Category: General


Post-AwesomeCon Update

Filed under: Conventions — 1 Comment
June 7, 2016

This past weekend was my fourth AwesomeCon, which was also the fourth AwesomeCon, period. I’ve seen it grow over those four iterations, and I’m very glad that I’m in the neighborhood. It’s great fun, with great people and great entertainment, including some people, stories, games, and more that I probably never would have encountered without it.

Speaking at this convention is truly a highlight of my year, and has been since the beginning. Despite its size (starting out as a postage-stamp-sized event and growing this year to be a so-far-estimated 50k+ mass of humans, elves, dwarves, robots, and space marines), it’s always been laid-back, relaxed, and focused on fun. I’ve been to cons that took themselves too seriously, or let their success get to them, and AwesomeCon has always been the most welcoming, joyful event I’ve ever been to. Continue reading →

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Updates: Deadpool, Originality, and Dresden

Filed under: Fantasy, Genres, Just For Fun, Plots, Plugs and Promotions, Recommended Reading, Resources, Reviews, Superhero, Worldbuilding, Writing Tips — Leave a comment
February 17, 2016

No, that’s not all one topic (though it sounds like it would make an interesting discussion). I’m just giving you an update on some things over at my other site that you might be interested in.  Continue reading →

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Elantris

Filed under: Fantasy, Personal, Recommended Reading, Reviews — 2 Comments
December 22, 2015

20151222_000616[1]Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity.

These are the opening words to one of the best novels ever written: Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson. I first read it in 2011, barely more than a year into my career as an editor. It immediately became one of my favorites, if not my most favorite novel ever.

It had been sitting on my shelf for years, though, waiting to be read. The problem was that the paperback copy doesn’t tell you what the story is about, and so I never knew if I was in the mood for it. My reading list is so long, and I stopped counting at a hundred, that I kept deciding to try something else. This is after reading both Mistborn and The Way of Kings. I’d heard good things, but not knowing what to expect kept making me pick something else.

Well, now it’s the only novel I’ve ever considered worth getting in a collector’s quality leatherbound edition. And not to give you a clickbait kind of hook, but what Brandon Sanderson put on the personalization inside made me tear up.

Considering how I feel about this book, I should have done a review on it years ago. I even said on this blog that it deserves its own review. For some reason, I kept putting it off. Maybe it’s just that I didn’t know if I could do it justice. I’m glad I didn’t, though. If I had, then I couldn’t have given my readers this story.  Continue reading →

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Writing Characters in Pain

Filed under: Characters, Personal, Writing Tips — 3 Comments
November 19, 2015

high-pain-toleranceThere’s a common misconception about people with high pain tolerances. They tend to be big, beefy, and burly, usually men, and if female they’re all badasses. They shrug off bullets and sword-thrusts like they’re minor distractions; they grunt from the pain and rarely, if ever, scream.

Now, I frequently impress people around me with my high pain tolerance. Most of that is in awe; some few, such as my doctors and a close friend who helps me exercise, approach it with worry, because pain is an important thing. I have such a high pain tolerance that I often automatically ignore signals that I should really stop what I’m doing and rest. I threw out my back (a little over a year ago) and my knee (a couple months ago) precisely because I could just work through the pain . . . until I suddenly couldn’t.

How do I do that? Well, it’s not because I’m tougher than other people. I’m not beefy or burly, and I’m only big if I’m standing up and haven’t turned sideways. It’s never about your mass; it’s all about what you’re used to. Establishing that difference is the key to writing action heroes and other characters that deal with pain through the course of your story.  Continue reading →

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Jessica Jones is Not a Morning Person

Filed under: News and Updates, Reviews, Superhero — 1 Comment
September 28, 2015

If you haven’t seen it already, Netflix released a teaser for Jessica Jones over the weekend. It is a thing of beauty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3s178GW0Q&ab_channel=Netflix

As my friend and fellow blogger (over at The Catholic Geeks) Andy Hauge observed, it sums up the tone of the show perfectly.  Continue reading →

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The Hugos, Now with No Mask to Hide Behind

Filed under: Commentary, Conventions, Fantasy, Science Fiction — 13 Comments
August 24, 2015

This has been a very busy summer. Between work and family commitments, I’ve been running around so much that when I get back home I just really haven’t had the energy to blog. Heck, my work has been cutting into my vital goof-off time, and we all know how important that is. I didn’t have time to review a single item on the Hugo ballot this year like I’d expected, and I quite literally finalized my ballot only on the last day. I had to skip the fan and related work categories, too; I just didn’t have the time to finish those.

This last weekend was particularly hectic and stressful, to the point that reading about Hugo kerfluffles online was relaxing by comparison. I didn’t even think I should blog about it, but decided I could probably squeeze off a quick post.

The short version: I can’t say I’m surprised. In fact, I can’t even say I’m disappointed.  Continue reading →

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Emails

Filed under: General, Personal — Leave a comment
July 27, 2015

Just a quick announcement: I know that some of you are waiting on emails. Some of you, in fact, have been very patient. I’m getting to you. 🙂 This has been the busiest summer I’ve had in over ten years!

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Update Post! AwesomeCon and More

Filed under: Conventions, Personal, Plugs and Promotions — Leave a comment
June 9, 2015

WorkingWell, I’ve been silent. That is, I’ve been silent on this blog. Why? Because I’m trying to devote as much effort to my main job as possible. That is, jobs, but the priority goes to the company that pays me the most for my editorial and research skills. That company has been very generous with letting me balance going to places like AwesomeCon (and three more events this year, possibly five), so I’m trying to not take that for granted.

Sadly, thanks to a flare-up with my fibromyalgia that coincided with AwesomeCon weekend, well, I’m a bit behind. But I’m taking a few moments here to talk about the convention and a few other things before I let too much time pass.  Continue reading →

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Hugo Voter Packet

Filed under: Conventions, Industry, News and Updates, Publishing, Reviews — 2 Comments
May 18, 2015

Hugo-Award-e1422355571917Things have been very busy on my end, as I deal with a few major projects at my other job and launch a new collaborative blog site (more on that later), and also prepare for my presentations at AwesomeCon.

I’m just dashing off a quick post here to cover a bit of Hugo news: the Hugo Awards Voter Packet is out. Continue reading →

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Avengers: Age of Fisking

Filed under: Guest Posts, Reviews, Superhero — 13 Comments
May 14, 2015

Editor’s Note: Welcome, once again, the lovely and talented Lori Janeski in another Novel Ninja guest post. This time, we present her debut fisk, as she decides to tackle the massive Social Fiction Warrior response to Avengers: Age of Ultron by targeting a particularly egregious essay.

I should add that Lori is Texan — and yes, even fisks are bigger in Texas. This one clocks in at over 13,000 words, enough for a good-sized novelette. Strap in, grab some popcorn, and warm up your mouse-using fingers, because you’ve got some scrolling ahead of you.

Enjoy!

If you ever want to learn how to make a complete and total idiot of yourself in front of the whole internet, just read this essay I found: “Age of Robots: How Marvel Is Killing the Popcorn Movie.”  If you’re not into being an idiot, you can go ahead and read it for its entertainment potential, because it is so utterly ridiculous, and yet trying to be completely serious and intellectual and failing miserably, that it will make you either laugh your head off, or crawl under a rock and weep for humanity.  Maybe both.

Now, the author, Sady Doyle, is allowed to have any opinion she wants.  That’s part of life.  I don’t have to agree with her, and she doesn’t have to agree with me.  But when you’re being this stupid while pretending to be smart, those of us who are not stupid have to say something to make sure you aren’t successful in convincing people that you are smart.  To borrow a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, “I respect your right to free speech, but not your stupidity.”

Omar

Normally, I try very hard to disagree with the argument, not attack the person.  This article, however, is such a piece of trash that my politeness went right out the window.  Doyle is so far beyond stupid that she has reached the status of “contemptible,” and doesn’t deserve a polite, intellectual discussion about the merits, or lack thereof, of Age of Ultron.

If you don’t want to read an angry article about how stupid someone else is, complete with the occasional vulgarity, then don’t finish reading.  Go elsewhere now.  You have been warned, so there better not be any nasty comments on the blog or Facebook about how mean I am.

Oh, and if you can’t guess, there are spoilers ahead.  I know Matthew has a spoiler graphic somewhere around here . . . aha!

Spoiler Warning

There.  If you missed that, you deserve your spoilers. Continue reading →

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