#WIPSnips March 31: "step"
#AmWriting #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #PrairieSFF
4
0
0
0
Hashtag
#PrairieSFF
Advertisement · 728 × 90
#WIPSnips March 22nd: "library"
From a back-burnered WIP, "Dried Flowers", which is set almost entirely inside a library at the end of a world.
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #PrairieSFF
8
0
0
0
Tonight's writing work: submit a 650-word short story about being *very* cold to 4 markets. Wish me luck!
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
3
0
0
0
#WIPSnips, March 17, 2026: "green"
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #PrairieSFF
10
0
0
0
even if
"I loved the voice and the writing of this piece! I hope you continue to lean into speculative because I definitely found this entertaining."
Oh well.
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
2
0
0
0
8
0
0
0
It appears my mother keeps finding ways to reach out from beyond the grave.
#FirstLine #AmWriting #PrairieSFF #SecondDraft
2
0
0
0
#WIPSnips Feb. 23: "Science"
Not a *happy* memory here, but they can't all be happy, can they?
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #PrairieSFF
9
1
0
0
Got some good writerly news today: a short story has been longlisted by a publication I adore. I should find out my tale's final fate in a couple months.
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
2
0
0
0
I'm going to record what happened, as best as I can remember it, as close to true as I can manage. Some things I don't know for sure and I'll have to guess at. I'll try to remember to mention when that happens. Once you've read this you can decide whether what I did was right or not. Whether you can forgive me; whether I need to be forgiven. It won't matter to me whether you forgive me or not. By the time you read this I won't be anywhere near you. By the time you read this I might not *be* anymore.
New opening to an old project.
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF #DerelictStarship
1
0
0
0
what's it called when you *want* a certain word (or two) to stick out in a manuscript?
in my case it's "susurrus" and "lambent"
#PrairieSFF #AmWriting
0
0
0
0
Closing in on 21,000 words in There's Nothing Good at the Top (first draft).
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
1
0
0
0
I found my high school yearbook from my grad year.
#PrairieSFF
1
0
0
0
#WIPSnips: "climb"
Considering that my WIP is about a tower, I had no shortage of snippets to choose from here.
#PrairieSFF
8
0
0
0
Will do — if you follow the #PrairieSFF tag, you'll probably see more about it, too
1
0
0
0
![[April 8, 1988] "Now it's 4 am. Maybe I should date this April 9th, since I guess it's tomorrow already. I had a nightmare about lightning striking a tree and couldn't get back to sleep afterwards. Mom always talks about how, when she was my age and couldn't sleep, she'd go for a walk, so that's what I did, down to the river and back again. It's weird how quiet the streets are at 3 in the morning. The ice is all off the river now and it was foggy, so you could see a cone of light under every streetlight."
I find it strange, reading this now, that I didn't mention the tower in the entry. That was the first night, I'm almost certain, that I noticed the glow from its door. The mist, which was thickest down by the river, softened the light and rounded it too. In high school, I didn't know the word "lambent", but if I did, that's the word I'd have used. But I didn't learn that word till I was in my thirties, probably in some novel by Michael Swanwick or maybe Gene Wolfe.
I remember the nightmare, too, that sent me on my walk. I wrote that it was about lightning striking a tree, but that wasn't the part that made it a nightmare. It was the way the tree burned, a pale, almost colourless flame that somehow didn't blacken the branches but instead left them white as bleached bone.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:apfzpvtlfelytc5p735qbzpn/bafkreig3kp7rdbrpbbz2hlz5sibcrwasnrodfdzfkwxql7tfx5b4zzqqg4)
[April 8, 1988] "Now it's 4 am. Maybe I should date this April 9th, since I guess it's tomorrow already. I had a nightmare about lightning striking a tree and couldn't get back to sleep afterwards. Mom always talks about how, when she was my age and couldn't sleep, she'd go for a walk, so that's what I did, down to the river and back again. It's weird how quiet the streets are at 3 in the morning. The ice is all off the river now and it was foggy, so you could see a cone of light under every streetlight." I find it strange, reading this now, that I didn't mention the tower in the entry. That was the first night, I'm almost certain, that I noticed the glow from its door. The mist, which was thickest down by the river, softened the light and rounded it too. In high school, I didn't know the word "lambent", but if I did, that's the word I'd have used. But I didn't learn that word till I was in my thirties, probably in some novel by Michael Swanwick or maybe Gene Wolfe. I remember the nightmare, too, that sent me on my walk. I wrote that it was about lightning striking a tree, but that wasn't the part that made it a nightmare. It was the way the tree burned, a pale, almost colourless flame that somehow didn't blacken the branches but instead left them white as bleached bone.
hmmm
Here's a snippet of diary (from an entry dated April 8, 1988), and commentary from the modern day.
#FirstDraft #PrairieSFF
1
0
1
1
#AmWriting some more in the last section of my Two Diaries novella ("There's Nothing Good at the Top")
#PrairieSFF
1
0
1
0
I'm getting close to the endgame of my weird li'l (not so li'l) novella. It's got:
- a tower
- another tower
- or maybe the same tower?
- time travel
- high-school yearbooks
- diaries (age 15-16)
- diaries (age 45)
- a dog named Fizzgig
- fear
- aurora borealis
- bike riding
#PrairieSFF #AmWriting
3
0
0
0
The narrator dreams of a forest fire:
"I walked unhurt but not unmarked to the edge of a sullen lake whose entire surface had gone black with ash."
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
1
0
0
0
#WIPSnips "end"
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
7
0
0
0
I just submitted a 260-word short piece. You should see if you've got any super-short fiction that needs a home, too.
#WritingCommunity #PrairieSFF
2
0
0
0
I'm hoping to have a first draft of my current novella done by the end of January, and then start in on one of the other back-burnered projects (maybe the derelict starship ghost story).
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
6
1
1
0
All true, though it doesn't stop me checking my [email|Submittable|Moksha] every day or so when I've got something out on submission.
#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #PrairieSFF
1
0
0
0
one of the things I'm struggling with in my current WiP is letting go of the notion that it has to all make sense in the end
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
3
0
0
0
I wish I could un-realize that. I think I'm going to have nightmares about it.
—the most recent writing in my #WIP
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF
1
0
0
0
"line" for #WIPSnips
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #PrairieSFF
8
1
0
0
After work today I'm going to go to École Savard, without Fizzgig. Before supper, so I'm home long before sunset. I don't particularly *want* to, but I feel like I *have* to. In part I'm writing this down so that I go through with it. Things are more real when they're written down, or at least I find they are. When I leave for work I'm going to leave this binder on the table, open to this page, so I can't chicken out and then claim I forgot. # it's oh god oh shit # sorry
The writing's going great, thanks for asking
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF #RomanÀClef #Octothorpe
0
0
0
0
When it's ready for beta readers, I'll be posting about it here. I use the tag #PrairieSFF if you want to follow that. I've posted some snippets from this tale under that tag (though, being first draft, nothing is guaranteed to remain in the final story).
3
0
0
0
The last 2 sentences I wrote (so far) tonight:
Had he felt the urge to jump too? To step into the quiet air, nothing underfoot, and let what would happen happen?
#AmWriting #PrairieSFF #WritingCommunity
4
0
0
0
7
1
0
0