Summertime, and the livin’ ain’t always easy.
On being kind to yourself.
I’ve been incredibly busy in my non-writing life lately, which means my writing (and writing-related tasks) have more often than not had to take a backseat. I’m expecting things to settle down a little by the end of this month so I can get back to it. But I wanted to start this newsletter by talking a little bit about that.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably know that I don’t believe in the “real writers write every day” maxim. I’ve even published some non-fiction about that—but more on that later. In my experience, the people who adhere to this as a hard and fast rule are generally privileged in ways most of us aren’t. The way I see it, if your life allows you to do that, great. Enjoy all that writing time. But for some of us, that’s just not realistic, and there are various reasons for that I don’t need to get into. Each person knows what their circumstances allow for far better than I could ever articulate it.
I’m open about the fact that I don’t write daily to help balance that maxim primarily for newer writers who might think “If I’m not able to do this every single day without fail, I’m just a fraud who will never succeed.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite not writing daily, I’m quite prolific. Right now I have more stories written than there are open markets to send them to (and I’m still working on several more). I also have two books coming out next year (and am working on several more). Almost all my stories have landed in pro-paying markets on their first publications. I’m an award-winner and have also been nominated for multiple major awards. I’ve had work included in three “Best of the Year” anthologies. In short, I think I’m doing alright NOT writing every day.
All this to say, sometimes, even when you have a really great idea and the motivation to get to work, life can throw you curveballs and you might find yourself unable to sit down and get that story written when you’d like. Hopefully this doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it’s okay to be kind to yourself and accept that there are limits to just how much you can put on your plate. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
At the time of this writing, there’s a specific submission call I’d like to get a story written for. I have an idea. I know how I want to structure the story. I have the entire plot in my head. I even have the perfect title. But I haven’t had the time (or energy) to actually do the work. I’m not giving up on it. The story will get written one way or the other. But if I can’t do it by the deadline for this call, I know it’s okay. Maybe it’s meant for a different market at a different time. All any of us can do is our best, and that’s more than enough.
As a special bonus, current subscribers to this newsletter—many of whom are fellow writers—will have been sent a list of tips for how to be productive even when you can’t write daily (originally published last November by Write magazine for members of the Writer’s Union of Canada.) If you’re not yet subscribed to my newsletter, click this button so you don’t miss the next subscriber perk.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Speaking of published works, you might have missed some recent ones that came out in April and May.
April saw my sci-fi/humor story “Twelve Things that Will Occur Immediately Following Your Invention of Teleportation” published in Factor Four. Also, my sci-fi/horror/western “After the Suns Go Down” came out in New Myths’ The Growers anthology.
More recently, in May, my solarpunk story, “After the Rain,” was published by Escape Pod in both print and audio. And the first ever issue of Plott Hound magazine came out as well, which includes my genetically-engineered dragon story, “Fire & Flight.” Those registered can download the entire issue now, but they do plan to release the stories onto their website weekly.
And perhaps my favorite story I’ve published this year is, “Through the Machine,” which recently went live at Lightspeed (also in both print and audio). This story’s about some of the detrimental effects of AI in the arts (some of which we’re seeing play out live even though I wrote about them before that was the case). As someone who’s had their work stolen to train generative AI and who’s seeing the negative impact of AI in publishing, this is especially meaningful to me and I’m quite proud of how this story turned out. I hope you’ll give it a read. The story is accompanied by an Author Spotlight interview, in which I talk to Phoebe Barton about some of my thoughts on this subject.
If having this story published in Lightspeed isn’t enough, I’ve also had the good-fortune of having the audio version read by Grammy award-winning audiobook narrator, Stefan Rudnicki (who also read my previous Lightspeed publication, “The Life You’ve Given Me, Rusty”). Furthermore, this story was selected to be featured by science and tech site Gizmodo - who compared it to the TV series, Black Mirror (of which I’m a huge fan).
It’s early, but I’ve recently made a page where I’ll be adding all my 2025 award-eligible publications as they happen, but in the meantime, If anyone reading this is already considering work for next awards season, I’d love it if you kept “Through the Machine” in mind for that. If you find you enjoy it and deem it worthy, feel free to share it in online spaces or upvote it on the Nebula Reading List to which it has already been added. Thanks in advance for any of that.
Somewhat related to the subject matter of this story, I recently added a statement on generative AI to my website landing page to leave no doubt as to where I stand on the matter.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
My most recent sale just happened last week and that’s my flash time loop story, “The Futility of Warning You,” to Factor Four. This is my third sale to them and I look forward to seeing this story out in the world soon.
June brings a new publication, my post-apocalyptic story, “So Many Things to See,” in Trollbreath. Despite being set in a post-apocalyptic world, this story focuses on the love between two sisters. Issue 4 is live now for subscribers, but they’ll be releasing fiction and poetry for free on “Free Fiction Fridays” so keep an eye out for that.
As for what else you can expect to read soon…
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY: “8 Laws I Wound Up Breaking While Attempting to Restore the Timeline”
I mentioned further up that I’d recently published “Twelve Things That Will Occur Immediately Following Your Invention of Teleportation.” This inspired this month’s selection for The Story Behind the Story, since “Twelve Things” is kind of a spiritual sequel to “8 Laws.” Together with “Hard Times at the Four Pines Motel” I like to think of them as a sci-fi/humor trilogy of Epic Tech Fails.
I know I sound like a broken record when I say “8 Laws” got its start during the Codex Weekend Warrior contest, but what can I say, the contest has been great for productivity. If you’re new(ish) to this newsletter and don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m a member of the Codex online writers group and have been for 9 years this September. Each year Codex hosts several motivational contests for its members, one of which is Weekend Warrior, which has a word count limit of 750 words.
How the contest works is that each week (for the duration of the contest) a series of prompts are provided. Participants use one (or more) of these prompts to inspire a brand new piece of flash fiction that they have the weekend to write. This is then anonymously submitted so the other participants (also anonymously) can provide feedback and score the story (if you’re in a scoring division). While winning is always cool, the main point of Codex contests is to encourage members to exercise that creative muscle and, in that sense, everyone wins.
Now, in my case, not all these stories remain flash fiction once I work on them after the contest, but this particular one did, which is a good thing since it ended up with the perfect length for a Nature Futures story.
So how did this story come about?
Well, it started with my fifth time participating in this contest back in 2023. In this particular case, I chose the following prompt: “You’ve broken the law but had a darn good reason for it.”
I chose this prompt because…well…I’m kind of a rule breaker, and while that doesn’t generally involve laws, I have to admit the prompt appealed to that rebellious side of me.
But beyond that, I had no idea what to do with it.
Sometimes a prompt will immediately inspire an idea and a story will be written within minutes. This was not the case here. I thought about the prompt for a long time after choosing it, and that night went to bed still thinking about it. I knew I had to include some kind of law in the story and that this law would be broken, but which law and in what way? And what would be the darn good reason for breaking said law?
The first laws that came to mind were the obvious laws we live with on a daily basis. Things like, “don’t exceed the posted speed limit while driving,” “shoplifting = bad,” “don’t litter.” But then I thought of other things we refer to as laws that are a little bit different. Like the laws of physics, or Murphy’s Law.
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” - Edward A. Murphy Jr.
Murphy’s Law seemed particularly apt because stories are all about things going wrong. That’s the “conflict” part of the narrative. A character is presented with a problem, and they either solve that problem or they don’t—to put it in very simplistic terms.
But even with all these laws spinning around in my head, I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I woke up the next day still without an idea, and had to attend a family birthday party to boot, which was a busy affair that didn’t exactly leave me with a lot of time to brainstorm. By the time the party had ended and I was once again home, I still had nothing and that contest deadline was looming.
Then, without warning—as sometimes happens with inspiration—the title came to me. Now I had a starting point. I knew my story would involve 8 laws. That made me think the structure I should use was that of a “list” story.
If you love list stories, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor has collected several you can check out right here.
So now I just had to decide which of all the laws I’d been thinking about I should include, and how they would fit together in a story.
What I wound up with was a goofy little story about a well-meaning guy who in an attempt to erase a tragedy from history—in this case the sinking of the RMS Titanic—ends up altering the timeline and thus erasing his best friend from existence. Now we have a character, with a problem. And the problem is even bigger since the person best suited to solve it, is the one who no longer exists.
But before we get into that, first, why the Titanic? I could’ve chosen countless historical events. For instance, the Hindenburg disaster, to name a similar tragedy. So here’s where I let you in on a little secret…
Guys…I’m kind of a Titanic nerd.
Okay, maybe it’s not such a secret. I wrote a little bit about that in a recent Instagram post about the Titanic-themed board game from my early childhood that started it all. The point is, the sinking of the Titanic (with the loss of so many passengers and crew) had a big impact on me as a kid, so it seemed fitting to include it here. My protagonist is a nice guy. He just wanted all those lives to be saved. He wasn’t thinking that there might be repercussions.
So now he’s got to save his friend too, and maybe he’s not the best-equipped person for that particular job. For one thing, his first move is to reach for the alcohol which leads to his inputting the wrong year into the time machine, 1922 rather than 1912. This lands him smack dab in the middle of prohibition—while attempting to get his hands on even more booze.
The next law I have him break is one that’s technically in the books but that you rarely see enforced, and that’s the law against jaywalking (or crossing the street outside of a designated crosswalk). Here I decided to throw in a fun little detail about how much the timeline has changed. Some things are the same, but the ubiquitous burger joint he stops for a bite in is called McDaniel’s, rather than the more familiar restaurant name from our timeline. Their specialty: spamburgers. Yum.
In the next segment, I have a little more fun with time travel terminology. As you probably know, if you’re familiar with my work, I write about time (and the many ways to manipulate it—or utterly mess it up) a lot. See my aforementioned most recent sale if you don’t believe me. Time travel is a favorite trope of mine, and so I’ve become very familiar with a little thing called the grandfather paradox. The gist of which is that if a person goes back in time and murders their own grandfather, this will in turn prevent their own birth, causing a paradox in which it would be impossible for them to go back in time and murder their grandfather to begin with.
Time travel’s tricky that way, something I know well after writing so many stories in which I have to make it sound at least somewhat plausible.
My protagonist, however, may or may not know what the grandfather paradox is. It’s probably just something he’s heard of but never gave much thought to. So he co-opts the name and transforms it into the “your grandparents paradox” when he realizes that the unsinking of the Titanic somehow led to his best friend’s grandparents failing to meet, thereby preventing his birth. So now he’s got a little match-making to do. But not before a stop in the 1600s in which he’s taken for a witch, nearly ending his quest right then and there.
After that, I had a little fun with some of the more obscure laws you can find in the books that make you wonder why these laws were passed in the first place. There are many you can find if you do a little research, but the ones I went with are a New York State law against wearing slippers in public after 10 p.m. and a North Dakota law against falling asleep with your shoes on.
Yes, these are real laws. No, I doubt anyone would enforce them nowadays.
I finally wrapped things up nicely with a reference to that law we got from our old friend Edward Murphy. Our hero doesn’t exactly return things to how they were before he decided to use his friend’s time machine without asking, but he’s close enough, and he’s a “close enough” kind of guy. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
This story was my most well-received during that year’s Weekend Warrior, so of course it was the one I wrote during the warm-up week that doesn’t count toward your score. Not the only time that’s happened to me.
But like I said, all’s well that ends well. “8 Laws” became my first sale to Nature, which had been a personal goal of mine. It also went on to serve as inspiration for those other two stories mentioned above. It continues to receive good comments from readers who’ve enjoyed it, and it’s among my own personal favorite humor pieces.
“8 Laws I Wound Up Breaking While Attempting to Restore the Timeline” was originally published in July 2023 in the science journal Nature under their Futures section.
As a special segment this month, I’m featuring the newsletter of a fellow author, one I’m subscribed to myself.
David Anaxagoras is the author of the middle-grade horror audiobook The Tower (Recorded Books). His short fiction has appeared frequently in Lightspeed and elsewhere. In his monthly author newsletter, Anaxagology, David shares updates on his latest writing projects, exclusive story snippets, and personal musings on the creative process. You can subscribe to David’s free newsletter here: Subscribe | Anaxagology
I hope you’ll check out David’s newsletter, where this month he’s included a little bit about my Escape Pod story, “After the Rain.”
Thanks for reading and see you in July!
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P.A. Cornell