Writing with Children (post up on the Musa blog)

And I was right about my next guest post going up today. Writing with Children is about finding the time to write, even when it seems like there's no time. I'd love to hear some more tips from others for what's worked for you, not only parents but everyone who's managed to squeeze in some writing time in and around a busy schedule. So give it a read and add your own comment at the end. Thanks!

Recent blog posts elsewhere

Yesterday I had a blog post on the Darkside Codex blog, How Addiction Came to Southwatch. This explores a bit how I came up with The Electro-Addictive Moth-Flame out of the raw material of the Darkside Codex bible.

And last week I also had a post up on the Penumbra blog, this one full of bad poetry. Or cheap parody? Something like that. It's called Beyond Heaven is part of a month-long series of posts by Penumbra writers answering the question of what a heaven designed for writers would look like. Hint: it begins with coffee.

One more guest blog post is coming up later this week. Maybe even tomorrow...

Episode 6: Completing the Map

Those who've been reading these episodes as they come out should feel a small frisson as they read that title: "completing" is a fraught word in Spire City, among the infecteds...

These first six episodes of season 1 form a unit of sorts, with their own arc within the longer arcs of the season as a whole and the series. So for anyone who hasn't been reading these all along, this is a great time to start. Are you more of a binge reader than a wait-patiently-between-episodes reader? Then grab these six episodes now and binge your way through them.

And if you have been reading them already, then take this time to recommend them to another avid reader you know.

First story for CLASH! Dawn of Steam is online

The first of the eight stories I'm writing for CLASH! Dawn of Steam has now been added to Scribd. Panstrom Swiftra, despite his gloomy appearance, fights as a Champion of Hope in the card game.

I'm currently writing the rough draft for the fifth story, and I think readers of many kinds will find these to be fun stories.

An interview with me about the Darkside Codex

The Darkside Codex blog had been relatively dormant for a while, but there's been a lot more activity lately. Some of that have been posts digging more into the shared world setting. And then there's an interview with me about "The Electro-Addictive Moth-Flame" which went up last week (and which I only noticed this morning that it had already gone live). Fun stuff all throughout.

The Skin Stealer published

My story "The Skin Stealer" is in the latest issue of Penumbra. This is my third time to have a story in Penumbra (fourth if you include the story reprinted in the best of year 1 issue), which is great. It was a story I wrote specifically for the theme, which is "A Night at the Villa Diodati." The reference is to the writing prompt that led John Polidori to write the first English-language vampire novel, Vampyre, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to write Frankenstein (as well as never-finished horror stories by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron).

The first thought for this story came awhile back, when my kids were in a zombie phase (inspired by Plants vs. Zombies or Zombie Farm or something like that). And I thought, there's vampires that drink blood and zombies that eat brains. I'm not interested in writing about either of them, so what else could a horror monster steal? Maybe some other day I'll write about a breath-breather, but for now at least you can read about the skin stealer.

Check it out!