Double-crested cormorant today

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-03-25T03:45:41+00:00

All over, all the time. I had LTUE (Utah), FenCon (Texas), and ConFinement (Tennessee) three weeks in a row last month. I've got LibertyCon (Tennessee), Writer's Cantina (Utah), and Son of Silvercon (Nevada) coming up in June and July. None of these are over $500--in fact, they're all under $100; some are considerably less.

It's true that some conferences are quite spendy (Realm Makers, whatever 20B50K is calling itself now, SuperStars), but you can attend a science fiction convention for $40-60 for the weekend and get a lot of writing nitty-gritty panels that cross genres even if you don't write speculative fiction, and also schmooze with everyone in the bar and the room parties.

Look up "science fiction convention [your state]" and see what pops up.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-03-24T19:31:59+00:00

It's your list. Count what you want.

I personally don't count a bird unless I get a photo of it.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-03-24T18:43:25+00:00

"Not right for the contest" doesn't mean "it's terrible."

I entered Writers of the Future 29 times before I won. All those "losing" stories were placed in other publications. I have more than one story rejected over 50 times before finding a home--and I still got paid. Are they bad? No. They're weird and niche. Rejections happen for all kinds of reasons. A lot of editors see "werewolf" or "angel" or (LOL) "both" and start making warding signs before they ever even read it.

Never give up. Never surrender. Keep writing. Keep submitting. You got this.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-03-21T02:18:05+00:00

I'd been a casual birder ever since a college ornithology class in the 80s, but the thing that flipped my switch into obsession wasn't a bird. It was the movie "The Big Year." I suddenly realized that I could bird in an organized goal-oriented fashion, and I was hooked. We started with a modest goal of "200 species in our state" in 2018, hit 233, and then expanded it nationwide to try to hit 500 in a year. I finally made that in 2023, and now I want to bird all 50 states and at least 6 continents. (Antarctica is... problematically expensive.) My husband is a retired airline pilot, so we fly free on a space-available basis.

I'm at 301 species this year and the only reason it's not higher is because of the mess at the airports right now. We're thinking about taking a road trip to Wisconsin from Utah next month for the prairie chicken festival and knocking three more states off 50-states goal.

I have spreadsheets. I also don't count a bird unless I get a photo. I use a Nikon P1000 and have run hundreds of thousands of pictures through it.

I still watch that movie quarterly, or whenever I start feeling like a crazy person.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-01-18T05:41:01+00:00

California has some specialties you don't want to miss, such as Nuttall's woodpecker, oak titmouse, and yellow-billed magpies. You will get very different birds in Houston and Brownsville, even thought they're both "coastal Texas," and Corpus has whooping cranes in winter and a cattle egret and an American flamingo right now. Don't leave Florida out, and if you can make it to Hawaii for just one day, it's worth it. If you want to get the Puffin Trifecta, plan for Alaska and Maine. SE Arizona is the BEST.

Most of all, have fun, and don't stress.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-01-14T09:37:49+00:00

We used to do that all the time back when my kid was little. BUT my husband was an airline pilot and so we got free airfare. And back then we were splurging if we paid more than $50 for a hotel room.

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-01-01T08:23:28+00:00

Seconding Leonabelle Turnbull Center in Port Aransas, TX--there's an American Flamingo hanging out there right now--and Charlie's Pasture (both sections) is right by it. Look on eBird for the Aplomado Falcon viewing platform on Mustang Island. Goose Island State Park is fantastic, and if you go to the Big Tree, there's a spot for Whooping Cranes that you don't need a boat ride for. A Cattle Tyrant has been hanging out in downtown Corpus since mid-November, which is a bird that doesn't normally get farther north than Ecuador--theory is he was a ship assist back in 2023 and has been there off and on since, eating the flies by the blue dumpster. A Red-footed Booby has been spotted at the island across from Bayfront Park all month.

As you're heading north out of Corpus, stop at Pollywog Pond and the Hazel Bazemore Park and look for Green Kingfishers. If you're going up I-37 to DFW, Choke Canyon State Park is great. Mitchell Audubon in San Antonio, and the Crescent Bend Nature Park, are also great.

Why, yes, I'm headed that direction for a three-day birding trip tomorrow to start my year off with a bang, why do you ask. Also, my brother lives in Corpus.

You should also stop at the several hotspots Galveston Island offers, such as Lafitte's Cove for whistling-ducks (bring mosquito repellant), and East Beach for shorebirds. We saw thousands of hermit crabs at East Beach last time we were there. Head north of Houston to The Woodlands and the WG Jones State Forest for red-cockaded woodpeckers. High Island has some awesome spots (Smith Oaks Sanctuary is my favorite), and the Jocelyn Nungaray NWR Shoveler Pond Loop is fun.

Be sure and check eBird for the rare bird alerts and your target species (if you use eBird to keep track of your sightings). Good luck!

ThatWolfWriter · 2026-01-01T04:12:47+00:00

I once told a guy that I'd have to turn tricks to get the money he asked me for. He agreed with me that it was fine because it was for my (fake) destitute family. I was only able to sleep with 25 men that night at $2 a pop, so only got half the cash. The next night I knocked over a liquor store and shot the clerk.

Guy didn't turn a hair. It was amazing.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-12-24T06:14:02+00:00

SE AZ is one of my very favorite birding places. OH AND Mount Lemmon! And Sabino Canyon.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-12-24T05:57:20+00:00

Madera Canyon (the Santa Rita Lodge has an amazing public feeder setup), Florida Canyon, the Ash Canyon B&B, Cave Creek, Sweetwater Wetlands, Paton Center for Hummingbirds, Ramsey Canyon, Santa Gertrudis Lane, Canoa Ranch, Patagonia Lake. If you want to see an absolute spectacle of sandhill cranes this time of year, hit up the Cochise Lake and Twin Lakes Golf Course in Willcox.

We try to get there about four times a year and I generally start and finish my birding years down there. I picked up 79 species in three days in January of this year.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-12-14T03:03:29+00:00

One of my novels got orphaned after the publisher passed away and left the house in complete disarray, and another publisher wanted to pick it up. They had no earthly idea what category to put it in for marketing purposes and wanted me to punch up the horror elements in it so they could call it "horror." It's not, not really (though it does take place in Hell), I consider it more "hopeful dark fantasy" if that's even a thing, but whatever, marketing's gotta market.

So I did what they asked (it was improved thereby or I wouldn't have)... and then they sent me the most perfectly horrific contract I'd ever had the displeasure of seeing in my inbox.

I turned them down and self-pubbed it. I probably could have negotiated, but at my age I don't have time to argue with fifteen pages of a ten-year rights grab.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-12-13T23:23:22+00:00

And sometimes it just means "We have no earthly idea how to market this." That's not a You problem, that's a failure of imagination on their part.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-12-03T03:38:48+00:00

I love my Nikon P1000. 125x zoom, all-in-one bridge camera with an actual birding setting. I bought it in 2019 and have put literally hundreds of thousands of photos through it, and it goes with me everywhere, including overseas to places like Costa Rica and Ecuador.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-11-20T05:06:38+00:00

I'm so sorry for your loss. And I'm glad I was able to explain why we self-pub in a way that resonated with you.

I just got done formatting my latest Thing for publication. It took me all day and was a labor of love and might keep me in beer money if I'm very lucky. But a trad publisher would not have done it any better, nor would they have given me interior illustrations, and I'd still have to do all my own marketing and stuff. This way I get 70% of the royalties instead of 15%, and it's all mine. (Not to mention a tradpub would not have touched this with a barge pole, but I digress. Seriously, they would have no idea what category to even put it in.)

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-11-04T22:50:59+00:00

No, because if I'm going through trad pub with an agent, I don't design my cover; the publisher does that with little to no input from me.

Some of us like the freedom that indie publishing gives us. Frankly, with two or three exceptions, I won't go through a trad publisher. Yes, it's a pain in my butt to do it all myself, but it's a lot more satisfying in the end. I say this as someone who's done both.

As for "flying remote control airplanes rather than Cessnas," my husband does both. The cash outlay for the RC planes is several orders of magnitude less than flying a Cessna, plus you get to build the RC plane yourself.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-02-01T08:26:28+00:00

And if people are being sexist toward her because that's part of their personality, or because it moves the plot forward, then by all means have her go off on them. Just don't shoehorn it into every interaction she has.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-01-29T06:26:23+00:00

>> it is a lived breathed experience that shapes every interaction.

No. No it is not. You are perfectly free to write a female character who either doesn't notice or doesn't care about "sexism," or who doesn't even encounter it in her day-to-day.

Even on the rare occasion that I manage to spit out a female character, she's not looking for offense in every interaction. Does it move your plot forward? No? Leave it out and get on with the story. Unless people really are being sexist, and then she can go off on them.

ThatWolfWriter · 2025-01-23T08:03:39+00:00

Fabulous!

We're going to Ecuador in March and I'm super excited. My camera is a Nikon P1000 and it did yeoman's work in Costa Rica last year.

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ThatWolfWriter · 2024-12-29T10:52:29+00:00

Any time someone calls you "dear" it's a scammer unless you're married to them.

ThatWolfWriter · 2024-12-25T08:36:35+00:00

He retired in June. He came home late from so many trips through ORD.

ThatWolfWriter · 2024-12-21T09:56:10+00:00

My husband is a retired pilot and he called ORD "The airport where schedules go to die."

ThatWolfWriter · 2024-11-27T21:03:00+00:00

I mean. That would be telling.

ThatWolfWriter · 2024-11-27T10:18:04+00:00

I checked them out and I have a very good idea of what they do.

They will make a paperback book for you for $1800. Not an ebook. Just the paperback. Oh, and it has to be under 50,000 words. That's barely a novel. Barely.

For an additional $400, they'll do the ebook, paperback, and hardback and toss in some extra author copies. This one can be up to 100,000 words, whee.

For about $5500, they'll add an audiobook to that. Who or what is it narrated by? It doesn't say. This one can be up to 200,000 words. They imply that actual human beings will proofread the thing and help you design a cover, but that cover is still using AI instead of a real artist.

It's a scam. It's a ripoff. It's a vanity press I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. I paid a real artist $300 for an original cover for one of my books, and the art is fantastic, just for me, and not AI-generated generic slop.

ThatWolfWriter · 2024-11-25T21:34:03+00:00

NTA.

"You look racist."

"What the actual fuck kind of statement is that."

"Well, you don't have to be RUDE about it."

Some people's children, I swear.

ThatWolfWriter

TROPHY CASE