From the category archives:

Writing

There are some interesting discussions going on around the web about which direction publishing — specifically the publishing of genre short fiction — may be headed. It’s no secret that many of the smaller print magazines are closing down, something I wrote about in Vanishing Print Zines, and that the ‘big three’ have been limping [...]

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Another little essay of mine on flash fiction was just posted over at Flash Fiction Chronicles today, ‘Frame Your Flash, Don’t Fence It In.’ It’s about the world outside the story, the world beyond the ‘frame’ of the piece — and in the case of flash fiction that is a very small frame indeed, under [...]

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Over at Flash Fiction Chronicles today I have a post that recalls my misspent youth with some fondness. You see, it turns out all that time I spent reading Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks and Warhammer’s White Dwarf Magazine, I was actually learning how to write flash fiction. Yup, it’s true, all those little snipets of [...]

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Calls for Slush Readers

by Bill Ward on September 16, 2009

in Writing, Zines

A couple of online magazines have recently posted calls for slush readers, Every Day Fiction and Fantasy, to be exact. A while back I wrote a three-piece article all about the benefits of taking a stint as a slush reader called Get Thee to a Slush Pile, and in it I share my personal experiences [...]

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Help Support Ralan’s Webstravaganza!

by Bill Ward on September 11, 2009

in Black Gate Blog, Writing, Zines

For my 200th post (huzzah!) I’d like to direct your attention to a web resource for writers of incredible usefulness. Ralan’s Spec Fic & Humor Webstravaganza which is, if you don’t know, a free listing of magazines, anthologies, book publishers, freezines, websites, and any and every conceivable other venue for the publishing of fiction. Until [...]

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A Fistful of Ham

by Bill Ward on August 21, 2009

in Black Gate Blog, Writing, Zines

For your delectation this Friday I have prepared two bloggish morsels on subjects various and writerly. First, over at Black Gate, I’ve posted a notice about a new award for adventure fantasy short fiction called . . . wait for it . . . The Ham-Sized Fist Award. Appetite whetted? For a bigger bite head [...]

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Focusing on FocusWriter

by Bill Ward on August 18, 2009

in Writing

A while ago I mentioned some distraction-free, full-screen word processors, namely Write-Or-Die and Darkroom. Well, though both applications had elements I liked (and Write-Or-Die was downright amusing with its incorporation of ‘punishment’), neither really did the trick. Well, I may have found something that does.
FocusWriter, available free from Gott Code, may just be the first [...]

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Vanishing Print Zines

by Bill Ward on June 15, 2009

in Writing, Zines

With today’s news that Talebones is ceasing operations as a magazine, I figured I’d better publish this post — which I’d written a few days ago and in which Talebones was still listed as a survivor — before I have to make any more changes to it.
I was recently going through some notes — a [...]

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