Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 10

Fourth of July Sale!

Ithink for every Fourth of July since I published Political Pies – my collection of short stories of a politicalnature – I’ve had a free sale for it.  Onone hand, it’s hard to make money if you give your books away for free, but onthe other hand the point of PoliticalPies was to get people to start thinking about politics in the hope wecould start working on some of the problems we face to

Free story idea – “Evil” gem

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Don’t take it personally

Yearsago, I dated a woman who was a painter, but she wanted to try her hand atwriting.  I tried to help her out, even pointingout a small magazine that had published a couple of my stories which I thoughtwould be a good place for her to submit her first story.  I can’t remember what this magazine paid,maybe $5, and they published six issues a year, and before she even submittedsomething she

Random Writing Tips – Mystery for mystery sake

 Therewas a show I watched where I was debating giving up on it, but then it wascancelled, so problem solved.  It did endon a bit of a cliff hanger, so on one hand that sucked, but on the other handthe show wasn’t that great.  My main issuewith the show was it was poorly written. Probably the biggest issue I had was how they had several opportunitiesto explain things, but instead would

The never ending To Do list

I’ma bit of a procrastinator, especially when it comes to writing.  Like, I’ve been thinking about writing thisblog for a couple weeks, at least.  It’sgotten kind of bad over the last few years, so I’ve been trying to get aroundit.  One thing I’ve tried is a To Dolist, which has and hasn’t worked.TheVersion I To Do list is something I’ve done for years, which is where I basicallymake a

Ebook sale!

 Witheverything going on in the world, I figured I should try to make things alittle brighter.  But I couldn’t reallythink of anything, so instead I’ll just have a sale for some of my ebooks.  The following three ebooks will be free fromMonday May 2nd, through Friday May 6th, so get them while you can.The Future is ComingAs ascience fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about

Free story idea – Timeline designer

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Random Writing Tips – Necessary distractions

 Twentysomeyears ago, when I was getting serious about writing, I bought a phonebook sizedlisting of writing markets.  Basicallyevery magazine would have a half-page summary of what kinds of stories theywere looking for, what they paid, and where to mail your submission.  I went through this and marked every placethat I might be able to send something. And for the next few years, when they

Seeking help from lunar scientists

Iam, ever so slowly, working on a story set on the moon a hundredish years fromnow.  It is a time when lunar tourism isthriving and there are museums and other attractions on the moon.  I have the idea for one museum, but I’d liketo put it in a specific location on the moon, but I’m not sure where such alocation is, or if it even exists.Iknow there is this thing called libration which –

Writing Newsletter First Quarter 2022

 Tostart 2022 off, I reposted the stories “No Shame” and “The Gift of Vomit.”Ialso published a poem on Instagram.#Theonly big writing “news” I had this quarter is that I submitted my story “BeingFirst.” That shouldn’t be big news, but it was the first story I’ve submittedin two years.  There are six sites I cansubmit it to, and just the other day I sent it to the third one.  If none