tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254Fri, 13 Jun 2025 06:28:19 +0000web writingwriting90% Freelance Writing, 5% Angst, 5% Star Trekhttp://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)Blogger269125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-421981300495444247Mon, 06 Aug 2018 03:29:00 +00002018-08-05T20:29:38.593-07:00I'm the decision maker in my family. If too many people try to make decisions, no one makes them. Instead of living in complete chaos, I simply made myself that person, and so all decisions get made and acted upon. That's been happening for almost 20 years... until this one.  A big decision needed to be made about one of our kids, and my husband freaked out about it. He didn't want any http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2018/08/decisions-decisions.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2566748412596862165Sun, 13 Aug 2017 17:47:00 +00002017-08-13T10:47:12.989-07:00 Nazis are out there. I don't mean people who seem off or who say things that can be compared to Nazis. Actual. Nazis. I couldn't sleep last night thinking about them being out there, not knowing how many of them are, not knowing where they are. They're all over. Out and about yesterday, it struck me that POC can't know whether the people they come across are Nazis are not. Anyone they see http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/what-can-writers-do-to-fight-nazis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-6390004590086161832Mon, 08 May 2017 20:09:00 +00002017-05-08T16:03:36.028-07:00 So, this came out a little while back. I live in the most stressed-out state in the country. Normally I don't really care that I live here. Wtf do I care, really? I work from home, my friends are cool, non-redneck types. My area is full of scientists and engineers. Whatever. You can afford a lot of house here, and I can have as many big trees as I want. So, why is it so stressful? I'll tell http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/why-is-it-so-stressful-here-ill-tell.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-8320251030578021539Sat, 25 Mar 2017 17:43:00 +00002017-03-25T10:43:29.268-07:00 I didn't blog in 2016. I didn't have the time. I didn't have the strength.  First, my mother got cancer, then my father developed terminal cancer suddenly. Then I got cancer, and then my brother got cancer. All of this happened in a six-month span last year. The day I found out that my brother also had cancer, I started screaming and screaming and couldn't stop. I think I continued http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/loss-strength-and-ben-kenobi.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-3458292638247967048Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:14:00 +00002015-08-03T08:17:35.232-07:00Since I last blogged, I've sold another short story and attended a meeting with my local critiquing group about literary magazines. The story I sold was a straight sci-fi piece, bringing my sold genres to: horror, sci-fi, fantasy, mainstream, YA fantasy and a weird sci-fi/fantasy mashup. Critiques I've always sought out critiques from the people around me. In high school I made my friends http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/critiques-complaints-and-sale.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-6106747527038012549Tue, 21 Jul 2015 18:03:00 +00002015-07-21T11:06:18.469-07:00 I haven't blogged in a while, and the title tells you why. In addition to this being the roughest market for finding content work that I've ever seen, I've had the novel monkey on my back as well as trying to shop short stories. I do love crafting a short stories, but there are a few problems with doing so. I am considering not creating as many of them to focus more on the two novels I've beenhttp://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/i-literally-forgot-i-had-blog.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-6186560410082442797Sun, 28 Sep 2014 09:46:00 +00002015-07-21T10:47:56.370-07:00One of my biggest goals in life has been to get some fiction published. As many writers quickly discover, non-fiction is what pays the bills. With a growing family, I've been highly dedicated to writing the non-fiction that buys shoes and calamari (seriously- I am all about calamari). But with a milestone birthday this year (no, I won't say which one) and still no fiction sold, I took it upon http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/i-sold-some-mothering-fiction.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-1753207712219183002Sat, 29 Mar 2014 02:55:00 +00002014-03-28T20:53:28.207-07:00Ok, so I have a serious issue with self-promotion. Like, a serious issue. The thought of it makes my skin crawl. However, increasingly, I am having to skip over jobs, potential agents and even potential publishing houses because they demand a Web presence. They want you to whore yourself out like you're wearing 8" heels. Get out in the streets, writers, and tell every passing car how good you arehttp://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/hoping-im-not-crazy-person.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-909861022939028810Tue, 14 Jan 2014 01:30:00 +00002014-01-13T19:30:44.442-08:00I had a pretty good handle on my New Year's resolutions. I always take them pretty seriously. I put a lot of thought into them, make lists and sometimes even get them laminated. Seriously. This year's resolutions, other than to stop eating stale Cadbury Eggs and such for breakfast, were to keep my income more even and to sell some fiction this year without fail. I can't count how many nonfiction http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-year-new-sensation-of-death.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2545470452733123072Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:34:00 +00002014-09-28T02:56:28.354-07:00For the past few years I've been hitting DragonCon, a hard-to-describe con that is broken up into about 20 tracks that allow anyone who isn't boring to find stuff that fascinates them. The writer's track is full of panels that include writers, editors and agents. Some of the writers are pretty well known, others are low-level novelists who are still pretty interesting to hear from. I got to see http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/dragoncon-dragoncon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-7427980221169138208Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:18:00 +00002013-08-02T14:23:26.985-07:00Ok, so perusing the job listings this morning, looking for boring projects that I could use to expand my client base, I found a small listing for an online publishing company looking for short vampire stories. Scary stories, it asked for- no romance or sparkling. Kick ass, said I. I think I will comply. Aside from my obvious poetry skills, I like putting together short stories that would have a http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/because-im-brilliant.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2336414819584297225Tue, 16 Jul 2013 18:16:00 +00002013-07-16T11:17:16.287-07:00So, I broke my ankle. I have no excuse for doing so. No one was negligent. No one left junk lying around for me to trip over. There wasn't even an incline to make walking difficult. I was walking along a gravel road staring at some bees and I fell over sideways. I literally just fell over like a dumbass. It's been seven weeks now, and I just now feel like I'm waking up from it all. I wasn't http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-sleeper-must-awaken.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2800603141058720499Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:18:00 +00002013-02-11T23:21:32.377-08:00 I struggled at the beginning of this year to come up with resolutions that would be useful instead of damaging and reasonable instead of completely insane. I started looking over the past few years and trying to think about what would really be helpful. And in that looking, I discovered that every year seemed to have a distinct theme. Some years were all about work. Expanding my writing http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-new-year.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-1368918890994334658Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:15:00 +00002012-07-16T21:17:12.988-07:00I see a lot of questions about where to publishing things, like a LOT. Like, every time you say what you do they say, hey, where would I publish this weird thing I haven't actually written but want to write? I get it in person and every third question on writers' forums is this very question. Now, I have spent waaaay too many hours writing online publishing articles for Suite101, but I don't http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/kinda-hate-to-do-this.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-5880512448956571517Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:09:00 +00002012-06-15T03:11:35.994-07:00I am working hard on a novel right now, not blogging much because any free time I have is being driven into the story. It's hard to think straight most days because I'm thinking of backstory or coming up with the next step in the plot. It's what I've always wanted to do, but time will tell whether it's worth it monetarily. I wrestle a lot with whether to spend time on work that pays now or http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/novels.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-7106461230688095919Wed, 23 May 2012 08:10:00 +00002012-06-15T03:12:06.843-07:00It's been a while since I blogged. One of the offspring has been very sick for about three years, and that has been taking an increasing amount of my time. It's odd how things crop up and grab your time when you least expect it. I've also been questioning the nature of blogging lately. I've noticed ego taking a serious toll on blogs that I once liked, and I wonder whether that happens to everyonehttp://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/book-channels-writing-and-rejections.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2502435535968192427Sun, 11 Mar 2012 01:38:00 +00002012-03-10T18:16:12.596-08:00With all the talk over the past year about self-publishing on Kindle, I finally decided to delve into it in January. I finished up a short ebook that I'd had on the back burner for a few months and submitted it. It was accepted and published in less than a day. The process wasn't hard, but there are a lot of formatting specifications, and I had to reformat it twice to get it to go through. Being http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/kindle-publishing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-2237272027937170045Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:17:00 +00002012-06-25T19:34:21.069-07:00I've been thinking about blogging a lot lately- the nature of it and what it is really about. I've been a big fan of a funny, fantastic blog for a long time, but in the last few months it has turned the narcissistic rant of someone telling its readers how to think. It isn't the first blog that I've seen go in that direction. Getting popular and gaining legions of followers can give bloggers a http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/blogging-what-heck-is-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-3274904266177932014Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:28:00 +00002015-07-21T11:22:32.084-07:00Hi all, I've been away for quite a long time, but I do have a few reasons. I mean, not good reasons, but reasons nevertheless. Since I've been gone: * I wrote about 8,000 words of a novel during NaNoWriMo. So, I was quite the loser, but I did write more fiction during that month than I did in the rest of the year combined. So, I was perfectly pleased with it. That novel is now about 12,000 wordshttp://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/troubles-and-more.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-4349139429218142965Wed, 02 Nov 2011 08:16:00 +00002011-11-03T12:40:07.337-07:00Wow, I've been away from Ye Olde Blog for quite a while, writing like crazy and wishing that I was writing something other than whatever I'm writing at the time. I went to DragonCon and attended a number of fascinating writers' panels. I had been planning a long blog post about it but never quite got to it. To sum up, I:Met Wil Wheaton - twiceHeard a number of interesting sci fi and fantasy http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/nanowrimo-and-fear.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-6767656067529484118Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:08:00 +00002011-08-13T16:16:36.804-07:00I did one of my very rare self-searches today on Google because I had to find some article samples to send to someone. I hate doing that because every single time I do any lengthy search for samples I find at least one copyright infringer. Today? Yup. Found one. However, I also found this: The Growing Zones for Watermelons This is an eHow U.K. article that cites my book as a reference and me http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/crazy-find.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-6965003565380823317Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:16:00 +00002011-07-11T22:20:05.391-07:00A little over a year ago, I outlined what I thought was a fairly solid bit of arguing against using Facebook. I don't want pictures of myself all over the interwebs and I don't need more online time wasters. I don't want to post my "mood" or "status" and I don't want to read anyone else's. Apparently, this wasn't enough. I am still being cajoled, prodded and basically harassed about Facebook http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ok-i-guess-i-need-to-do-this-again.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-3080379923078115301Sun, 03 Jul 2011 07:27:00 +00002012-02-06T21:03:56.207-08:00I ran across this Guardian piece today- it's a massive list of rules for writing fiction, as written by several well-known authors. Reading it through is pretty inspiring, and a little eye opening in some ways. I managed to break two of these "rules" in that last sentence. Anyway, this is long, but many of the rules were just too interesting not to share.A few of my favorites:Elmore Leonard- "http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/rules-for-writing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-27202992018232103Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:27:00 +00002011-07-01T14:35:42.286-07:00Every year, November presents a puzzling little question that hangs over the heads of obsessed writers. Should we speed write a novel during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), or decide that we don't have time/can't be bothered/haven't perfected the story yet/wanted to but there was an X-Files marathon. Often, the best course of action is to ponder it until the month is nearly over and http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/nooooooooooooooooo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4855950334653809254.post-7549049975115173649Mon, 23 May 2011 03:39:00 +00002011-05-22T21:12:24.064-07:00Things are getting back to normal for most people. The power has been spotty, but it's holding right now. I had stopped jumping at noises finally, and then the tornado sirens went off today. It was the first time they had sounded since the April 27th outbreak. I had been sure that I'd vomit or panic the next time I heard them, but I did neither. I did those stupid childbirth breathing exercises http://writersjourneyblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/last-tornado-post.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (L. Shepherd)0