Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 11

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

Format beast

Recently,I did something that I haven’t done for a couple of years: submitted astory.  Over the years, I’ve learned the basicsubmission format, but since it’s been a while and things change, I’d take mytime and go through the sample this magazine uses.  And I think the only new aspect I saw was thewhole one or two spaces question.  But asI was reading through this format example, it

Free story idea – Dragon sphere

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

Voter registration drive and book sale

Itseems every other year here in the US we face an election that WILL DETERMINETHE VERY SURVIVAL OF THE NATION.  Andafter going through this for the last five or six never-ending election cycles,there is a strong desire to just listen to music and play video games.  But to be a buzzkill, elections are importantin that they will determine the intensity of the dumpster fire we end upin.  So

Random Writing Tips – Broken incentives

 Manyyears ago, in an effort to increase my writing output, I set myself a goal of writinga certain number of words each day.  It’sa great idea, but I was rather hit-or-miss on meeting my goal.  So one day I decided to give myself a bit ofan incentive.  I bought a bag of mixedlittle candy bars, and told myself I’d get one whenever I met my goal.  If I wrote twice my goal, I’d get two, and so

Why I’ve never written a trans character

I ama white, heterosexual, cis male who has been writing stories for twenty-fiveishyears.  Back when I started, most of mycharacters were more-or-less versions of me because that’s what I knew.  When you’re just starting out writing, it’s alot easier to stick to what you know. But it wasn’t long before I started writing female characters.  The way I did this was instead of calling my

Random Writing Tips ��� Beware Frankenstein characters

��Severalyears ago, I was designing a character and I kept adding traits: she had aninterest in gladiators, a bit of a mischievous streak, a love of old movies andTV shows, etc., etc.�� It got to the pointwhere I started to wonder if a real person could have all these traits, or if Iwas just stitching different people together like Dr. Frankenstein.�� It���s a problem that often comes up in TV

Random Writing Tips – Beware Frankenstein characters

 Severalyears ago, I was designing a character and I kept adding traits: she had aninterest in gladiators, a bit of a mischievous streak, a love of old movies andTV shows, etc., etc.  It got to the pointwhere I started to wonder if a real person could have all these traits, or if Iwas just stitching different people together like Dr. Frankenstein.  It’s a problem that often comes up in TV