blatant self-promotion
Guess what came in the mail?
And our wonderful UPS guy decided to leave the package out in the rain, on top of a trash can next to the house. . . But I got this to cheer me up. Go there, you may win a book.
movies
Guns, Carrots and the willing supension of disbelief
Authors of fiction have an advantage that we often don’t realize we have: Our audience wants to believe us. They know we’re lying, but in most cases they’re willing to accept anything we want sell them in the name of the story, and ask only that we’re honest about what Read more…
TV
Four More Things Lost Can Teach Us About Storytelling
Back a couple of years ago I wrote about “Five Things Lost Can Teach Us About Storytelling” and I thought I’d add to that list now that the series is complete. Here’s a few more things I think Lost did well: In writing a prolonged series, keep in mind how Read more…
internet
If you’re thinking about TV writing. . .
There’s a marvelous post over at Io9 that you really must read. It’s titled, “Inside the writers room: Top scifi TV writers reveal tricks of the trade,” but it really isn’t about genre writing, and it really isn’t about tricks of the trade. What it is, is an in-depth exploration Read more…
internet
So, Tropes. . .
If you’re a writer populating these here interwebs, and you don’t know about the site TV tropes, you should do yourself a favor and rectify that right now. What is it? It is a wiki that deals with, well, tropes in fiction: character types, situations, plot devices and so on. Read more…
writing
Write to the hand. . .
I go on about plot and worldbuilding a lot, because those are my strengths. Both are similar in that they’re largely exercises in logic— taking a premise, either in the environment or the story itself, and just following the consequences to an inevitable conclusion. I tend to deal with most Read more…
science fiction
I finally saw the Lost finale
I can see why a lot of people would hate it. But then, again, there are certainly arguments for what they did end up doing. Me, I teared up during the episode, had a bit of a WTF when Christian opened up his mouth at the end, and spent a Read more…
photos
And Summer also…
As a follow-up to the post where I built a bunch of raised boxes for the veggie garden. Here’s the garden today: And here are some planters with herbs, and some homemade earth boxes I made last year.
book covers
Whew, that was close…
In the interstitial time between finishing the Messiah draft, and working on the rewrite, I’m working on a few book proposals to shop around since I’ve become a free agent. One of those book proposals has a tentative title Timewalker. Which is all I’m going to tell you about it, Read more…