This is a post about art, because I’ve been an artist a lot longer than I’ve been a writer. Playing with useless objects and patterns seems not only to be a primate penchant, but one found in upper avian species as well. Smart creatures may not be able to eat shiny, pretty things – but…
Read More Celebrating Mindful BeautyOn January 3, 2013 I’ll be joining ‘The Next Big Thing’ blog hop with a post about Moro’s Shield, the sequel to Moro’s Price. In the meantime, take a look here at Missy Welsh’s blog, and her teaser TNBT post about her erotic space opera novel The Healing Touch! http://missywelsh.com/blog/
Read More Coming attractionsSome readers may get that instantly. Many won’t. That’s fine. On a cold moonlit morning, with Yoko Kanno’s ‘Tank!’ as the daily earworm, it’s just my way of saying that Cowboy BeBop still rules after 14 years. As anime classic, space opera tragicomedy, existential exploration – and now a remastered version with clearer colors and…
Read More See You Space Cowboy…A lot has happened in the world since I last chimed in on this blog. I could talk about gun violence and mental health, in the wake of numerous high-profile and tragic shootings. But many people are already doing that, to far better effect. I can shake my head at the political gamesmanship over the…
Read More ‘My Turn’ and the end of an eraIt’s art. It’s marketing, full-on Mad Men style. It’s both, but cover art is actually a lot closer to marketing. The one thing cover art should probably never be is art therapy or uncritical self-validation. Starry-eyed would-be authors need to understand this sooner rather than later. In just the last year alone, I’ve seen several…
Read More Cover Art ConundrumsIn the late 70’s I was a Tolkien geek. I’ve mentioned this before. I wasn’t a Tolkien geek in San Francisco or New York or any other big city, where I might have seen ‘Frodo Lives’ painted on a wall, hung out with other Tolkien club members, and visited science fiction & fantasy conventions. Nope.…
Read More Middle Earth MerchThanksgiving Day (cooking, eating, couch-nesting, and family fights.) Black Friday (shopping in the chain stores and big-box stores, for often illusory bargains.) Shop Local Saturday (support your local businesses! Trust me, you will mourn them if they go.) Cyber Monday (buy everything online, some of which you probably cynically priced at a chain or local…
Read More The stages of Thanksgiving‘Tis the season when I wax emotional about the folks who’ve made my writing life possible: My friends and family, who have put up with so much to get me to this place. My adversaries, who’ve added spice and determination to my life, tested my limits, and taught me the value of both humility and…
Read More Holiday gratitude…and can its marketing staff. Like many people, I don’t go to movie theaters anymore. I’m selfish. With access to a friend’s good satellite service and decent home theater, the only things I’m missing out on are screaming kids in movies too adult for them, people talking over the movie, overpriced tickets, even more overpriced…
Read More The flop that wasn’t, or why Disney needs to trust itself…Andrew Piper says that e-readers will doom the act of reading. He even has a new book out about it, from the University of Chicago Press, which I am fairly certain will also be available in digital form. Edited to add: yep, it’s on Kindle. He wrote a Slate article about it, too. I call…
Read More The death of reading?Last May, author Neil Gaiman gave a commencement speech portraying the artist’s life. “Walk toward the mountain,” he said, meaning do those things that will add to your chosen career. Give weight to choices that will help you become a better artist, not merely those which pay bills and siphon time and love. Really, I…
Read More Neil Gaiman explains why we are hereToday, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that almost no one in America has heard about, and everyone who buys and sells online SHOULD know! Ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, and even the old-fashioned garage sale are under threat from big business…who wants to make sure that consumers do not have the right to re-sell things…
Read More Kirtsaeng vs John Wiley & Sons, and why you should careOkay, okay, so I grabbed this off the HuffPo site after a friend frantically texted me about it. My first thought was ‘Oh, noes, the Joss has Drunk the Powdered Poison-laced Artifical Beverage!!’ But I just couldn’t see that from the man who made Buffy and Browncoats. And I was right. Go. Watch. Laugh. And…
Read More Joss Whedon endorses Romney apocalypseCompiling plot change notes on COLD COMFORT. 18K that I’m happy with on MORO’S SHIELD, with another 11K to be condensed from notes. BLOODSHADOW in revision. I’m holding off on MASK and LEOPARD until I finish SHIELD. I kicked all short stories out of the way for now, since I don’t need any more plotbunnies underfoot. The…
Read More October 26 updates…so, I’m just going to post the link to Toni McGee Causey’s blog post about why we need ‘escapist’ fiction. http://www.murderati.com/blog/2008/11/23/comfort-reading.html Many times in my life, books have carried me through some rough real-life situations. Maybe they were not all brilliant literary examples. But they told me stories that transcended the world, for just long…
Read More I could not say this so wellThe Gods of Random (or at least the generators of Random.org) have declared two winners in this weekend’s comment contest: The necklace goes to Emily W. The ebook goes to Judi P. In Emily’s case, I’ll need a deliverable mailing address (no P.O. Box please). For Judi, I just need your preferred ebook format, since…
Read More ‘No Pouting’ Party contest winners!A quick break from the ‘No Pouting’ Party. Like every blog, this one gets spammed. Often. Most of the time the spam filters lock it up, but I go through occasionally to see if there are useful nuggets. If I get several dozen great ones, they might become further chopped up and turned into art.…
Read More The ongoing spam collectionAs GayRomLit winds down in Albuquerque, the ‘No Pouting’ Party seems to be puttering along with excerpts, comments, and contest wins. I’ll post two lists of entrants later tonight, and draw via Random.org tomorrow morning. (Hint, hint, there’s still time to put your name down for an ebook or a necklace.) I’m grateful for the…
Read More October 21 updates(I loaded these snippets as part of a four-day online celebration in tandem with the GayRomLit 2012 retreat. Now that the conference is over, the Moro snippets are going back into the outtake vault.) If a blank space bothers you, imagine daffodils:
Read More ‘No Pouting’ Party, day three: character interview, R rating for sexual content(Now that GayRomLit is over, these snippets are going back in the outtake vault, where they may or may not show up in finished manuscripts.) If a blank space bothers you, imagine lilies:
Read More “No Pouting’ Party Day 2: Attack of the Snippets