Photo: John Althouse Coken

I’ve been in the doldrums of late.

Then I ran into a quote from a guy whose storytelling prowess I respect, Ryan Pequin:

… I realized that actually creating art and having some semblance of a work ethic tends to cause more people to notice you, as opposed to generally doing absolutely nothing at all and then sitting back waiting for people to beat a path to your door.

If you haven’t gazed upon the beauty that is his short story, The Walk, go do so.

In the meantime, I know some of you are writers, and some of you may even be working on long form writing of the novelular sort. In which case, you should read Nick Mamatas’ How to End a Story. And also scan through his blog looking for Clarkesworld slush pile gems, since he’s one of the editors—and the only editor I know that does critiques on submissions (although perhaps not for much longer).

(I also like Clarkesworld: It Was An Abused Little Girl All Along! which talks about twist endings and why so many of them are so… trite.)

If you want a very thorough critique from him on your long-form work, you should visit Uncle Nick’s Crazy-Ass Critique Service.

Yes, writing away.

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