The State of the Writing

As of this writing, this website is primarily about my paintings. There's a simple reason for that: my paintings are complete products available for purchase directly from me. My writing? Not so much.

I have numerous rejections for novels and short fiction to my name, and even several of the coveted rejections with feedback along the lines of "this was sooooooo close." As soon as I have a contract for publication, the news will be here. As soon as I have a link to a publication, I'll post a shiny new page for my writing.

In the meantime, how did I get here? The concept of writing for publication came long before I had any thought of regularly painting, let alone selling my art. My first work of fiction was an escapist portal fantasy about a pre-teen named Arabella. I wrote it in one of those puffy lockable diaries from the 80s. Then there was likely a move of some sort (gotta love military life), or perhaps just some cataclysmic pre-teen experience, and the diary was lost. So I'm saying I always enjoyed writing speculative fiction.

For the longest time, I focused on writing novels. I have several drafts in various states and a much longer list of agent and publisher rejections, although that list is lost in some old app on a long-since recycled computer. As the daily grind in an intense industry started consuming more and more of my life, I started to shift away from writing novels and focused instead on short fiction. This also helped me with silly things like plotting that I struggled with in longer form.

So that image above is the current state of my short fiction world. I am working steadily on getting back into better writing habits as I rebuild my creative life with art. I am also rekindling my older blogging tendencies and social media engagement. Stick around here for the former, and follow me on Bluesky for the latter. Hopefully this website becomes just as exciting a space for my writing as it already is for my art.