Happy birthday to me! 🎵 The baby is not being the most cooperative when it comes to letting me have writing time, but I’ve still managed to complete an actual story for the June prompt challenge and a short piece that I’ve sent out to my critique group. If I try to take a look […]
Category: Writer Writing
Ego saga
Oh hey, this is new. I’ve never worried about the ego in a story before. I wrote a short story partly to challenge myself, to try different things with narrative and words. It’s what the story demanded but also something I know will make me a better writer—make me more the writer I want to […]
‘Scary’ is just another word for ‘challenge’
I’m back! Or trying to be. Since my last post, we welcomed our second kid and as always this is a rough transition. Anyway, the post… Ok. Ignore that these are different parts of speech and let me run with this. ***Quick disclaimer: this is all my personal experience and your mileage may vary. It […]
Writing+new parenting=utter chaos
Kid #2 could arrive at any time and I’ll admit I’m panicking just a little. Can I do this and still write? Yes, I’ve been here and done this, but not with a three year old who needs me to be at least somewhat functional. And that first time around? I basically existed in trauma […]
Rebirth; aka, (pseudonym) name changes
One of the biggest shifts in the career-type side of my writing in the last year has been deciding to start using my own name. Granted, it’s been my name right along, just a slightly different iteration. In high school, I decided to use M. J. King as my pseudonym because I wasn’t a big […]
Submission stories: a rejection roundup
Submitting stories has been my kryptonite for a long time. For years. At first, this was because I didn’t have any short stories to submit and novels just take so damn long to finally have a piece ready to go. Then I started writing short stories and still didn’t submit anything. They weren’t good enough, […]
January writing prompt: Death Ship
I’ve been needing and wanting more writing prompts and exercises in my life–something to practice and get words flowing that I don’t have to treat too seriously. So I signed up for Susan Dennard’s Story a Month Challenge (follow the link if you’re curious or want to sign up–it’s not too late!) where she sends […]
Shop talk: writing ideas beyond your skill set
Someone asked me on Twitter the other day how I got past all the “I can’t write this yet” story ideas. I answered briefly there, but there’s only so much I can cram into a couple tweets and I have more to say. **Note: the usual caveats apply! This post is all my experience and […]
Creative roundup, 2020 version
2020 has felt like the proverbial flaming handbasket. No one needs a tragedy-porn recap of the catastrophic and apocalyptic-level trauma we’re still enduring. I will just say: Black lives matter, the pandemic is not a hoax, and I’m not about to forget how many (white) Americans saw hate/lies/open sedition and dismantling of our democratic republic […]
Writing plays (yes, more theatre)
Lately there’s been a theme around here. A theme involving theatre. And apparently it’s not enough to be in a play (now closed) or workshopping Shakespeare scenes via Zoom (potentially upcoming). I’m writing plays, too. This isn’t exactly a new development. I wrote my first play when I was about ten, then my sixth grade […]
Melissa Burkart 