History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

The Daunting First Page

| January 8, 2018

Soon, I start working on my next novel. It’s always an adventure to start in on a new book, even though I’ve got my outline firmly in hand. But even though my rational brain tells me that whatever I put on paper first doesn’t have to be a super clever opening line, my emotional brain […]

Rustycon Appearance!

| January 4, 2018

Rustycon is a small local convention now in its thirty-fifth year. It’s the weekend of January 12-14, but they’ll be shifting to October dates later this year. But for this one, I’ll be speaking on a number of panels about gaming, writing, and editing! Here’s my schedule of panels: Fri Jan 12 5:00:pm – GMing […]

Writing Scenes to Cut Them

| November 20, 2017

Recently, I started working on a new story, and wrote what I originally thought would be the first scene of that story. As I worked on it, though, I realized that while something momentous was happening, it wasn’t the momentous thing that the story was going to need. But I kept writing it anyway, because […]

October 2017 recap

| October 31, 2017

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 25 Acceptances received: 1 Rejections received: 21 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 23 New Submissions: 2 Stories out at the end of the month: 27 October has been a very productive month. On top of doing a lot of work on Brass and Glass Book 2, I’ve […]

The Dreaded Fight Scenes

| October 23, 2017

AKA Why can’t we all just get along? I admit it. I hate writing fight scenes. Dread them, even. I don’t like reading them, either. My mind sort of glazes over, waiting to get back to the “good stuff,” also known as the part where they aren’t fighting any more. But I write action and […]

September 2017 recap

| October 3, 2017

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 22 Acceptances received: 0 Rejections received: 11 Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 13 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 25 Another slow month, it looks like, with only 11 rejections coming back. I’ve got a few stories that are well past […]

A Day in the Life: Finding Time to Write

| September 25, 2017

As somebody who works a regular 8-5 job and writes, some people are amazed that I get so much writing done. Here’s a little breakdown of how I sneak it all in! In Theory I get up ridiculously early in the morning (by my standards, which is 5:45 a.m.) and leave to catch the bus […]

Writing with A Kernel of What You Know

| August 29, 2017

There’s a lot of advice for writers that says “write what you know.” For speculative fiction authors, that can be difficult–few of us have ever fought a dragon, piloted a spaceship, or escaped from certain doom at the hands of a horrific monster. (Your mileage may vary. I never have.) I think that perhaps the […]

Fun for Friday: Building a Story Idea

| August 18, 2017

Building off of the writing exercise I mentioned in my post on generating story ideas on Monday, here’s a fun story idea for you to take and run with. Here’s an interesting looking face, to the left–a young African boy, who looks somewhere between angry and sad to me. (You may think he’s got a different […]

Fun for Friday: Amazing Ideas!

| August 11, 2017

Off at Spocon, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday, with more on story ideas!