The following is a story from the September 7, 2005, issue of the Crossroads Journal, a semimonthly paper serving Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs.

I just got an email from Orson Scott Card, saying he's buying two of my stories for his new online magazine, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. One of the stories is "Salt of Judas," which was my Writers of the Future workshop 24-hour story back in 2004. (I've since revised it.) The story is a fantasy about an oil... read more »

Or at least, Utah is shrinking. The exits from Interstate 15 are numbered according to how many miles they are from where I-15 enters Utah from the south. So, for example, since the Lehi exit was marked as #282, that meant it was 282 miles from the border with Arizona (as the crow follows the Interstate.) But the Lehi exit... read more »

I've been working on a historical short story, and as part of my research I found this site, which has a calculator to tell you the day of the week for any date back to Monday, January 1, 4713 B.C., and forward to Saturday, December 28, 24660198799805 A.D. (but it doesn't take into account future adjustments for the slowing of... read more »

KJA = Kevin J. Anderson RM = Rebecca Moesta JP = Jerry Pournelle JL = Jay Lake RS = Robert Sawyer LN = Larry Niven KJA: "Things I Wish Some Writing Pro Had Told Me When I First Started Out" RM: Heinlein's rules of writing 1. You must write. 2. You must finish what you write. 3. You must refrain... read more »

OK, the notes aren't very good today (not that they were all that good to begin with) because I only got three hours of sleep last night due to working on my story. I was lucky -- my roommate, Scott Roberts, stayed up all night working on his story. AM=Anne McCaffrey AM: You may not make a lot of money... read more »

Not much today -- we spent most of the morning doing research, and in the afternoon were told to start writing our stories. TP: One of the advantages of using historical places/times is that the world is already created. You may have to research, but you don't have to make up the world. KDW: Be open to things you didn't... read more »

These notes are raw and may not make much sense. TP: Research. Any aliens you cook up should be at least as alien as any culture on earth. You can't do specific research until you know what a story is about. But it's also very important to do general research just to know stuff. See Avon collections of Asimov F&SF... read more »

These notes are raw and unpolished. They are not comprehensive. No warranty, express or implied, is made regarding these notes. Your mileage may vary. Key: TP - Tim Powers KDW - K. D. Wentworth LRH - L. Ron Hubbard Read LRH Article on "suspense." Key point: "Keep your reader wondering which of two things will happen ? and you get... read more »