Anonymosity
Today, you lucky bastards, you get a free rant. There’s an online epidemic where people feel free to trash talk all over the place. I call it anonymosity. In real life, if you get in someone’s face, you might well get your ass kicked. Or worse. Lacking the stones for a true confrontation, there’s a [...]
Workshop Wednesday – cover art II
SPOTLIGHT ON ANNE CAIN Here’s the follow up to the cover art discussion from last week: When good art goes bad and how to stop it. Anne Cain was kind enough to give me some time (thank you, Anne!) and as part of her interview with me, she offered some really interesting thoughts on design [...]
random news generator
Welcome to another exciting edition of random Tuesday. random link — Like Oddly Enough? Check this thing out for all the news that’s fit to invent. random update — EC rejected my Quickie. No clue what I’ll do with it, but I stand by the experiment and I still love the story. Moving on. Last [...]
SBD – feet of clay, stupid shit and other bitching
I’ve noticed something about myself, something I need to work on. You see, I get crushes on blog sites. Like I think they’re so funny and so cool and I have to read every day. Because they agree with me, I think they must be the smartest people on earth. But one day (and it [...]
Odd Friday
I get a lot of my ideas from Reuters’Oddly Enough. There’s a scene in Your Alibi that came from a piece about penguins stranded on an highway after an accident. A major conflict in Good Touch comes from a group in Michoacan that calls itself The Family, also straight from the papers. On Sept 6 [...]
Workshop Wednesday – cover art
SPOTLIGHT ON APRIL MARTINEZ After our discussion on bad ebook covers, I emailed a couple of cover artists whose work I admire to find out the inside scoop. April Martinez was kind enough to give me a little time (thank you, April!), so first I’ll offer the links she provided, which you may find edifying. [...]
random essay generator
random link — Try this thing out. Do you work in Academia? Pressed for time and need to publish? No need to fret! This will generate an essay perfectly documented (and absolutely meaningless). One professor of Physics actually used it and his article was published in about four journals before he confessed his article didn’t [...]
SBD: random bitching redux
You know what’s great? Meeting a new person and having them ask, “So what do you do?” You tell that person you’re an author and they immediately say, “Oh yeah? I’ve thought about writing a book. I have this great idea…” Everyone thinks they can write. Hell, everyone thinks they should write. It’s an incredibly [...]
Ebook Thursday
The Zodiac Series VirgoFateful Fieldtripby Emma Bruce First, let me say, Fatefield Fieldtrip received a DNF from me (did not finish). It begins with a schoolteacher about to puke from walking through the Birth tunnel at a museum. That was pulled right out of a Monk episode! Now, okay, I admire the decision to keep [...]
Workshop Wednesday – first pages
We all know how important first pages are. They often make the difference in whether someone is drawn into the story or decides they’re not interested after all. So it’s pretty crucial that we get good at recognizing whether our first pages have enough oomph to hook our readers. And that’s why today’s topic is [...]