Posts

Spotlight

TRANSCRIPT: S04EP01 Writing a Book in a Year

-
TRANSCRIPT: S04EP01 Writing a Book in a Year Listen to the episode here. Or check it out below: Hello! It’s 2025, and you’re still listening to Hyba Is Writing. I’m still your host, Hyba, and today’s episode is all about a specific new year’s resolution that you might have as a writer: writing a book in a year. If that sounds like something that’s interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter, and you’ll be able to download your free copy of the book in a year guide, which will help you get organized so that you can, in fact, finish a book in a year. In this episode, I want to walk through the general idea behind the guide, and to give you a little bit of additional guidance as you create your own goals and schedules. So, the book in a year guide was something that I personally wanted to create not just for writers everywhere but also for myself. I’m a bit of a weird personality when it comes to scheduling myself, because a lot of the tried-and-true methods that p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Horror Writing Course: Origins and Backing Philosophy

-
Horror Writing Course: Origins and Backing Philosophy As you may have already heard, I've been working on a horror writing course for writers who want to dive into the world of horror story writing. This was, at the beginning, as much for me as it was for other writers. I had been looking online for a horror writing course that matched my needs, but couldn't find one that quite fit the bill. For example, some were too light (one was only a few webinars) and often too vague - and all too many were much too costly.   I had to do a lot of my own research and trial-and-error and learning in order to improve my horror writing skills, often looking in places that had nothing to do with horror writing, but which were relevant to helping me hone the techniques and skills required.  To do this yourself is not impossible, but it is extremely time-consuming, and often yields results that are far too little in comparison with the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into doing t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apartment as Written by AI

-
Image
I tried AI for the first time... Hm. I tried AI today for the first time, and gave it a prompt to outline an article, and then to draft the article. I've never generated any writing with AI before, but I've had very definite thoughts about it, and since someone wanted me to use it for a job-related task, I decided to try it out and see what everyone was so addicted to. First thoughts: It's surprisingly good at understanding complex prompts. I actually didn't expect it to pick up on a few things I put in the prompt, but it managed to touch upon every single point. I thought I might confuse it, but apparently not. It provides a clear and concise draft, which I also didn't expect. It reads smoothly, and there's a logic to the way the information is presented. I'm not really liking the final results, though, because they still feel a bit bare, and that's probably a good thing because at least it means that it could still benefit from the huma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Year in Writing: 2024

-
Year in Review: 2024 This year, I had to deal with a couple of health issues that had me down for the count for a little while. I dreaded doing this year in review because I knew just how much time had slipped through my fingers as a result! That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with all I had gotten accomplished these past twelve months, and the reminder was as big a relief as it was motivating. The first few months of the year were awesome, and I started off great. Then things went a little awry, and in the last few months of the year, I managed to get back on the saddle, so to speak. Still dealing with the long-term effects of some of those health issues, but taking it one day at a ti January 2024 This was the month of Scareuary ! The first edition of Scareuary was hosted this month, and while there weren't a lot of participants, I was able to write a full draft of two short horror stories ( The Star Seal being the one I chose to write for the write-with-me portion), and w...
Post a Comment
Read more

What it means to shoot for the moon...

-
Image
Or: Adjusting Your Writing Expectations I'm long overdue for a writing update, but I hope this half-update half-lesson post will make up for my absence, because the truth is, I've been really busy lately. Good busy. Mostly. Alhamdulillah. I'll keep the update short: I've been working on an interactive fiction called The Black Hare , for which I hope to have a full prologue uploaded on itch.io soon. It got delayed by some personal issues, but I decided that since I was late anyway, I might as well be fashionably late and provide my readers with something really cool! So, that's in the works. The cool news is that I was able to write about 38k words for it in November alone! I've also been working on a fantasy novel: The City of Light . It's not as complicated as The Black Hare, because it's just writing on a document - no need for coding or dropping down the rabbit hole researching how to do a very specific thing on Twine Sugarcube v2! No, this fantasy...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scareuary 2025 is almost here!

-
Image
Ready to write some horror? February's right around the corner, and you know what that means! Join us this coming February to participate in Scareuary 2025! In this second edition of Scareuary, I've got a brand new selection of writing challenges and prompts. Whether you're a seasoned horror fiction writer or looking to dip your toes into the world of writing horror, this is the event for you. Scareuary 2025 events will include: M-m-monster!! - This challenge asks you to create a monster. Veer away from the well-trodden path of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and other well-known monsters in the horror genre, and try to create a story that revolves around a monster that comes purely from your imagination. How would you design it? What would it look like? What would it represent? Twisted Hearts - For this challenge, consider the ways in which love and horror are linked. What terrors lie in wait for the hopelessly devoted? What fears consume the lovesick heart? What horrors w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Successful Blogging for Fiction Writers: Platform

-
How to start blogging as a fiction author: We begin with the platform. Let's talk about how to blog - or just be online, for that matter - as a fiction author.  Note: If you're on Twitter and Instagram, this isn't really the guide for you, because these social media platforms behave a little differently to what I'm going to be discussing in this set of posts. If you have a website, a blog, a tumblr blog, or a similar kind of platform, then this might be a suitable guide for your needs. So, the first step is actually choosing a blogging platform. Are you going to use Wordpress? Medium? Tumblr? Blogger? Something else entirely? Make sure to make the choice based on a few different factors: Ease of access. You need your blog to be easily found and easily accessible by your audience. Most blogging platforms will list your blog in Google search results, for example, and that's really helpful for getting discovered - but discovery alone isn't going to be enough, and w...
Post a Comment
Read more