xykademiqz

  • From Twitter, by way of this @mnitabach tweet embedding a @hormiga tweet:

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  • Exciting News

    I’ve decided I will pull the trigger on a sequel to Academaze! I already have a fantastic cover by the lovely graphic designer and human A. A. Medina of Fabled Beast Design (@UglyByProxy on Twitter). I recommend you contact him for all your book-cover-design needs.  The book will NOT be called Academaze II. But what

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  • Ba-dinky-link

    I’m feeling grumpy for a whole bunch of reasons, none of which I’m feeling particularly in the mood to write about, and many of which have to do with work and fiction writing, so instead I give you random Twitter levity (mostly levity, a bit of heavy-ty). More substantive posts soon. Some thoughts on careers

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  • Which Idea to Pursue?

    I had a nice exchange with a writer friend on Twitter about choosing an idea to pursue for longer works, such as novels. When writing short stories, the time investment is low, so you don’t have to triage ideas. You can, in principle, pursue most of them because the investment is something like 1-3k words

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  • Kapow

    There is something that happened with a colleague and, as always, I fear I am overreacting or imaging things (welcome to being a woman), but my gut tells me I’m not and that I should stick to my guns. There is a colleague with whom I’ve collaborated on and off for years. He and another

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  • The spring semester is coming to an end, and it’s a cause for terror, not celebration, because I have to teach in the summer again. I didn’t want to, I said I wouldn’t, and then the person who was supposed to wasn’t able to, and now I’m on the hook again. I also have teaching

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  • State of the Blog

    Over the past couple of months, I met with two bloggy friends and the topic of the blog came up. I suppose it’s clear that xykademiqz wasn’t what it used to be, and here are some of the reasons. I am not what I used to be. I’ve been blogging since 2010, when I received

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  • Mission Drift

    The semester is in full swing, and oh boy, is it ever swinging! We’re interviewing six million candidates for two million searches. Where the $%^@#%$  we are supposed to put all these new faculty, their labs, and their students is anyone’s guess. We’re already filled to capacity, especially regarding student office space. I am not

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  • For those of you keeping track, my novel is done. It has gone through two rounds of edits, and is now with beta-readers while I focus on short-form writing and, you know, work and life. I suspect I will be ready to query in early March. Today I wanted to write about something not exactly

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  • Sorry I’ve been MIA; I’ve been trying to finish the edits on the novel. Yes. The draft is done. Edit round one is done. It’s still a trashfire, but it’s now a trashfire with a complete narrative arc and, if I do say so myself, nuggets of not-entirely-awful writing. The roller coaster of emotions spanning

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