My friend David (from college), who reconnected with me during Covid, and encouraged me to write again, in earnest, by offering to read and to comment on my stories, even though horror wasn’t his genre, and he didn’t know the language of minimalism that Chuck taught, and rarely gave advice that I took, he has a new song out today:
This is so true. Echoed by a teacher/mentor of mine. Why our programming prevents us from accepting it remains a mystery. I can literally FEEL myself stopping me all the time. And I want to punch myself for it. 💜
Happy to see you writing and writing about writing. I am so behind it's crazy.
We should do another story challenge. What's on your docket for the summer? Other than work and dadding and all that? Maybe we can co-chair something on Fictionistas. I'm technically still in charge over there. 😉
Did you hear I got into the Chuck Palahniuk edited Silent Nightmares (holiday horror) anthology? Its coming out Fall 2026. So, i want to write a novel (or two), so when some publisher/agent reads and likes my short story, and asks if i have something longer, I can have several somethings! Way back when, we said we’d do the story relay again with rules (1) no revisiting same scene from different perspective and (2) no ‘it was all a dream’ resets. Also, i wanted to do a camp slasher, where each chapter had to escalate and use at least one object introduced in an earlier chapter. Didnt you want to do an up down handoff, where you relay write one way and then go back the other way? Maybe we should do that? Emphasis on fun. What i liked most was meeting other fiction substackers…
I could fit coordinating it with you this summer… my current plans are staying out of the desert sun and praying i’m not DOGEd.
Yes! We emailed about the Chuck P. Anthology. :-) Happy news indeed.
I'll keep you posted on the summer thing. It might fall through on my end ... about to start a new part-time job which I'm secretly hoping is going to make writing feel like the thing I want to escape TO rather than escape FROM, which is kinda how it feels currently. The whole hoping for change while fearing change cycle. SOOOO fun.
"the only thing stopping me - is me."
This is so true. Echoed by a teacher/mentor of mine. Why our programming prevents us from accepting it remains a mystery. I can literally FEEL myself stopping me all the time. And I want to punch myself for it. 💜
Happy to see you writing and writing about writing. I am so behind it's crazy.
We should do another story challenge. What's on your docket for the summer? Other than work and dadding and all that? Maybe we can co-chair something on Fictionistas. I'm technically still in charge over there. 😉
Did you hear I got into the Chuck Palahniuk edited Silent Nightmares (holiday horror) anthology? Its coming out Fall 2026. So, i want to write a novel (or two), so when some publisher/agent reads and likes my short story, and asks if i have something longer, I can have several somethings! Way back when, we said we’d do the story relay again with rules (1) no revisiting same scene from different perspective and (2) no ‘it was all a dream’ resets. Also, i wanted to do a camp slasher, where each chapter had to escalate and use at least one object introduced in an earlier chapter. Didnt you want to do an up down handoff, where you relay write one way and then go back the other way? Maybe we should do that? Emphasis on fun. What i liked most was meeting other fiction substackers…
I could fit coordinating it with you this summer… my current plans are staying out of the desert sun and praying i’m not DOGEd.
Yes! We emailed about the Chuck P. Anthology. :-) Happy news indeed.
I'll keep you posted on the summer thing. It might fall through on my end ... about to start a new part-time job which I'm secretly hoping is going to make writing feel like the thing I want to escape TO rather than escape FROM, which is kinda how it feels currently. The whole hoping for change while fearing change cycle. SOOOO fun.
Stay cool and don't get DOGEd.
Yer pal,
Meggo