Christmas Eve. One of those stories, “Unexpected Sparx,” was accepted for publication, and appears in […]

NaNo Day… um, what day is it?

| November 29, 2011

So first, I realized that I didn’t want to write my vampire novel. Okay, that’s fixable. Then, I cobbled together an outline for my YA steampunk novel, and it looked awesome. But then I started writing. And I was writing about 1,000 word chapters, because that’s what felt right. But when you only have 25 […]