Last month I posted a small tirade about a spammy book marketer who tried to engage me by first sending me a vague email about Marked, positioning it as a fan mail. In retrospect the schmuck emailing me had never actually read my book. He waited for me to answer Read more…
When I’ve commented on bookish controversies on this blog before, it usually is in regards to “authors behaving badly” be they plagiarizing or trying to game the NY Times bestseller list. But this time I don’t think the author in question had any ill intent at all. I think that Read more…
Artists are human beings. As such, a certain percentage of them will be reprehensible, or at the very least hold opinions that are reprehensible. Humans are imperfect beings, and some of them fall short of the mark. I’ve thought about this a lot in relation to two works of art Read more…
Just a short post to remind my fellow creatives to hoard your ideas. Jot down those flashes of inspiration, save those false starts. You never know when they’ll turn useful. In my own case I started writing again after a long hiatus by working on a trio of short stories, Read more…
I’ve just written a scene I’ve been avoiding for a while. I wasn’t consciously avoiding it, but after falling out of writing for a few years, it gave me some perspective on my current work in progress and I realized that the outline was missing a key scene— without it Read more…
I think every author has their go-to archetypes, and mine happens to be the outsider. Most of my characters are misfits, oddballs, or just displaced from the rest of society for one reason or another. That’s true of my most recently published book, Marked, which has Dana, who’s socially isolated Read more…
I started out as a science fiction author back with my first six novels. However, for a while now, my output has been fantasy, be it dark, humorous, or urban. It’s been over ten years since I produced my last SF with the Apotheosis Trilogy. Why? The fact is, it’s Read more…
One of the most important things you can have as a writer is a measure of humility about your craft. No matter how many years you’ve been doing this, there’s always some area to improve, something to learn. This is not to say you shouldn’t be confident about what you Read more…
Something happened today that really pissed me off, and I thought it might be an object lesson in how to make potential customers/readers/friends very angry. First off I should say, I get a lot of spam, especially stuff that is publishing and SEO related. None of it has a particular Read more…
I’ve been a conspiracy buff my entire adult life. I cut my teeth on the Illuminatus! Trilogy, after all. Since my current work is going in a more occult direction, I thought I’d like to gather five interesting occult groups that inhabit the center of some conspiracy theories that may Read more…