Hi there 👋

Got my first publication rejection as an author. Rejection isn’t new for me. I spent decades writing for film and experienced a ton of rejection there. I’m basically (emotionally) impervious to it at this point. Rejection does not faze me. I hadn’t intended to chase publication yet. I’m still working on comfortably writing prose and exploring my voice. It feels early to be worried about publication. When I submitted I had just finished working on GREAT. It was only my second short story since picking up narrative writing again, an adaptation of a short film script I never got around to shooting. I was ready to package it up and get it uploaded through the normal channels (Patreon at the time). Finding the open call that I submitted it to was a last minute fluke. ...

I have just wrapped up a bunch of changes in my writing. The most visible parts are how I’m presenting my work and how I’m attempting to find a community within that process. Those changes hinge around two fundamental beliefs. The first is that art and culture should be freely available. The second, that an artist should be able make a living from their art. Arts and culture are the dominant social education. Art has broad exposure, appeal, and capacity. As a consequence, it is the best means we have to build, comment on, and critique culture. It is the storytelling that builds society. It tells us who we are today, who we were in the past, and where we are heading in the future. Art constrained behind financial barriers may still contribute to culture and society, but does so in an inherently asymmetric manner. It transforms art into a luxury and not a public good. ...

As a musician, a filmmaker, a screenwriter, and as an author, I talk to people who share the same interests and drive to create. There is always a lot of enthusiasm about creating, but often less enthusiasm about what they’ve created. I often get some variation of, “I don’t really know if my writing is any good,” or the assertive, “My writing’s not very good.” There are two common reasons I hear this. ...

When I decided that I wanted to approach writing again I had some problems I needed to solve. The first was that I didn’t want to write for film anymore. I knew that I wasn’t going to chase filmmaking or try to get scripts optioned. I was never terribly big on selling my scripts and filmmaking simply isn’t a discipline that I love enough to fight through the scrappy years to get to the good to ones. ...

Call it whatever you want. Use it, if you want. Don’t tell me it’s art. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong for not using it. I don’t think this is a very controversial take within artistic circles, but as someone who also works (well, worked…) in tech I get to see it forced into every nook and cranny of existence with the expectation that if you’re not using LLMs to do the majority of your work then you’re probably not employable right now. ...

In my first post on this blog, I talked about the annoying thought I’ve carried in the back of my head for more than two decades. I wished I had the opportunity to just write. The world could go away and I would be able to stop working for awhile. I could focus on writing. This wish effectively created a two part problem. The first was that I was gating the thing I wanted, to write, behind something that was never going to spontaneously occur, the ability to not worry about being an adult and having adult responsibilities. ...

Overview ongoing writing projects weekly flash story GREAT has been edited and is done (for now) read GREAT at an Open Mic event in Guelph short story Corporeal Acquisitions is first draft complete weekly flash story Maeve Murray's is nearing first draft complete new weekly flash story has been started and is in the exploratory phase for concept new blog post last week Collect > Outline > Draft social links have been cleaned up and expanded GREAT I sent this piece out to several readers and received solid feedback on it. I also read the story (~1,700 words, so not really flash fiction) at an Open Mic event for writers in Guelph, Ontario. At a high level, I enjoyed the event. I am out of practice in front of an audience and will need to work on that. I also had some interesting conversations and got to hear a variety of narrative voices. I’ll have some more specific thoughts on the event in another post. ...

When I started screenwriting at 17, I had zero clue what I was actually doing. I didn’t understand the format, I didn’t understand storytelling, and I didn’t understand how a reader would interpret what I had written. I cranked out a terrible 65 page script in less than two weeks, completely by the seat of my pants. I would be safely into my twenties before I finished my second script. ...

Overview ongoing writing projects weekly flash fiction These Are Not My Memories added to Patreon weekly flash fiction GREAT is draft complete and out to readers for feedback short story Corporeal Acquisitions being written, currently in first draft new weekly flash fiction started and in the exploratory phase set up blog at davidbragg.ca/blog new accounts set up on Patreon and GoodReads These Are Not My Memories New flash fiction piece posted to Patreon. It’s free to read and includes an epub download option for paid Patreon members. ...

Overview resumed work on short story Corporeal Acquisitions started and completed flash fiction piece These Are Not My Memories started flash fiction adaptation of short film script GREAT completed two new blog posts installed and started using taskwarrior and timewarrior created template repository for new writing projects wrote xq tool for extracting questions from files Corporeal Acquisitions In 2023 I was looking for a writing outlet and considering revisiting prose. I started working on building out a cosmic horror short story at the time. I had put around a week’s worth of effort into figuring out what story I was telling and building some basic structure. ...