seanhtaylor

[seanhtaylor]

Required Reading

Writing disability: The Super-Crip Trope, and how to avoid falling into it's harmful elements

The "Magical disabled person" or as it's often called in disability circles, the "Super-Crip" is the name of a trope in which a disabled character has some kind of magic or special abilities, which is used to mitigate or erase the impact of their disability. While not a mandatory part of the trope, many super-crip characters are also stronger than their peers, specifically because of their disability's impact on their powers. So why is this trope so unpopular among many disabled people? There's a few reasons. The main one is because more often than not, Super-crips who are written by non-disabled people are often treated as an easy way out of actually having to deal with a character's disability, and a shortcut out of having to do the research into how a disabled character would deal with certain situations. When these writers encounter something they think their disabled character can't do, instead of actually talking to people with the same disability as their character and doing research, they just write that its not a problem because "magic powers go!"

In some cases, but not all, their powers all but erase their disability completely, at least from the perspective of it's relevance to the story. While, to my knowledge, this was never in the comics or movies, A good example of this is a "fan-theory" I've seen among non-disabled X-men fans who claim professor X could use his telepathy to walk, functionally bypassing his spinal injury (Or his leg injury, if we're going off some of the comics' timelines). This would functionally erase his disability, making it an example of both the super-crip trope and the miracle-cure trope.

ID: An image of Professor X from X-men, a white bald man wearing a suit, sitting in a silver wheelchair, and another unknown man in a suit standing beside him, framed by a circular doorway, both their faces are partially obscured by shadow. /end ID]

Another reason this trope is disliked is because writer's often have good intentions when using this trope, but they actually end up undermining the points they were trying to make. Often, super-crips are portrayed as badasses in an attempt to show that "you can still be a hero/useful to the plot and be disabled", but the way they portray it usually implies that disabled people, as they exist in real life, aren't useful unless they have something that compensates for their disability or have impossible powers.

So should super-crips be avoided entirely? Some folks in the community think so, but personally, I don't agree. Despite all of what I've said so far, I think there are ways to write characters who technically fit the definition of a super-crip, without it being harmful. There's an argument to be made that "super-crip" specifically refers to harmful version of the trope, so not everyone will consider characters who aren't part of it, but I do, and I think it's important to discuss both the harm this trope can bring, and how this trope can be used in non-harmful ways. Humans (and creatures with human-level intelligence) are adaptable creatures, and in a world where magic exists and especially in worlds where its common, disabled people will find ways to use it to help themselves. but help is the key word there. So let's talk about some ways you can write super-crips, without it crossing the line into becoming harmful. The following are some things for you to consider about your character's disability, how their magic/powers interacts with it, how they interact with the world (and vice versa) and more:

Are your character's powers an aid or a cure?

The first, and one of the most important things to consider, is if your character's powers function like an aid or piece of assistive tech, or a cure? If you boil it down, is the magic helping them or "fixing" them? This can be a cure in the literal sense, as in giving an amputee the ability to shape-shift to get their limb back, or a functional cure, meaning the power essentially by-passes the disability, like the above mentioned professor-X fan-theory. It's not literally curing him, but it might as well be. In a world where this magic or super-powers exist, it's perfectly natural that a character might use the magic to lessen the impact of their disability, but it shouldn't erase it entirely. Give the magic a trade off, make it imperfect. You character can cummon a magic prosthetic, but there's a time limit on how long it lasts for, or their magic needs to recharge it. A wheelchair using mage might be able to engrave magic runes on their chair that allow them to pass over rough terrain, but only to a certain extent. It might allow them to go up-stairs, but it can only be used so many times per day (and make sure you show the times where they need to get up the stairs, but have run out of uses!) Things like that.

Is the power directly tied to their disability?

Is the power you're giving the character directly tied to their disability? There's 2 ways you could read this, and both should be considered. 1. The power is something you, as the author, gave to them specifically because it would help mitigate their disability (e.g. giving a character without arms telepathy so they can still pick things up/hold things because you couldn't figure out how they would be a badass swordsman without it) or 2. Does this character, in universe, have their power specifically because of their disability? e.g. Did our arm amputee develop telepathy through sheer-force of will because they really wanted to be a swordsman, and their determination manifested as telepathy/A god gave them the powers because they felt bad for them/a wizard taught them how to do it because they were inspired by the person's perseverance? If the answer to the first one was yes, perhaps reconsider and do more research. If the answer to the second one is yes, proceed with a lot of caution. Generally, if the powers originate from someone feeling sorry for your character, being inspired by them or anything to do with their determination and perseverance, I'd recommend changing that. However, if the powers came from your character having to adapt something to to their disability, that is really a case-by-case basis thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. your success with it will depend on the character, the setting and the specifics of how.

Is this power common, or is this character the only person in the cast/only person we see with this ability?

Is the power you're giving your disabled character rare, or even unique? It's fine to give your disabled characters powers that are common within the world, but if they're one of the only people who has that ability (or similar abilities), ESPECIALLY if it directly helps mitigate their disability, you might want to reconsider that choice. In a world where everyone can fly, it would be weird if your wheelchair user couldn't without an explanation. But if no one else in the story can fly except your wheelchair user, it starts looking more like you just gave them that power so you don't have to think about accessibility in your world. If you really must give your disabled character the rare/unique power, consider making another character with a similar disability but no/more common powers so you aren't just avoiding the issue, or making the power not related to/impact their disability directly (e.g. giving your leg amputee super-hearing.)

Does this power solve a wider access issue in your world, or does it just make it easier for your character alone?

As a general rule of thumb, if you are writing a story where you don't want accessibility issues to be a thing (e.g. a story set in a utopia), focus on fixing the environment, not the characters. Instead of giving your wheelchair user the ability to fly upstairs, give the buildings ramps and lifts. That way, its a solution for everyone with that disability, no matter their access to things like magic or technology. When talking about super-crips, this is especially important, doubly so if your character's power is rare! I made a (mostly joking) post ages ago about an idea for an earth-bender character in the Avatar universe, who gets fed up with republic city being inaccessible and starts earth-bending all the stairs into ramps. This solves the accessibility issue for them, but also makes their environment more accessible for others without bending to get around. Of course, not every disabled character will want to help/care to help others, but often when non-disabled people write disabled characters with powers, they kind of forget that their character won't be the only disabled person in this world. It often feels like they honestly think fixing things for their character means there's no problem anymore, and that's not the case.

Avoid, "I may have [insert disability here] but I can still do stuff because of my power!"

By this, I mean give your character other ways to address issues relating to their disability than just their powers. One funny example I remember reading in a writing group I was a part of was this author who was bragging about how their paralysed character could still drive a car because they had electrokinisis (the ability to telepathically control electronics). Aside from the fact that wouldn't work on all cars - including the one their character drove, since not all cars have electronic components controlling their acceleration and brakes, the way they described it was extremely complex, and overall not worth the effort when the real-life solution, hand controls, was much, much easier and the setting allowed for easy access to that kind of tech. When I pointed this out to them, they said they had no idea hand controls were a thing, and they had no idea that real disabled people could drive. They thankfully changed it, but there's 2 things to take from this: 1, double check that disabled people can do the things you assume they can't, your magic solution might very well not be needed, and 2. variety is important regardless. No one device, or in this case, magic power, should act as a one-size-fits-all solution. IRL disabled people have lots of tools to help us, I have 2 sets of prosthetics for different tasks, a wheelchair, a grabby claw (for reaching things on high shelves when using my short legs and wheelchair) and hand controls in my car (or at least I used to but we won't get into that lol). My prosthetics won't "fix" all my problems, I need other tools too. keep this in mind when it comes to magic too - it shouldn't be the only thing at your character's disposal.

There's nothing to compensate for.

Remember, don't treat your character's disability as something they need to make up for (especially if they "make up for it" using their powers). Your disabled character is allowed to make mistakes, they're allowed to have flaws both related and unrelated to their disability, they're allowed to not be good at some things, and they don't always have to be the best at whatever their roll in the plot is. In most stories, they should be on par with the other characters, or at least in the same ball-park, but as I mentioned before, a lot of stories don't let disabled characters fail. In order to justify them even being present, they are often made out to be the undeniable best, almost to mary-sue levels of perfection and super-crips especially fall into this issue a lot. They can be good at things, but balance it out, like with any other character.

You don't have to use all of these points, but they are still worth at least considering. For example, Toph fails all of these points except the first three. Despite that, she's still one of my favorite disabled characters in media, even if she's not perfect, and I'm not alone in thinking that. I've seen lots of other disabled people say the same about her. Which of these points you should use will depend on your story, character, setting and tone. As I've mentioned a few times now, the key is striking a balance. At the end of the day though, these are only general pieces of advice and a lot more factors go into making a character like this work. only disabled people will be able to tell you if you've pulled it off, and that's where beta-readers and disabled sensitivity readers come in!

Also, remember, these kinds of tropes don't just apply to the more common/well-known disabilities like amputations and wheelchair users, that's just what I have experience with! Be sure to research any disabilities your character has to ensure you are not falling into these tropes.

[seanhtaylor]

Show, Don't Tell -- Sure. But How? A Description Writing Roundtable

For our next writers' roundtable, we're continuing this week's theme and talking about writing description.

How much description do you tend to put into your work? When is (for you) it not enough? When is it (for you) too much?

Marian Allen: All detail should be "telling" detail -- that is, it should contribute to the scene or to the story as a whole. It's definitely too much if I'm reading it out loud and get bored.

Brian K. Lowe: I try to put in enough description to paint the necessary picture, but leave the rest to the reader's imagination. No matter how you describe a character, everyone will see that character differently (like when you fantasy-cast your favorite book as a movie).

Herika Raymer: I try to follow the adage of 'show don't tell,' but I also try not to pull a Thomas Covenant, where it takes two pages to finish one description. It's a tricky balance, but I do try to be concise while being descriptive. Can be difficult when writing, because sometimes the words used are not 'common'. I have to be sure that whatever words I use are relatively well known.

Bobby Nash: I know it sounds like a cop-out answer, but it depends. I like to make sure I’ve set the scene, let the reader know what they need to know. Conversely, there are things I leave less fleshed out so the reader can fill in the blanks. A murder scene, for example, I don’t go into every detail of the body’s condition, the blood, etc. The reader’s own imagination will do the work for me and make the scene even more graphic than anything I could write.

I play it by ear so too much or not enough is based on a gut feeling, I suppose. I want to make sure my readers have the information they need. In a mystery, especially, I want the clues to be in the story for the reader to find. That is important and I make sure it’s there.

Jessica Nettles: I work hard to describe scenes in a way that gives readers a sense of place. At the same time, I’m a lot like Bobby in that it depends on what’s going on or what’s needed. I have had to learn to balance what to describe and what not to describe. I wrote scripts for a while, and had to relearn how to weave in good description when I returned to prose writing.

Ef Deal: When I depict a setting, I try to capture more than the visual accuracy of the scene. I use colors, scents, light and shadow, and furnishings to convey or evoke as much of the emotional freight as I can.

Ernest Russell: I like to write enough description so the reader has something for their imagination to work on, they'll fill in blank far better if I did it right. If particular details are needed, I'll be certain they are in the description.

Read the full article: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/07/show-dont-tell-sure-but-how-description.html

[seanhtaylor]

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Medusa Touch

We all know that writers change the world, but not like the writer Morlar in this thriller played by Richard Burton. A writer with a talent for psychically causing accidents, Burton is a dangerous man that not even death can stop. Lee Remick plays his psychologist who gradually comes to believe the impossible.

The first thing I acknowledged while watching this movie is that as writers, we all suffer from the same problem Burton does -- we will disasters. Granted, we only make them happen on paper and digital screens, but we will tragedies into being regardless.

Without them, our fiction would suffer.

I've often said in panels at conventions that if my characters ever came to life the first thing they would do is shoot me in the back without a second thought. I mean, honestly, I make their lives hell. I have too. When they have a good relationship, it's my job to put it through the proverbial wringer for the sake of a compelling story. When life is going well for them, it's time for me to throw a dead body or a monster or a debilitating disease at them, again, all for the sake of an interesting read for the readers.

Without some kind of life or death (emotionally, psychologically, or physically) on the line, who would care to read the book? We read because we want to see people overcome obstacle, or at least try to and fail.

So it's my job as the storyteller to will disasters into being. My love for my characters, my literary children, be damned. The story is king. So, here comes the potential tragedies, kids.

Read the full review: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/07/movie-reviews-for-writers-medusa-touch.html

[seanhtaylor]

The Description Toolbox: 3 Tools Every Writer Needs

Dialog and description. What people say and what they do in the world they inhabit. There would be no stories without them. I know there are thousands of articles and books about writing description out there in this big ol' wide world, so why waste my time with one here on this mostly unknown blog by a D-list indie writer of pulp and genre fiction?

Because I'm both vain and stubborn, I guess.

Now that that's out of the way, the real reason is that since we each have different ways of approaching our work, I figured it might help someone else out there if I shared what worked for me. Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

Description, defined personally, is the art of putting a place to your work. It's where the world is created with words and each item in that world worth mentioning is created as well. But there's a fine line between not enough description and too much description. How do you know if an item in or a detail of that world is needed or not?

I go to my toolbox. I have one for description and one for dialog. The description toolbox contains three key tools that help me answer that question for my writing. These are, in effect, my hammer, screwdrivers, and wrenches for my stories. For most situations, they get the job done for me, in spite of any additional fancy, schmancy gadgets I may also have access to.

Tool #1: Journalism School (The Four W's)

I come from a background in both fiction and nonfiction writing. I cut my teeth on magazine and newspaper articles, and as such, I had to learn quickly the most important questions for informative nonfiction. They've been called the "W's" for years.

They are:

Who? What? When? Where?

Now, I know it's tempting to add "Why" to this list, but hold off on that for now. Honestly, if we can't detail a clear picture of these four questions, then why doesn't really matter to your story. We need to know who is on the set, what is on the set and what is happening, when it's happening (era or time of day or season, etc.), and where it's happening. Once those details are clear, readers will have all they need to ponder the why in their own minds and in Literature classes for time to come.

Without all that, who cares? It's just a list of plot points and random dialog.

Most writers devote more time to who and what than anything else, but it's important to remember that each is equally important to your work.

Read the full article: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-description-toolbox-3-tools-every.html

[seanhtaylor]

[seanhtaylor]

it's always so fucking funny to me when terfs are like "how can you say trans women and women are the same thing! being born as a man makes you different!" because like. yes. trans women and cis women are different. so are black women and white women. and straight women and queer woman. and women from different countries and different socioeconomic statuses. there's diversity in the experience of womanhood? what a wild concept

[seanhtaylor]

Movie Reviews for Writers: Velvet

It's way too easy to just write it off as a student film with financing though. While it would never appeal to action and adventure fans, it does echo the thoughtfulness of some of the great French films of the sixties. Just… slower and with a lot more meandering.

Enough about that. We want to look at what it has to say about us, the writers who watch it. And the answer is, quite a lot more than I expected, even if those bits are blended into the rest of the surreal formlessness of the "plot."

Well, the biggest point it makes, even with so much silence and scenery, is that for the artist, it is through our work we discover who we are. We tend to know more about ourselves at the end of a work than at the beginning.

I think it's because of that subconscious self we can't help writing into a piece of fiction. I know that can come off as more "spiritual" than I mean it, but that's why I specified artist -- not just writers.

There are those of us who can separate our beings from the themes and works and just stream words along like we clocked in at the factory and are fastening a wheel to a car or putting pies into boxes (thanks, Lucy!)

Then there are the rest of us, for whom our work is more than just a job we can turn on and turn off. It's those I refer to when I say "artist." It's not high praise -- trust me -- it's a curse more often than not.

That said, we learn who we are inside as we write. The kind of characters we are drawn to say something about our hearts, our souls. The kind of situations we leave our characters in, resovled or unresolved, tell us how we see the world. It is this kind of thinking that Velvet succeeds best.

It's a point driven home by Sophie's sense of connection to the main character she is writing, a character who is beginning to understand her own attraction to her own sex.

Read the full review: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/07/movie-reviews-for-writers-velvet.html

[seanhtaylor]

Drew Geraci Is In Demand(s)

For the past two decades, Drew Geraci has been an inker/artist for nearly every notable comic book publisher in the market. I met him in Chicago at the Wizard World Convention there years ago, and we've kept in touch a bit over the years. So when he became a novelist as well, I figured it was time to showcase him here on the blog.

Welcome, inkslinger cum wordsmith Drew Geraci!

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

I just finished my third novel in my prose series The Demands. It’s titled The Demands Book Three: Stagedive.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

Initially, comic books, which I discovered age 7. I was so hooked, when I’d run out of comics to read, I began writing and drawing my own. Granted, they were crude, but trying to reverse-engineer storytelling in comics lit a fire in me to create my own stories. Then came prose novels of Marvel characters in the late ‘70s. It was a gateway for me to read non-comics-related novels. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Earth Abides, even some of my Grandma’s Agatha Christie novels.

In my teens, I lacked confidence that I would break into comics. Years later, during the comic book speculator era of the early 90s, the bar had been lowered significantly. Comic companies flooded the market so you’d see painfully amateurish work written and drawn by anyone with a pulse. Good comics were greatly outnumbered by very poor knockoffs. Breaking into the industry actually became real to me. I became an inker (ink media artist) at DC Comics. Over time, I applied my discipline to writing. Now that I’m older, I like to think I have a better understanding of how human nature works and try to be more observant.

What inspires you to write?

Fun, with a healthy dose of hunger and fear. A lot of it is therapeutic, an outlet to express all flavors of moods. I’ll come up with a crazy or heartfelt situation and let the characters take it from there.

Read the full interview:

https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/07/drew-geraci-is-in-demands.html

[seanhtaylor]

Getting Cozy

Let's talk about cozy mysteries for the next writer roundtable. This time I'm looking for you mystery writers, particularly writers of cozy mysteries.

What sets a mystery apart (in your mind) as a cozy?

Marian Allen: A cozy has the murder take place off-stage. The sleuth is an amateur detective or, at a stretch, a private eye. Cozies are lighter than not, and the danger shouldn't be TOO acute, or at least not treated as acute. You should always know the sleuth is going to get out of any danger. An animal involved and NOT KILLED is a plus.

I can't think of a better definition than Marian Allen's. All I would add is that usually the murder victim pretty much deserved what they got -- very rarely do good-hearted people get murdered in a cozy.

Ernest Russell: So far, I have tried my hand at one murder mystery. It is a locked-room mystery. The detective never leaves their home. All information about the case is brought to the detective.

The mystery has some marks as a cozy, but it isn't. The detective is sociopathic because of PTSD brought on by one of the other characters. And he is employed by NYPD.

If this were truly a cozy, my detective would be brought to the case in some different ways.

Read the full article: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/06/getting-cozy.html

[seanhtaylor]

Moonstone Doubleshot, featuring The Tribunal, now available!

Britt Reid carries a bitter legacy. When Britt was a boy, his father was framed and died in prison. That was the tragedy that birthed the Green Hornet. For years, he kept his two lives separate: upstanding successful businessman and a most wanted criminal known as the Hornet. The toll that dual identity takes on the man who is both is huge, and the enforced separation between the two selves grows thinner.

And: The TRIBUNAL- The Golden Amazon, The Phantom Detective, Secret Agent X…Judge, Jury… and whatever else they need to be… (by yours truly)

Item Name: Moonstone Double Shot May '22B Item #: DS0522B Price/ea: $5.49

[seanhtaylor]

Movie Reviews for Writers: Horrors of the Black Museum

Horrors of the Black Museum is a grisly little thriller from the 50s that seems to be a lot edgier than what came before, even it if hints at the violence rather than reveals it through gore. It's got the over-the-top craziness of character that much of transitional thrillers had, but it does move into a more grounded sort of mystery rather than the supernatural and or legendary (Bluebeard, etc.) thrillers.

It's the first of what has been called Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy," along with Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom (both of which are amazing crime flicks). These films focused on not just the mystery and the crime, but more so on the sadism and cruelty of the violence (often with sexual undertones). As I said, it's one of the films that transitions from the Hammer supernatural horrors to modern killers and from early Hitchcockian mysteries to a more dramatic and dark crime story that doesn't shy from the crime itself onscreen.

It's also a film that features crime writer Edmond Bancroft, played by Michael Gough, as the main character. He's covering a recent series of crimes for the paper, and he's collecting them for a new book, based on weapons from Scotland Yard's Black Museum. The Black Museum is a collection of murder weapons and other items used in solved crimes. I won't ruin the plot, but the killer is revealed by the end of the first act, so it's far less about the mystery of who is killing and more about whether or not the killer will get caught.

Around all that cinematic historicness, it also manages to say quite a bit (mostly in the first act) about writers and the way we treat our preferred genres.

Yes, my dear fellow creators -- I'm talking about obsession.

Read the full review: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/06/movie-reviews-for-writers-horrors-of.html

[seanhtaylor]

Found a stray, named him Streaky

[seanhtaylor]

Balancing Backlog: When the Well Overflows

Let's talk about balancing ideas and projects. I can't think of a single writer I know who doesn't have ideas that float around in their head to wake them up or keep them up at night -- and typically ideas not related to the current WIP. Oh, what's a poor writer to do?

Are you the type of writer who has a massive backlog of ideas to explore in your stories or the type who deals with one idea at a time and then turns on the idea machine afterward? How do store that backlog, whether digital or on paper?

Marian Allen: I have so many projects already in the pipeline, I don't have the brain capacity to do anything with new ones. EXCEPT! I do Story A Day May every year, and those flashes of ideas are great to prompt daily stories. I also have a big folder with story ideas in it, and, in the rare times when I need something to write, I dig into that. I've used it for many stories.

Jay Requard: Massive backlog. It is currently all in notebooks but I'm transcribing one part to digital after the baby got a hold of it. Elizabeth Donald: Ideas are fleeting little butterflies that need to be captured in jars before they get away. I keep a folder on my computer titled “Marinade” where I put the stray ideas. They have to sit there and think about what they’ve done, and when I need help I go for a walk through the folder. My first novel is in there, in all its drafts going back to the utterly dreadful high school novella, and there are reasons why it’s never seen the light of day. The next oldest file in there is from 2002 and may not actually be translatable now, but why would I let it get away? If I’m not near my computer when an idea strikes, I will use voice-to-text to stick it in my phone until I can translate it to my Marinade file. If I tried to keep it on paper, I would inevitably lose it, and there goes my Pulitzer.

Bobby Nash: Depends on your idea of massive. There are many ideas tucked away for future use. Some I will never get to, I suspect as new ideas keep working their way into my brain. One of the best things about having these ideas sitting in writer limbo is that sometimes, I realize that two of them are part of the same story and blend them together.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: I have a backlog of ideas. All of them swarming around in my brain. I keep them in journals or post-it notes that I have stuck all around my desktop. What percentage actually gets done? I don't know, man. if I start keeping score, I'll just get constipated and never do another damn thing. I just keep trucking. If the idea is good enough, it'll last until it's time to get inked.

B. Clay Moore: I have a huge backlog of ideas, and now and then one pops back into my head to either inform a new idea or as the impetus to rework it in a new direction.

John French: I have a legal pad on my desk, with separate pages for each "project". On these pages, I write notes, story and character ideas, etc. Right now I'm about 10-15K away from finishing one with five more warming up in the bullpen waiting to get the call.

Ef Deal: When I started writing, I had a character arc that consumed me, and I'm not through with her yet after 35 years. In those pre-computer days, I filled blank books and spiral notebooks and steno pads. I just kept writing. I couldn't stop. She's a rich mine of stories. I've written a lot of flash pieces and other short stories in the meantime, but I keep coming back to her and that universe. I really hope she sees print one day because she's a fantastic badass. When I started this new series The Twins of Bellesfées, I found myself picturing the twins in so many steampunk / paranormal crossover situations I couldn't stop writing. The more I researched the more ideas for novels I got.

Michael Dean Jackson: Oh, hells, yeah! I have a Word document listing a dream schedule of almost 20 projects, only half a dozen of which have been completed. I have worked on a few of them off and on, and I have sketched thumbnails of potential book covers. They're all there in my mind floating around. Every once in a while. I grab one and wrestle it to completion (but not as often as I'd like! The Dream Schedule is seeming more and more like a dream the longer it takes to actually get them to completion.)

My unwritten ideas sometimes seem more attractive than the one I'm working on, but they usually behave.

HC Playa: I feel like maybe I'm weird 😂. I hyperfocus on a WIP…maybe. I literally avoid going into that musing headspace of new ideas until I have a rough draft down for whatever I am working on. I don't mind at all doing edits on one while creating another.

Ernest Russell: In my story ideas folder there are 35-40 ideas, from a couple of sentences to a pitch to an outline because I really want to recall where I was going with it. The journal I carry with me has story ideas, notes on current projects, notes from panels and lectures, turn of phrase I heard/saw that I liked. No sketches though, my stick people look sick and trees look more like cotton swabs.

Read the full article: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/06/balancing-backlog-when-well-overflows.html

[seanhtaylor]

New iHero story from yours truly! The first in at least ten years!

If you missed any of the earlier notices, iHero Entertainment has found new life at www.superherofiction.com. That's where new stories in the fan-favorite and award-winning fiction zine (both e-zine and magazine) will be debuting for the foreseeable future. It already features tales by iHero creator Frank Fradella and staff writer Matt Hiebert, and now I've published my first new iHero story to the site -- "Glissando."

Here's a taste…

Read the full article: https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2022/06/new-ihero-story-from-yours-truly-first.html

[seanhtaylor]

Context.

[seanhtaylor]

Danger, religious content. ;)

Be careful, my fellow believers, when you start to divide things... Your job is to be salt and light, flavoring and shining, not separating.

There isn't a separate sacred world and secular world. Althought there can be sacred and secular mindsets. Nor are their sacred and secular jobs. Nor are their sacred and secular items (like music or pen sets or figurines). As believers, we unite the whole by being sacred in that one single world.

And we're to enter into that one world with love and not as a clanging cymbal. We to be salt and light, not as a sort of morality police. We (as we go) make disciples one person at a time, not trying to change the world top-down from a place of cultural, political, or community power or authority, but grassroots, one at a time, from a place of lowness, humility, meekness, patience, long-suffering.

[seanhtaylor]