On Writing Fiction at Stupidly-Short Lengths

This morning at Shore Leave I will be on a panel, with Dayton Ward, titled “Writing Fiction at Stupidly Short Lengths.” I described this panel, a few days ago, thusly: Learn about Twitterfics, Drabbles, and Flash Fiction as writers talk about creating stories at super-short lengths that make conventional stories look like War and PeaceContinue reading “On Writing Fiction at Stupidly-Short Lengths”

On Mid-Week Errata

I’ve had Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” stuck in my head today. My day actually began with Jethro Tull. My Tull collection is not large — Aqualung, the Christmas album, a greatest hits album. While working this morning, I needed something different to keep me going, and “Locomotive Breath” from Aqualung seemed auspicious. Which made meContinue reading “On Mid-Week Errata”

On Drabble Writing

On occasion, I write drabbles. A drabble is a particularly unforgiving form a fiction. One hundred words. No more. No less. I’ve written sentences that barely get going at fifty words; a story at twice that length must surely be impossible! I began writing drabbles because of, for all things, Strange New Worlds, the StarContinue reading “On Drabble Writing”

On "Making Minds Free"

Occasionally I’ll write a drabble, a short story of exactly one hundred words. One year the only stories I submitted to Pocket’s Strange New Worlds contest were drabbles. Why not? I thought. What editor wouldn’t want to buy a story for ten dollars instead of a few hundred? Well, it didn’t work out that way.Continue reading “On "Making Minds Free"”

December’s Greatest Hits

The top fifteen reasons people checked out allyngibson.com in the month of December. 15. “John Lennon atheist.” I wouldn’t call Lennon an atheist, per se, but he certainly had his issues with organized religion. Witness this quote–“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I am right, and have been proven right. We’re bigger thanContinue reading “December’s Greatest Hits”

Drabble-y Goodness

What is a drabble, you ask? A drabble is a short story of precisely one hundred words. No more. No less. I write drabbles for fun. Usually as a writing warm-up exercise. Occasionally for profit, when for Pocket’s Strange New Worlds VI contest two years ago I submitted many drabbles for consideration. (Come to thinkContinue reading “Drabble-y Goodness”

Not coming soon to a bookstore near you

Pocket Books, publishers of the Star Trek novels, among other things, sponsor a writing contest every year–the Strange New Worlds anthologies which publish Star Trek fiction by previously unpublished authors. The first such anthology was published in 1998, the fifth earlier this year, and Pocket is currently accepting entries for the sixth contest, winners toContinue reading “Not coming soon to a bookstore near you”

Ewoks! Exterminate!

Is it truly wrong to hate the Ewoks? Everyone knows the Ewoks. Those cute, cuddly, walking teddy bears that populated the last half of Return of the Jedi. In a series of films about the fate of the universe and the titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil, the Ewoks seemed curiously out-of-place.Continue reading “Ewoks! Exterminate!”