Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

My Nebula Finalist novelette is (~33%) up and ready for your audio enjoyment at Escape Pod! Delighted to get to share this one with you again 💜👻🪐

Hit 25k words today! The past 5 working days have been tough on the planning side, so I haven’t been drafting as much. I'm quite sure how the next few chapters will go, but the new quarter is starting & I haven't finished my teaching prep, so I can't focus on writing as much as I'd like to. 😭 #ldsl

I'm deeply thankful to have a story in this month's @clarkesworldmagazine.com. Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE reading the full ToC, meeting new writers on the page & revisiting others. Can't wait to read @awprihandita.bsky.social's latest, along w/ Chambers', Kelly's, Murray's, Murphy's, & Chu's!

Happy new year and happy new issue of Clarkesworld! The talented @awprihandita.bsky.social has a devastating, deeply-affecting story in it that you should read, one that hits me extra hard in all the parent parts of my heart:

We’re 3 days away from the beginning of the quarter. I’ve started crying every hour again. 😂 Actually I started yesterday. How very diligent.

Started 2026 on the wrong foot because I watched The West Wing until like 4am yesterday and was woken up at 9.30 by the smoke alarm (my housemate was messing around in the kitchen), so I spent the whole day groggy and ended up going back to bed only to realize I have a 10am meeting tmrw that I +

I HAVE MEEN ANXIOUSLY AWAITING THIS FOR AGES!

In 2026 I want all of the decent people to remember one thing. You aren’t meant to be this disciplined, this self-sacrificing to survive. The environment is supposed to support good living. We can have that. You are not a failure. That is politics. That is all.

Hello and happy new year! I'm pleased to announce I'm returning to @clarkesworldmagazine.com with a sci-fi- weird- eco-horror short story that's OUT NOW! It's called "The Desolate Order of the Head in the Water." Read here and subscribe! clarkesworldmagazine.com/prihandita_0...

I’ve thought about making a 2025 Wrapped type of post (like everyone else) but every time, I just end up feeling dread. Maybe some things are just better left in the past. (Also, idk, it feels a bit too much like surveillance and datafication of self in today’s context.)

Authors! Readers! The grand Barnes & Noble pre-order sale is now upon us. Use the code PREORDER25 to save 25% off basically every pre-ordered book for next year. Authors: please reply to this post with your upcoming book title, a link, and at least one cool thing in your book!

THIS THIS THIS. ALL OF THIS THIS is why faculty resist technological strategies for teaching. There is no engaging with Edtech without this context

Forgot to update yesterday but: cried for the first time since started drafting! As in, this was the first scene I'd written so far that made me cry. Actually I wept on one scene and cried on another, so two, same day (12/28). My baby born healthy 🥺 Today I wrote 1067 words! #ldsp

every genAI article is like, have you tried frying up poop before eating it though? have you tried deep frying the poop? and while i don't mind discussing the hows and whys of poop getting into food in theory, i don't like to eat poop, just trying to keep poop out of food. sorry i am a simple guy.

Make sure to watch Deportation, Inc., the new investigative video series from @lawfaremedia.org and @situ-research.bsky.social on the vast web of companies that make up the rapidly growing deportation economy.

I really, really, REALLY needed to hear this today.

Ok, this morning I woke up & started editing ON MY PHONE the chapters that triggered this spiral yesterday. I feel better about it now. There’s something magical about working on the phone! Still need to edit the long dialogue so it becomes as Sorkinian as possible (lol jk) but there’s hope! #ldsp

Let it be known that today I rewatched A Few Good Men again and sobbed multiple times because (1) this is so good and (2) I will probably never be this good. 😭 (I will try anyway but jesus fucking christ what the hell) Having a rough writing day :( #ldsp

It is not the best right now. It will be the best it can be, later. It has months upon months of becoming yet to go—years, if it needs that. Stories take time. Part of your job as a writer is to give it time. 💜

I spent Christmas alone writing all day. 2072 words, 3 chapters. Feeling better about this arc climax, tho it can use a lot of tightening. It ended up being more cozy hurt/comfort than drama, but I think it rings true. I know people think it’s sad to spend Christmas alone, but I don’t mind it. +

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

If you like a book? Review it. Ask your library to buy it. If you can afford it, buy a copy for a friend. Recommend it wherever you're social. Send the author an email, or a skeet, or a Ko-Fi. Write fanfic. Blow under the wings of the paper airplane so it can fly a little farther.

“They only use genAI for internal use” “It’s just for generating some ideas, it’s not even really more efficient”

The only reasonable position is zero tolerance: the AI industry must end sooner rather than later. It is culturally, socially, environmentally, and economically destructive, and all the Silicon Valley marketing in the world isn't going to make it otherwise.

Treat a published work that was later divulged to be AI-generated the same way you would if you found out it was manually plagiarized from a different book. Same situation, just the plagiarism has been automated and averaged out a bit, and the plagiarist is also a scab and a cultural arsonist.

The only real way is to formally require divulging any degree of AI usage, in much the same way that we all already declare in contracts that out work is original. Plagiarists will simply lie here, but at least there are consequences when they're caught later. Establish those consequences as norms.

There is no ethical use of AI because the continued existence of the AI industry is directly harmful to (alongside everyone else) the interests of everyone whose labour makes books exist—writers of fiction & nonfiction, illustrators, translators, researchers, editors, everyone.

Wrote 2235 words today. Motherfucker. The scene is technically done (at 3.8k). It's a first draft (third, actually, but first draft of THIS draft), and it works quite okay, but it doesn't yet have the oomph I want it to have. I need to spend more time with one of the characters & dig deeper. #ldsp

As a special holiday treat, my poem "The World To Come" is out today at @strangehorizons.bsky.social ! strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Does anyone know any good resources on creative writing pedagogy? Especially ones that were published in the past 5-6 years? I already have: - The Antiracist Writing Workshop - Craft in the Real World - How a Poem Moves

Checking in earlier than usual bc my friend’s dragging me to a solstice party. 😔 Wrote 425 new words. They’re all discarded—I decided I didn’t need this scene. I did also revise 2 scenes, which became 2 short chapters. I’m working on the climactic scene of this arc tmrw. Very nervous. 😥 #ldsp

So anyway I don't have a right answer there but just *throws up hands* Please value translation more? This shit is so difficult (end)

I know everyone will have a different line obv but mine is that I don't read research books in languages I'm not fluent in. And for Vietnamese and Spanish (which I do research in), I will double check everything with a dictionary or a native speaker.

As a multiple language speaker it's also frustrating to see people using AI for translation because the English speaking world tends to treat translators like workers for hire instead of co authors of text and this feels like more of it. Translation at the literary level is creative work. (2/?)

Deep breath Ok I'm going to try and stay calm But I'll point out that AI translation is literally causing translators to be fired (see the whole Harlequin line in France) (1/?)

2681 words today. Definitely the most intense working day since I started drafting again. It’s all one scene, mostly done but with a non-crucial section missing. There’s a lot going on here! New character, new conflict thread, connecting conflict threads, starting a relationship arc, worldbuilding.

Making art is not all joy and fungus reanimated bunnies! That’s okay. That’s normal. That’s part of why art is important and also why artists and writers need to be paid for their work. If you keep dragging yourself back even when it’s hard, you’re doing fine.

This quote from @olivia.science @marentierra.bsky.social and @irisvanrooij.bsky.social is in my recent free one-page zine v3 called "What Does 'AI' Actually Mean? Definition and Synonyms" (and Emily Bender is also cited in v2 and v3!) Zine: padlet.com/laurenUU/antiAI Paper: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Broke 10k on the new draft today! 10,140, to be exact. This happened on chapter 6! Today I revised a chapter from the previous draft, which became chapter 5 here. Also wrote a new scene for chapter 6. That’s 756 new words total. Not a lot, but I also had to do some prewriting first!

Today I revised a section of the old draft and adapted that into this new draft. That became chapter 3. Then I wrote 1062 new words for chapter 4. We’re about halfway thru the first half of Act 1. By the end of this first half (i.e., by chapter 8), all of the conflicts would’ve ben laid out. #ldsp

If they want to keep getting work, they can review (=rewrite) the AI slop, for 1/3 of their normal rate (which was already low to begin with) Readers, we HAVE to complain about it, hold the publishers accountable and boycott these books

French publishing house Harlequin decided to use AI translation instead of human translations. All their freelance translators (some of whom had been working with Harlequin for +30y!!!) were told they would no longer receive work from Harlequin

Okay, I have a stacked list for novel, poetry, and short stories for my nomination ballots. But I am really lacking in the novellette, novella categories. What are some of the best novellettes or novellas you've read this year?

I wrote almost 2k words today (a whole chapter) & outlined the next sequence of chapters. While I’m happy witj all that, what I’m most proud of was that I could identify specific things I was unsatisfied with, then just take a deep breath & trust future me will solve all that. Usually I’d spiral.

Wrote something like 1,900 words today! On to chapter 2, which used to be the beginning. Was able to recycle some of the old writing, but largely it’s new. I was also able to streamline the concepts! And the scene now has a better arc.

This is now just under 2,000 words! On to chapter 2, which used to be the beginning and the main POV character, in the previous version. The voice is quite different. I feel like I’m closer to the character now.

If you see the words 'irrevocable', 'in perpetuity', 'formats not yet invented', 'net after costs', 'all rights', you're selling every damn thing you could make money from as an author for a one time payment, or in this case, a promise. Signing this gives the publisher money meant for you forever.

I wrote 1,425 words today! A new beginning of the novel, from a different POV character. I don't hate it. I daresay I kind of like it, actually, or at least I like the first paragraph. But above all I'm just glad I wrote today. See, I didn't lie when I said I'd start drafting soon!

This part is so spot on.