Category: News and Updates


How to Fix the Oscars

Filed under: Industry, News and Updates — 3 Comments
February 25, 2015

academy-awards2I already laid out why I think the Academy Awards aren’t culturally-relevant. Lots of others have as well. What I noticed was missing, though, was how that could change.

Similarly, there’s a long-standing charge that the Hugo Awards (the equivalent of the Academy Awards for science fiction and fantasy, at least in terms of aspiration, and almost as old) are not representative of the genres the awards claim to cover. There’s a curious parallel, where we see that both sets of awards are chosen by a small minority compared to the total population of those who consume the relevant media.  Continue reading →

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Something Good at the Oscars

Filed under: News and Updates, Personal — 1 Comment
February 23, 2015

Note: If you’re not interested in a breakdown of why I don’t think the Oscars matter, scroll down to the end. You’ll know what I mean. I admit, it’s more like two stories in the same blog post, but there’s a reason I’m stringing them together.

I don’t watch the Oscars.

I really don’t care much about them at all. Usually anything that wins is something I’m not interested in anyway.

I remain convinced that this is the only reason that The Lord of the Rings won.

I remain convinced that this is the only reason that The Return of the King won.

The Academy is voted on by a relatively-secret elite, usually solidly upper-class, and who typically live in a Hollywood-shaped bubble that has a rather warped image of what the rest of the world is like. Becoming a member is basically about being popular among the membership committee, rather than having any knowledge about what movies are like as an art form. (Though I should point out that Mother Delores Hart, the semi-famous actress who kissed Elvis and then became a Catholic nun, scrupulously watches every film to cast an educated vote.)

That leads to an odd collection of what they consider worthy of a prize. Since the membership is so insular, it seems to me a good recipe for voting for a movie because you know someone who was involved with that movie; or because you don’t want to face someone at the metaphorical watercooler after voting for something that was merely a good film rather than the right film. Continue reading →

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New Lego SHIELD Helicarrier

Filed under: Just For Fun, News and Updates — Leave a comment
February 17, 2015

This blog is usually about writing and stories, but it’s also about geek stuff too. Being a bit of a Lego fan, I like it when I find an excuse to bring out that particular part of my geek life.

Well, here’s a great excuse: this gigantic new Lego set modeled after the SHIELD Helicarrier from the MCU.

legoheli

Continue reading →

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Update on Tuscany Press

Filed under: Industry, News and Updates, Publishing — 2 Comments
February 13, 2015

A few things have happened since I posted my opinion on an essay published by Tuscany Press.

Tuscany has now added a hasty disclaimer to the end of Nico Gnoci’s essay, but you have to scroll all the way to the end to see it and they haven’t bothered to clean up the formatting mistakes. The editor-in-chief also told me in an email that it is opinion, and should not be confused with the stance of Tuscany Press.

They’ve also added a new essay giving a direct rebuttal. It’s by Declan Finn, and it’s a cleaned-up version of what he already posted. I recommend reading the original for full effect, though I admit the newer version’s title (“Set Catholic Sci-Fi Argument for Stun! – Captain Kirk Responds”) is 110% better than Declan’s original.  Continue reading →

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Jim Butcher’s New Series — Release Date Announced

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February 10, 2015

It should be no surprise to any of you that I’m a bit of a Jim Butcher fan. In fact, if I don’t find anything even better in the meantime, he’s got my top vote for this year’s Hugo Awards. Skin Game was pretty awesome, as you might gather from my review.

Well, he’s been working on a new series for a while, The Cinder Spires, promised to be a steampunk fantasy. That’s a rather broad description but, knowing Butcher, we’ll get a fairly thought-out magic system with a delightful blend of brute-force and subtlety, a complex society buried under a seemingly-simplistic exterior, and a good dose of sarcastic humor.

Oh, and explosions. This book has airships, and the title of the first book is The Aeronaut’s Windlass. If we get through this novel without at least two airship crashes, I’ll be surprised. Jim Butcher tends to be rather hard on his characters’ insurance rates, and airships tend to be ever so fragile.

The release date is September 29th of this year. That’s a Tuesday, in case anyone is scheduling out their time off from work. (*cough* Novel Ninja Freelance Editing does not and will never endorse calling in sick on account of the publication of oh never mind.)  Continue reading →

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Spider-Man is Back with Marvel

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Okay, okay, the superhero Spider-Man, a comic book character that predates the X-Men, never left Marvel. Well, except in one respect: Sony bought the movie rights to the character’s franchise back when no one expected superhero movies to be this big and mainstream.

The cinematic rights to Spider-man had been bought in the 80s, and eventually wound up in Sony’s hands. Marvel has reportedly wanted them back now that they’ve been so successful with their “Cinematic Universe,” the collection of shared-world movies (and now two TV shows, Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter) that began with Iron Man in 2008. It’s been a rumor for years now that Marvel might get Spider-man back, or that Sony might relent and recognize the earnings potential that would come with crossovers.

Unlike most pie-in-the-sky, Internet-geek-community rumors . . . this has now been confirmed as true.  Continue reading →

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Author Earnings Report

Filed under: Industry, News and Updates, Publishing — Leave a comment
July 17, 2014

AuthorEarnings.com has come out with a new Amazon earnings report, and the trends are eye-opening. As they say, it’ll be fascinating to see this go through a full year’s cycle — though at that point I’ll want to see multiple years, because I’m the kind of guy who actually likes charts and stuff. (Oh, and information is good too.)

Continue reading →

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Dynamically Awesome(Con)

Filed under: Conventions, News and Updates, Personal — Leave a comment
April 16, 2014

ACDClogoThis Easter weekend happens to fall on the third weekend in April, which means only one thing: it’s time to cosplay as the Easter Bunny at AwesomeCon!

. . . okay, I won’t actually be in a bunny costume. But I will be at AwesomeCon. I was invited back to do another presentation at DC’s only genre convention (sorry, otaku, but Katsucon doesn’t count). I’ll be part of a panel this Friday at 4pm, called “Worldbuilding and Fantasy,” and giving a solo talk on Easter Sunday, “Writing Dynamic Characters,” at 11:15am.

I was at AwesomeCon last year, and it was pretty fun. It wasn’t the biggest convention I’ve ever been to (nor was it the smallest), but between what I observed and my brief conversations with Ben Penrod, the convention organizer, I could tell it wasn’t going to be satisfied with a small footprint.  Continue reading →

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Rising Book Sales Lift All Authors (Or: “Shut Up and Write!”)

Filed under: Industry, News and Updates, Publishing, Resources, Writing Tips — 6 Comments
February 25, 2014

You may or may not have heard the latest faux controversy about J. K. Rowling. No, it has nothing to do with her characters. Instead, it’s a Huffington Post writer named Lynn Shepherd complaining that Rowling is such a good author that she’s crowding out everyone else. She tells Rowling that she should just stop writing and give other people a chance. If you don’t want to click on her article, here’s the summary: Rowling has too much of a market share, which means every book she publishes is a book overlooked from another author who hasn’t become famous yet.

There has been a lot of pushback so far. I won’t post more than one link, mainly because the BBC’s article has more than enough links from successful authors who say this is ridiculous. I wasn’t even going to do more than link to that article, because every single point has been refuted multiple times by the authors linked there, and that’s just a small sample so far. What could I add? Continue reading →

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NSA Protest Day

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February 11, 2014

This ninja doesn’t like being spied on.

The reason I picked the moniker “novel ninja” to describe my editing philosophy is because I don’t really like being the center of attention. I’ve worked to fix that over the years, but when it comes to editing I prefer to let the author take the limelight. It’s his or her story, after all. I just helped make it better.

I also don’t like talking politics . . . well, on this blog. (My personal Facebook account is quite opinionated.) While I’m open about my beliefs on just about anything, I want this blog to be about writing and stories and not get bogged down by arguments about the sort of things we go to stories to find solace from. Continue reading →

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