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Surviving 2023
I hate to start the year in review with a trope, but it happened, and it rocked my world for a good little bit. My dog died. It was quick, it was sudden, and I was definitely not ready. He was 14, best as we could tell (a shelter rescue), and the best good old boi a girl could ever hope for. We had 10 wonderful, adventure-filled years with him, and his absence leaves a giant hole in my heart. The year didn’t get much better from there. In mid-2021, I returned to working a full-time corporate day job, which put a definite cramp on my writing capacity (which was,…
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Crossing the (genre) streams
The Nov/Dec 2021 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine featured one of my short stories–“The Debtor,” a crime story set during Christmastime in New York City. (I don’t know what it is about New York City that has inspired me to base all of my crime fiction stories here–maybe it was one too many Law & Order marathons–but here you go and there you have it.) It’s a significant publication for me, not only because of the publication itself (EQMM has been publishing award-winning mystery/crime fiction for 80+ years), but because crime fiction is not my usual genre. And I am almost more proud of that than for the accomplishment…
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On the other side of our long, dark winter
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On the other side of our long, dark winter
Note: This is part 2 of this post series. Read Part 1, “Writing through a pandemic,” here. All the weeks and months of anxious mulling over the Ullr story hadn’t changed my mind about which party and which character I’d center it on. I still loved the opening lines, but I knew the happy-jolly fun romp tone was gone. And that was okay. I didn’t need to write a fun story. I just needed to write a story with a party in it. If there’s anything that I’ve learned as a writer, it’s that as a discovery writer, I need to trust my process. I’m not the type of person…
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Crossing the (genre) streams
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Writing through a pandemic
Usually, when I release a new story, I like to sit back and let readers experience the story for themselves without much set-up. Sure, I’ll write a blurb to let you know what the story is about so that you can decide up front if it’s the type of story you like to read, but I don’t set many expectations beyond that because I don’t want to bias your experience. The latest story I just released though… this one is different, in so many ways. First, some context. I knew I needed a write a story for this anthology a long, long time ago. I was given plenty of time…
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Telling the grandma stories
For the longest time, I hesitated to write anything Chinese-flavored because I didn’t feel Chinese enough. I hesitated to write anything Taiwanese because I didn’t feel like I understood the deep division between China and Taiwan well enough. I felt deeply ironic writing from my love of European mythology because I’m definitely not white enough. And I constantly felt a certain social responsibility — along with a healthy dose of guilt — to understand the other half of me, the half that faces outward, and the half I least understood.
