Sat, 11 Apr 2020 19:03:01 -0700WeeblyMon, 11 Dec 2017 21:19:17 GMThttp://laurasanchezwrites.com/blog/back-from-the-deadI was walking through our local grocery store yesterday and spotted a copy of Omni magazine on the rack. No, I didn't fall into a time warp. Omni has returned to print with a proposed quarterly edition that will feature the same sorts of non-fiction, art and short stories as the Omni of the 1970s and 80s. The inaugural edition has a short story by Nancy Kress, which  involves art forgery through time, literally.]]>Sun, 10 Dec 2017 17:50:52 GMThttp://laurasanchezwrites.com/blog/a-good-read-particularly-for-librariansThe November/December issue of Analog (oldest and probably most prestigious of science-fiction magazines) includes a story by a friend, Stephen Loftus-Mercer, named Kindle No Flame. It's gorgeous. And it will either make librarians ecstatic or give them the screaming heebie-jeebies. You can find Analog online or on the shelves of endangered magazine displays.
​]]>Fri, 08 Dec 2017 23:48:42 GMThttp://laurasanchezwrites.com/blog/not-at-all-like-a-tv-showSo it's a week past my month of jury duty. I would have recovered by now, except there was nothing to recover from. I did not once have to even show up at the district courthouse--I just checked the website and found out that once again, any meeting of my particular jury group had been cancelled.

A friend whio works at the courthouse said everyone settles or makes a plea deal except for one group--those who have a prior felony conviction. Since they would automatically get a stiffer sentence even if they pled guilty, they're willing to risk a jury trial in hopes of receiving an "innocent" verdict. Besides, the jury system is so overloaded that no one wants anything to go to trial. Sort of screwed up, but I don't think a plea bargain TV series will ever replace the courtroom drama.

]]>Sun, 12 Nov 2017 21:22:20 GMThttp://laurasanchezwrites.com/blog/dont-take-rules-seriously-particularly-when-you-dont-understand-them So I entered an interesting contest on Codex Writer. Each person gets prompts from two other people, chooses one and then starts a story that includes the prompt in some way. The first deadline calls for the first 250 words. I had the idea that I needed to get to the first big plot point in that hook, so the thing read like a stripped down outline recited by an auctioneer, and a dozen or so people rightly slapped me upside the head for writing something so jarring and undeveloped. So for the second stage, I rewrote completely in the course of submitting the first 1,200 words. Now waiting to see whether that works better. ]]>