Author Archives: Maya Darjani

This logo is amazing and makes me want to go to the beach Welcome to anooooother week! Unlike last season, I didn’t jump immediately into self-editing. In fact, I put it off, mostly because I didn’t have a plan. Last year I created a world out of whole cloth, and so a lot of myContinueContinue reading “Writer In Motion Week 2: The Self Edit”

Last week, I blogged my first impressions on this season’s prompt. I knew I wanted to write from a male point of view, and I wanted to do something with the idea of something turning to ashes or dust. I also love adding dorky linguistic things into my short story (I am not a linguist,ContinueContinue reading “Writer in Motion Week One: The First Draft”

The Smoking Man? Hello and welcome to another season of Writer In Motion. This prompt is not what I was expecting! Especially after last season! Unlike last year, when I looked at it and knew exactly what I wanted to write, this time I’m at a bit of a loss. I even asked my kidsContinueContinue reading “Writer In Motion First Impressions”

In January, I wrote the most rambly post ever about organizational and writing tools when one has ADHD. I have a few updates. Hopefully, it’ll be less all-over-the-place. SAD Lamp: I had mentioned I was getting a huge lamp for my desk to replace the tiny pink one. Although I’m in a room that technicallyContinueContinue reading “More of my favorite writing/organizational things”

I’m a hobbyist photographer with a lot of fun gear, but the more I focus on writing, the less I carry my big camera around. Phone cameras are great these days, and I’ve been asked before to give some tips and tricks, so I thought I’d post some excerpts from a mobile photography session IContinueContinue reading “Cell phone photography 101”

Hey all! I’m like most of y’all; you can often find me writing on my bed, or a coffeeshop (pre-pandemic), or wherever. In fact, I’m a total weirdo who often drafts on my phone via Google Docs while doing dishes. Hey, you do what you gotta. (I liked Scrivner when I had a Windows computer,ContinueContinue reading “My Favorite Writing Tools/My Writing Workspace”

A Matter of Ancient History is the first book that I’ve completed and polished and queried. It’s not the first I’ve written, but the less said about those the bett- Actually, let’s chat, because Ancient History wouldn’t exist without those attempts, and parts of each have made it in to this one. Because some versionContinueContinue reading “The Evolution of Ancient History”

I was blessed to have the editorial services of the awesome Justine Manzano, who was so kind and supportive with her feedback that I squeed and giggled for about a day. In the end, not much has changed from my draft. Justine made some stylistic/grammatical changes, and honestly, I have what I think of asContinueContinue reading “Writer In Motion – Week 4, Final Draft”

Hey y’all! Coming back with Draft 3. It isn’t much changed from my self-edited draft. I actually hope it changes a lot after the editor round next week. One of my CPs said a very true thing: this doesn’t feel like a short story and instead more like a scene from a novel. Which: fair.ContinueContinue reading “Writer in Motion Week 3: CP Draft”

I loved the character conflicts in my first draft, but it wasn’t a cohesive story, and it had waaay to much information. Very on-brand for me, really. As I had never written a short story before, I had to do some research on the best components of one. I came across these categories (not veryContinueContinue reading “Writer In Motion Draft 2 (self-edit)”