As the World Turns

The Marvel cinematic universe is a complex beast, and growing ever more complex by the movie. Take your typical world of earth, toss in some superheroes and supervillians, and then go to town on it. Add cities that don’t exist, a futuristic country in Africa hidden from the world, other dimensions where near-literal gods dwell,…

Review: Of Bone and Thunder

The wife and I are on a reading tear now. We started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager late last fall, and we finally finished up both series this week. Yes, we’d already seen them (or rather, I’d seen all of Voyager a couple of times but not much of DS9,…

Novel Writing 103 –

Now that I’ve chatted with a few of the Viable Paradise students and alumni, I’ve begun settling into the fact that I’m going in October. It’s an eclectic group of folks of all ages, from young enough to still be living with parents, to retirees. I fall on the older side of the spectrum, without…

Novel Writing 101

I saw a recent post on Reddit that piqued my interest, so decided to undertake what the poster was requesting. Too late to do them any good, but hey, them’s the breaks. I’ve begun work in earnest on a new novel, so I’ve decided to document the process from start to finish. Less of a…

Feedback

There is a reality in the world of science and technology known as a feedback loop. This is that incredibly annoying screech from a microphone when someone first starts talking into it, before they turn their volume down. It’s painful, but it has a very simple cause and effect. You speak… your words flood out…

I’m not Crazy

When I was in high school, there were three types of music I loved most. Alt rock was my mainstay, led by bands like U2 and REM. New Wave was a close second, with DEVO and Flock of Seagulls high on my list. And then there was punk. Henry Rollins, the Ramones, anything that was…

Consideration

Becoming a writer has been easy. Seriously, don’t let anyone feed you these long, sad, sob stories about how they tried and strained and sweated and cried for years and years about becoming a writer. Writing is as simple as sitting down… and writing. That’s literally it. No further consideration! Simple! Any moron with a…

Good Sport

Being a good sport is hard, particularly when you’ve tried – and failed – multiple times at something. But it’s a requirement for living life the right way, so you suck it up and do it. Period. Take Pitchmadness/Pitchwars. I’ve participated several times now (3 total I think). All three times I failed to make…