If there’s one thing I never want to hear about my stories it’s that they’re “hard to finish.”
Author: Ann Gordon
A former English and Computer Science teacher, a technical writer, copy editor and instructional designer. She has a B.A. in English and a Masters in Computer Science. She’s currently semi-retired. Ann has written and published short stories and lots of articles, along with plenty of technical docs. She has also co-authored and/or copy-edited six historical fiction books, self-published on Amazon, and she is a webmaster for five websites. She’s won writing awards in most categories, including flash fiction. She wrote her first stories in elementary school and continued writing fiction until she was twenty, when she had to stop writing to make a living and raise a family. She’s been a member of RMFW for years and attends the Western Slope meetings when she can. She is president of the online chapter of the League of Utah Writers; her chapter has a large critique group. She lives in a dusty, windy desert town in SE Utah.
Deciding What’s Possible in Your World
At last, Spring is here. Now I’ll have time to work on my own stuff. My first order of business is to complete some of my spec fiction stories, many of which have languished unfinished for years. After scrolling through my short stories folder, I decided it was high time I finish a story about…
Write Like There’s No Tomorrow
Oh, boy. Now I’ve done it. I’ve put myself in the situation where I MUST write, on my own stuff, every day for the next six months. This has become a matter of write or perish. Ever since the fifth grade, I’ve dreamed of being a successful creative writer…you know, the kind who gets published…
The Reluctant Romantic
I’ve never been a fan of romance stories. I don’t read them unless I’m required and I rarely watch romantic movies, even romantic comedies. Thus, I never thought I’d ever be the author of romance-themed stories. Nope, not me. Over the last seven years, in addition to all the non-fiction writing I do, I’ve penned…
in medias res
The Latin phrase, in medias res, means “in the middle of things.” Some famous stories have been written with this technique. On the first page readers find themselves right in the middle of intrigue, disaster, war, crime—some heart-pounding situation—with nothing leading up to it, as if the reader just fell from the sky to land…