A. Merc Rustad's Blog: Robots With Keyboards, page 5

MERC vs. BOOK: Revising a Novel, Part 9–Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells This Story?

Additional Parts In This Series Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7.1 & 7.2 | Part 8 | Part 9 (you are here) ____ (With thanks to the Hamilton musical for being so quotable!) Gather ’round, my peeps, for … Continue reading MERC vs. BOOK: Revising a Novel, Part 9–Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells This Story?

GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTER

Got the contract finalized today, and I also have permission to share, so! I am beyond excited to be writing an interactive novel (game) for Choice of Games! IT’S SPACE OPERA SNARK. Plant monsters and spaceships and evil corporations and aliens and romance and explosions and tough choices! (And for those interested, I’ll be blogging about … Continue reading GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTER

MERC vs. BOOK: Revising a Novel, Part 8–A Little Night Music and Stick Figures

Additional Posts In This Series Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7.1 & 7.2 | Part 8 (you are here) Music! I love creating playlists for different projects. It’s not procrastination if it helps me focus, and music* is really good for … Continue reading MERC vs. BOOK: Revising a Novel, Part 8–A Little Night Music and Stick Figures

MERC vs. BOOK: Revising A Novel, Part 7–Gaming the Process (part 2)

This is the second installment of a two-parter blog post about process, craft, and Merc spending way too much time in Illustrator! You can read Part One here. Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7.1 | Part 7.2 (you … Continue reading MERC vs. BOOK: Revising A Novel, Part 7–Gaming the Process (part 2)

New Story, New Year, New Resistance

Welcome to 2017. I’d like to help kick it off with a story about dismantling the patriarchy, resisting oppression, and fighting for what matters. It contains monsters. Monster Girls Don’t Cry  It’s free to read online at Uncanny Magazine, alongside a knock-out table of contents by other stupendous authors. There’s also an interview with me, … Continue reading New Story, New Year, New Resistance

Writing Recap for 2016

After I sent out the second-to-last-original-submission of the year, I took to Twitter with some flail, because I realized: I have nearly worked through my inventory of finished short fiction. Or, basically: HOLY TACOS, I NEED TO WRITE MORE THINGS! Let me try to break this down. I’m pretty obsessive about my fiction organization patterns. … Continue reading Writing Recap for 2016

Award Eligibility 2016

The Nebula Awards nomination period is open and SFWA members can nominate until February 15th, 2017. I’m very proud of the work I had published this year, and would be honored if you were to consider any of my stories. So, I present to you my award-eligible works from 2016: This Is Not a Wardrobe Door * (1,800 words) … Continue reading Award Eligibility 2016

The Necessity of Hope

Way back when, as a young!Merc, I attended a gun safety class. One session had a slide show about wilderness survival. A [generalized “average”] human can survive: 3 weeks without food 3 days without water 3 minutes without air 3 seconds without hope The point was that if you get lost in the wilderness, don’t … Continue reading The Necessity of Hope

New on Patreon: “Our Nights Of Waking Dreams”

I have launched a Patreon and now published my first story on that platform!

Variations On YOU: Writing Second Person Point Of View

Second Person POV is the style of “you.” Maybe you’re familiar with Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books, or text-based games, tutorials, articles like this one, or people who really dislike this form of narrative choice. Telling a story in second person can be tricky. Difficult to do well. Has pros and cons. Is a stylistic preference.  So basically […]