Is there anything more desperate than an unpublished writer?
I’ve been participating in some of the writers’ group discussions over on LinkedIn and I swear, never have I seen so many people trying to augur the entrails of the publishing world, never have I read so many vaunted “rules” of writing, and never have I heard so much illogical “advice.” Never.
And yet, I understand it. I understand it all. Continue Reading »
Posted in Writing | Tagged blogging, creative writing, editing, novel writing, novels, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips | 12 Comments »
Someone just bought their way into my next novel.
A friend of mine has been hurt by another person–hurt bad–and I so want to fix it. I want to walk in there with my swinging youbetcha and dispense some serious justice. I want to storm in like Thunder himself and enunciate for any and all just what was done, what disrespect was brandished, and with what heartlessness and callousness my friend had been treated. I would detail each and every cruelty perpetrated, how cruelty was the norm, and how patronizing disregard–so distant from the kind-hearted treatment one expects from people we call “friend”–was the default. I would set Calumny to follow this…other…like the very Dogs of War.
But I can’t. It’s not my relationship. It’s not my battle. It’s not my place.
I must set aside my desires, see to my friend’s wounds, and be content with that.
Only….I am about to embark upon a new project, a new novel, and I need characters. I need bad guys.
I just found my model.
Posted in Writing | Tagged careful or you'll end up in my novel | 1 Comment »
Back in grammar school, I did not tease girls. It was not my…not my…
Idiom, sir?
Yes, idiom. My idiom consisted of puppy-eyed longing from afar, followed by tragically romantic love notes, sometimes in conjunction with a back-channel whisper campaign extolling my many but unvaryingly abstract virtues. This engendered little more than epic disinterest, which I naturally interpreted as a sudden but inevitable betrayal, bringing on a mournful but grandiose suffering during which I would often carve my cruel beloved’s monogram into the sole of my boot so I could tromp her name into the dust with my every petulant step.
Others boys had other, more direct methods. Sitting in our rank and file desks, the girl who sat in front of such a boy was a constant target. If the girl had long hair and the boy was deft enough, he might tease out a single strand and–quietly, gently–tie that glossy thread around the body of a housefly he’d caught. Released, the fly would buzz up into the air, quickly reaching the limit of the strand. A clever boy could tie two, even three in place before releasing them to zip around her head like fighters around the mothership.
I don’t know if their methods worked better than mine. The desired culmination of this pre-teen proto-courtship ritual was never thoroughly clear to me. My personal goal (a kiss) was never achieved, but the other boys may have achieved theirs, hazy and conflicted though they were likely to be at that age.
What I do know is that at least one of those boys grew up and got a job at the Smithsonian Institution.
Posted in Low Tech | Tagged air space museum, airplane models, bizarre facts, housefly airplane, insect-powered flight, romantic love notes, smithsonian, smithsonian institution | 9 Comments »
Words are important in my house. We like to be precise in our words, but sometimes there just isn’t a word for what we want to say. If we were really industrious, we could scour the interwebs for a foreign word that sums up what we want–like Schadenfreude or tartle–but it’s so much easier (and tons more fun) simply to make up a word of our own. Do others do this, or are we just…insane certifiable weird? Growing up, my family had respect for vocabulary, but never actually created new words, but my wife’s dad was a champion word-coiner and word-repurposer, making a language subset they called Schoenfeldese. Obviously, she is the vector for this infection. But, are we alone? I compiled a list of our freshly minted neologisms to share with you, and I invite you to share yours as well. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture | Tagged coined words, making up words, neologisms, new words, personal linguistics | 7 Comments »
I am that rare thing, that forgotten demographic, that chimera of the gaming world.
I am a guy with an Xbox Gold Membership and an AARP card.
‘Struth. Even though my twitch-muscle response time took a nosedive during the Reagan administration, even though I often win the FIFO award during multiplayer gaming sessions, I still enjoy a little mayhem now and again.
The First-Person Shooter is my go-to genre in gaming, and as such, I’ve followed several of the big franchises over the years. This year saw long-awaited releases for three of them: Halo, Gears of War, and BioShock. I’ve played them all, now, and I am therefore qualified to say that there’s only franchise that did it right.
Now, since I am Old Man Gamer, my yardsticks are not the same as those freshly minted TwitchMaster 2000 players. While I appreciate the diverse weaponry and multiplayer modes and splatter-factors, I put greater weight on story line, set design, innovative gameplay, character realization, and what I call the Immersion Factor. I also care about how women are portrayed in video games, not because I’m a prude, but because I’m just sick and tired of females only existing in video games to up the titillation quotient.
So–assuming I haven’t lost you completely at this point–my findings.
Posted in Hi Tech | Tagged bioshock, bioshock infinite, game review, Gaming, gears of war, gears of war judgment, halo, halo4, video games | Leave a Comment »
So…that went well…
The Free Book Promotion for Unraveling Time was a rousing success. Over 1100 copies were downloaded. I hope you all got your free edition. (If you missed it, I’ve modified the regular price and you can now get a copy for only 99¢.)
The downside? Well, first off, Italy and I are no longer on speaking terms (no copies to the .it site), and then, obviously, it’s over, so the book is no longer on the Top Ten. Thus…back to obscurity. The promotion begat some interesting conversations about the value and future of e-books (or, to be more precise, the value and future of hardcopy books), the value and methodology of this kind of promotion, and other topics that I’ll cover in future.
Now, though, it’s time to shift gears. I need to quit screwing around. No more blah-blah-blah (if you get that classic TV reference, let me know) and lots more “On, you huskies!”
Yes, it’s time to start writing.
Posted in Writing | Tagged creative writing, novel writing, novels, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips | 5 Comments »
As part of my preparation for my next book, I’m reading and analyzing authors who exhibit a particular style. So far, it’s been Alice Hoffmann and Julio Cortazar. Now, it’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The book I chose was Love in the Time of Cholera, and several things immediately set it apart from other books I’ve read in recent years. Continue Reading »
Posted in Books, Writing | Tagged book review, books, creative writing, gabriel garcia marquez, love in the time of cholera, marquez review, novel writing, novels, Writing, writing tips | 4 Comments »
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 