This one’s pretty easy: click this link for a random phrase, and then take that random phrase and use it inside a piece of flash fiction that you write.

Simplicity personified.

You have the standard 1000 words, which you should post at your online site and — upon completion — link back here so we can all read it. This is due by Friday the 24th, noon EST.

That’s it.

Getcha random phrase.

Writecha story.

Huzzah.

Apparently, Star Wars: Aftermath now has a proper description:

As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance — now a fledgling New Republic — presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world — war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit — to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on the Norra and her newfound allies — her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector — who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Further, now it has an excerpt, too, which you can read right here.

Other News Nuggets

– ICYMI: The Harvest is totally out! Woo!

– Blackbirds remains $1.99 in Kindle for remainder of July.

– Apparently my belief that Pluto deserves to still be a planet made CBS?

– The Shield now launches 9/16, and here’s an interview with Adam Christopher and I about the comic. (Man, September is gonna be crazy. Zeroes will already be out. Aftermath lands. The resurrection of Blackbirds in print happens (and there’s apparently now a Kirkus review of the book?). The Shield… busy, busy, busy.

– Cool review of The Harvest by Michael Hicks, excerpt here:

Across three novels, Wendig has expertly plumbed the emotional depths of his cast of characters, thrusting them into uniquely dark situations that make their hard-scrabbles lives all the more difficult and turbulent.

– And this review of Zer0es at Bite the Book, excerpted here:

Wendig weaves together a fantastic hacker thriller that halfway through takes a massive  and very clever twist.

– I’m off to Camp Necon this weekend so: see you Monday, NERDS.

Figuring out this writing thing is hard. It’s often a lonely job, and one that comes with unpredictable periods of hurry-up-and-wait as part of the package. Keeping up with changes and new innovations in the industry can be a part-time job all on its own. It’s also a career that – sometimes, unfortunately – the non-writerly people in your life might not take seriously.

There are a million reasons people might dismiss you and your work: You haven’t sold a book yet (implied: “It’s your hobby.”); you’ve sold stories or books but “I’ve never heard of you”; writing isn’t your main source of income (implied: “You’re not successful enough”); you write genre fiction (implied: “So you don’t write real books.”). My blood is boiling just writing those down, and recalling the slight disdain with which they’ve been said, in various forms, to me.

Even if you haven’t heard the above, even when you have a kick-ass support group, or have checked something cool off on your own writerly bucket list, a huge amount of us still have Writer Brain to contend with. That little voice that invites in its buddy Imposter Syndrome and starts a medley of you’re not good enough.

Do not listen to them, in any form.

Easier said than done, I know, and it’s something that – three books and a palmful of short stories in – I still constantly struggle with myself. So, I put together a list of things that have helped me shove doubt back out the door when it comes creeping in. If you have more to add, please put ‘em in the comments! Ready? Here we go:

Tell people you’re a writer. Say it out loud. Type it into the twitterboxes. Stick it in your social media profiles. It took me a long damned time to be able to say “I’m a writer” without ducking my head or appending a sheepish little laugh-and-shrug combo – not because I’m ashamed of what I do, but because I felt like I wasn’t far enough along in my career to claim the title. I might never cross whatever arbitrary success line my brain is drawing. So, my brain (and Imposter Syndrome) can suck it: I’m a writer. If you put pen to paper because you like telling stories, so are you. Say it with me: I’m a writer.

Celebrate your victories. I’m not just talking about sales here – that’s an end goal, but so much happens before you get to that point that’s also part of your job as a writer. And, after you’ve published your work, there are other cool things that happen that don’t always get counted as “big” wins. This is so subjective, I can’t possibly hit on everything, so some examples! (Psst, kick some more out in the comments if you’re so inclined!)

Do numbers motivate you? Do you like to see evidence of your progress? I have friends who put stars on a planner for every 500 words they write, or put a sticker on a calendar for every day they worked on a project. You can do it with spreadsheets or find a website that lets you fill up a progress bar.

Did you send a story out into the wild? Go you! That’s damned scary. Did it get rejected and you sent it right back out to another place? High five!

Did someone leave you a good review? Comment on your fanfic? Ping you on Twitter to go “MORE PLEASE”? None of these are little things. Let yourself feel good about them!

Find other fans. We’re out there, and we have keyboards. When Great-Aunt Sally is disappointed that you’re not writing The Great Gatsby for this generation (or that you are, but with spaceships), it’s nice to know that there are people out there who think genre fiction is the best thing ever. Follow other writers and fans on Twitter or Tumblr or wherever people are hanging out online these days. Participate in the conversations at your favorite blog. If you have the ability to attend a convention, find one near you and go! It’s so damned easy to feel alone, that it’s validating as both a writer and a fan to know that we’ve got this big huge global community, and it’s got our backs.

Accept or issue challenges. Participate in writing challenges if you find yourself in need of a kick in the ass, or start them if a friend asks for the same – I see people offering up 1k/1 hour sprints, or starting early morning (or late night!) writing hashtags. Check out the flash fiction prompts Chuck issues on Fridays, or his open critique threads. During NaNoWriMo, see if your regional coordinators are hosting any write-ins at local cafes or bookstores. If you can’t make it to an event in meatspace, Google Hangouts and Skype offer a way to have virtual ones.

Raise each other up. Like I said, we’re in this together. Cheer each other on when good things happen. Wave your +3 Pompoms of Encouragement and offer support when someone is feeling down. It can take whatever form you’ve got the time and spoons for: a “you can do it!” tweet, sending virtual hugs, whiskey, or kittens of support, an offer to chat or email if you’re at that comfort level with them. We spend a lot of our days staring at the pages. It’s good to know there are people out there beyond them.

Remember: You are not alone in this.

You are a writer, and your words are important.

Go forth and tell great stories.

I’m rooting for you.

* * *

Lauren M. Roy spends her days selling books to bookstores, and her nights scratching out stories of her own. She is also a freelance writer for tabletop roleplaying games. Lauren lives in southeastern Massachusetts with her husband, their cats, and the ghosts of houseplants she forgets to water. Her first novel, Night Owls, was published by Ace in February 2014.

Her new novel is Fire Children:

Fifteen years have passed since Mother Sun last sent her children to walk the world. When the eclipse comes, the people retreat to the caverns beneath the Kaladim, passing the days in total darkness while the Fire Children explore their world. It’s death to even look upon them, the stories say. 

Despite the warnings, Yulla gives in to her curiosity and ventures to the surface. There she witnesses the Witch Women – who rumors say worship dead Father Sea, rather than Mother Sun – capturing one of the Children and hauling her away. Yulla isn’t the only one who saw the kidnapping; Ember, the last of the Fire Children, reveals himself to Yulla and implores her to help. 

Trapped above and hunted by witches and the desert wind, Yulla and Ember must find a way to free his siblings and put a stop to the Witch Women’s plans, before they can use the Fire Children to bind Mother Sun herself.

Lauren Roy: Website | Twitter

Fire Children: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

The other day, I talked a bit on Twitter about, duh, writing.

In part because I write a lot (and as a result, produce a lot of books) and a lot of people always want to ask how I do that, as if there’s some great secret. And no great secret or cheat code exists (except this: UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A SELECT START). But that doesn’t mean there’s not some unpacking to do around the process of writing in terms of the time it takes and how much you can or must fail.

And so: a Storify of them tweetsies.

Featuring bonus tweets by Joe Hill, Delilah S. Dawson, and more.

Holy crapnoodles.

Nearly 500 votes later, I have tallied the results of the most recent Awkward Author Photo contest (the photos here!) — and hot damn, it was a nailbiter. For a long time it was a race between 11, 17, 38 and 61 — and then out of nowhere, little 72 started unearthed a secret vault featuring dozens of votes right at the end.

As such, that makes 72 our grand winner:

And it officially makes #61 our second place winner:

And third prize goes to #38:

I actually really love #38 and #71 — and of the ones that made me laugh the hardest, I’ll call special attention to #17, #28, and #59.

ANYWHO, so, you three winners — 72, 61, 38?

Email me! terribleminds at gmail dot com.

You got mugs and books and #72 has ONE FICTIONAL DEATH COMIN’ RIGHT UP.

And congratulations and thanks for playing, folks.

“This strong first installment rises above the usual dystopian fare thanks to Wendig’s knack for disturbing imagery and scorching prose.” —Publishers Weekly

“Wendig brilliantly tackles the big stuff—class, economics, identity, love, and social change—in a fast-paced tale that never once loses its grip on pure storytelling excitement. Well-played, Wendig. Well-played.” —Libba Bray, author of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Going Bovine, and The Diviners

“A tense dystopian tale made more strange and terrifying by its present-day implications.” —Booklist

“Under the Empyrean Sky is like a super-charged, genetically modified hybrid of The Grapes of Wrath and Star Wars. Wendig delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a future agri-dystopia. Fascinating world building, engaging and deep characters, smooth, electric prose.” —John Hornor Jacobs, author of The Twelve-Fingered Boy

“A thoroughly imagined environmental nightmare with taut pacing and compelling characters that will leave readers eager for more.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A lunatic, gene-spliced, biofueled thriller. Fear the corn.” —Tom Pollock, author of The City’s Son

“An imaginative, page-turning adventure that will delight science fiction fans and have them impatiently waiting for the next installment.” —Joelle Charbonneau, author of The Testing Trilogy

IT IS COMPLETE.

The Heartland Trilogy is now a finished, published thing.

Because the third book, The Harvest, is out now:

Hardcover | Paperback | eBook | Audible | Audio CD

It’s exciting, because this is the first series I’ve truly finished — it’s the first one to make it out of the gate as a unified story told over several books.

Writing a trilogy or a whole series is tricky business — it’s a fine art between balancing the long con of far-flung planning but also course correcting between books and changing the story as you go. Some things about the Heartland series ended where I always expected, and some things didn’t. Some characters made it that I thought would perish — and *coughs into hand* some who I thought would survive didn’t cross the finish line with the rest of us.

There’s all kinds of things going on in this series — it’s a series about power, nature, and youth. About class warfare and oligarchy. About the struggle to do something real and change the world when you don’t want to. It’s a series about growing up in a world of oppression and war. And in a way, a series about growing up poor.

(You can actually find out a little about the origins of the series in this “Big Idea” post over at Scalzi’s WHATEVER joint, where I unpack how this cornpunk series came to mind and why I wanted to write it so bad.)

But it’s also got bloodthirsty corn, love triangles rhombuses, people turning into plants, hoboes, floating cities, arranged marriages, talking birds, multiple Pegasuses, robots, skyboats, piss-blizzards (sorry, “pollen drift”), tornadoes, a fallen city, a serial killer, and more. It’s young adult, though obviously I hope it appeals to adults, too.

I also posit that if you’re looking to see how well I’ll handle writing Star Wars: Aftermath, then this might be the series you’d wanna check out.

In fact, you can now buy the whole trilogy in e-Book for less than $12:

Under the Empyrean Sky: e-Book.

Blightborn: e-Book.

The books are eligible for Amazon Matchbook. Which is to say, if you buy the print book, you are eligible for a deep discount ($0.99, I think) on the e-Book.

Anyway, hope you check it out and spread the word.

Next up: Zeroes.

After that: Aftermath.

P.S. Tonight I’m doing the launch event at 6:00PM at Let’s Play Books in Emmaus, PA. Stop by, say hi. Or, if you’d like to bounce them a message and ask about obtaining a signed book, please do — I believe they can furnish that request. Call them at 610-928-8600 or go to: www.letsplaybooks.com.

P.P.S. Bonus: no racist old Atticus Finch in this book!