L.S. Johnson's Blog, page 13

Why Sirens?

I have a post on Reb Kreyling’s blog about choosing to write this particular trope, especially in our current age:

Why Sirens?

Sirens

Sirens came out yesterday, while I was on my way home from the East Coast. Am I allowed to say an anthology is good if I have a story in it? Because Sirens is good. There is a lot of editor-love and publisher-love in this one, and it shows in the best possible ways.

Here’s an excerpt from “We Are Sirens”:

We take our slurpees and we climb up to the top of the bleachers and sprawl there, our bare legs loose and splayed on the warm metal, the wind ruffling at our skirts. We slurp our slurpees...

touching base

This is apparently what Calgary looks like. I will be able to verify this next month when I go there for When Words Collide. Right now my schedule looks something like:

Blending Genres Alternate History with Story Take 1 Structure in Story Sirens launch/reading

I’m quite excited for this, as much for the newness of it all as the paneling and reading and general convention goodness, which always leaves me with a full head and about twelve more project ideas that I don’t have time for.

mid-year, in the year of questions

Thinking today of the Hurston quote about there being years that ask questions and years that answer. The last several months have definitely felt like a series of questions about motivation, about purpose, about skill and craft. I’ve written quite a lot, but very little of it has properly gelled, and I was so focused on maintaining my momentum and getting work out in circulation that it took me a while to see what was happening.

Part of it was trying new things: experiments in voice, structu...

visibility

interesting post about women, writing, and visibility:

Schrodinger’s Writer – Liz Williams

busy clearing the day job desk so i can try to make it to baycon tomorrow afternoon. see you there!

sleepless

medical issues and life stress have brought me back to a place I hadn’t expected to return to: a rampant insomnia that has left me dazed. the last time I had this, it pushed me to quit my job with no other employment in place. what will it do now, I wonder?

because, despite the strangely underwater feeling of these days, the forgetfulness and how I end up sitting for long stretches staring at nothing, thinking nothing . . . despite all this, I have been knocking out 2000 words a day on the se...

cabbages and kings

have given me a lovely shoutout in the “musings” column on their website. Clearly I must see if I can get “Marigolds” reprinted somewhere . . . or if not, perhaps put it out as a teaser when I do another collection.

and then April was over.

Or nearly over. This month I had three freelance projects (and I’m knee-deep in a fourth), ten days of houseguests, two special projects at the day job (and I’m knee-deep in a third) . . . and no time for writing. Literally. I think I’ve written maybe a couple thousand words all month, when I often write that in a day.

There comes a point every spring, it seems, when the post-holiday rush of writing and submitting dies down, when the award promo anxiety has come and gone, and this lull settle...

swamped

with freelance work. hopefully life will return to normal next week.

…

i really need to write. head is bursting.

C is for Chimera release day

Today is the day: C is for Chimera is now available. We’ve already had some great reviews, including this excellent review of each story in the anthology:

Book Rec: C is for Chimera

I’ll be at the Facebook launch party this afternoon, though I may be just a few minutes late as I have to take Grumpy Old Lady Cat to the vet beforehand. See you there!

P.S. Speaking of reviews, there’s also been a lovely review of Vacui Magia over at Ingenious Cat.