I recently passed a milestone that some might consider dubious: 100 rejections for my short fiction. I’m not actually sure which one was my 100th, since two recent ones have no entry in my Duotrope database, but I’m going to say that it was for my story “In Training” just because I like the sound […]
Waaaay back at the beginning of last year I made some plans for my writing this year. Focusing on what I could control (rather than, say, making my goals “sell X number of stories”) I wanted to finish either 10 stories, or 5 and a novel, and submit at least 40 times — in other […]
Totally off-topic, but I’m toying with the idea of making my own nut milk, and the Google results are getting overwhelming and mutually contradictory. Have any of you tried it? I have a couple minor constraints: I’m allergic to walnuts (sort of. Walnut oil is OK; walnut skins are not) I would like something thicker […]
I spent part of my lunch looking for an old post of mine, and realized that this blog has gotten kinda long. For you new readers, here are some of my older posts that you might have missed, stuff that still gets hits, and posts that I just plain like and hope get more attention: […]
I just got word that I have made my first SFWA-qualifying sale! (Don’t worry, I signed the contract before posting here…) I will share the details soon, I hope. I just want to clarify when this can be made public. In the meantime, here’s our cat singing to her dinner:
One of the great things about being an SF writer here and now is seeing how widely our tropes have scattered into the public consciousness. I had to go out on an errand this morning, and drove by the local med school, and I did a double-take to see a bunch of walking dead! Because […]
I consented to share a small portion of my genius with my friend and fellow writer Anaea Lay at her site as part of her Lies for Fun and Profit series. I don’t know why she calls it that.
It was pointed out to me that the version of my story Unintended Consequences that was in last November’s Drabblecast Episode 224 is not the same as the original version on this site. I’d expanded it in response to editorial feedback; here is the version that aired, below the cut. (Or possibly without the cut […]
So, there’s this story I wrote a while back — a really fun one, I think, which got some very kind rejections but not yet a home. And there’s a market, with a respected name and a long history, and maybe some recent troubles. This market looked like a good fit for this story. So […]
My reading at Readercon went very well. Thank you to everyone who dropped by; I’m greatly encouraged by your reaction to the scene I read. I hope that my attempt to do voices for it didn’t confuse you too much. That piece was the opening scene from my novella “Claudius Rex”, which (under the title […]
John P. Murphy 