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History and Stories

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December 30, 2013

I can go on and on about stories until my voice goes raw or my hands cramp up, depending on how I’m talking to you. Because of that, it often surprises many people that I don’t have a single degree in literature. For now, my highest degree is actually in history.

Why is that? Well, I maintain that a history degree — assuming that you’ve had a wide-ranging focus and look at many different cultures — is one of the best fields to truly teach you how to write. That’s because most lit degrees teach you about other books, but they don’t tend to teach you about people. Make no mistake, both history and stories are fundamentally about people. View full article »

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Merry Christmas

Filed under: Just For Fun, Personal — Leave a comment
December 25, 2013

That’s all.

I have reviews and advice to write for you all, and I’m continuing to respond to email from the audience. For now, though, it’s Christmas. No matter what it means to you, it means something. Merry Christmas!

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Superheroes Redesigned

Filed under: Just For Fun, Plugs and Promotions — Leave a comment
December 3, 2013

I’m not a DC Comics fan. I like Batman, but usually the rest of the universe seems . . . stilted. Yes, I enjoyed many of the animated series while I was growing up (and even more after I decided being grown-up is a bit overrated), but I just can’t get into the mythology and worldbuilding. Too many fictionalized yet supposedly “realistic” locations, too much space between “gritty” and “heroic,” too much “hey, that sounds good, let’s go with that — who’s going to think about it too deeply?” View full article »

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Agents and Heroines

Filed under: Reviews, Writing Tips — 1 Comment
December 2, 2013

It’s been a while since my last Agents of SHIELD review, which could be interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm. This is true, to an extent. I haven’t been wowed. I’ve been entertained enough to give it a viewing when I need a break, but not so entertained that I feel like talking about it afterwards. I did catch up this Thanksgiving, though, so I figured I’d write a review. Spoilers ahead if you care about that, mainly for the episode “The Well.”  View full article »

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Submission Stress

Filed under: Editing, Industry, Publishing, Writing Tips — 1 Comment

One of my authors just submitted a book. Well, I say she’s one of mine, but so far we haven’t engaged in actual financial business. She’s an old friend that I give advice to and help craft things. I haven’t had time to go over her book, but I’ve seen her writing and I hand-picked her for an upcoming series I’m managing next year (so she will be one of my authors, officially, in about six months). I’ve also helped her craft her cover letter, pitch, and so on.

She just bit the bullet on a submission she’s been putting off for literally years now. Now she has to wait for up to a year to get a response. It can be an intimidating thing. In fact, it can be a stressful thing — for good reason, though not a “good enough” reason. View full article »

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The Day of the Doctor (Spoiler-Free Review)

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November 25, 2013

In my last post, I mentioned how I have not been impressed with Steven Moffat as a showrunner, and that perhaps his talents are best suited to doing single episodes. I’ll also add that taking direction from someone else and making their work better might also be in his talents, because in this special episode he takes a lot of inconsistencies from RTD’s run as head writer and explains them into one coherent whole (or at least as coherent as a time-travel show is likely to get, no matter who is writing it). View full article »

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Fifty Years of Doctor Who

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November 24, 2013

Well, dear readers, it’s the weekend to talk about Doctor Who. I thought I’d share a little bit about my own personal experiences with the show.

Once upon a time in the United States, a man could walk down the street in a brown coat, floppy hat, and a ridiculously long multicolored scarf, and fully expect that no one would recognize who he was supposed to be. Today . . . well, most people wouldn’t recognize him, but that’s only because he’s not wearing a bowtie.

I’m an old-school fan. I started in the 90s, during the sixteen-year hiatus, when getting Doctor Who back on the air seemed less likely than getting new episodes of Firefly today. Yes, dear readers, there was such a dark age of television. Back then, Doctor Who was nearly unheard-of in the United States, and even today plenty of people here will refer to Christopher Eccleston as “the first Doctor.” They certainly wouldn’t get the Doctor Who reference slipped into the finale of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  View full article »

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When to Use Dialog Tags?

Filed under: Editing, Writing Tips — Leave a comment
November 8, 2013

Dialog tags are sometimes tricky to use. When to use them? Why? Where? How much?

I’m not going to assume you don’t know what dialog tags are. I’m not even going to go into grammar and whether you should ever use “said” versus something else. I’m just going to give you four rules of thumb that I give my authors.  View full article »

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Editor Peeves: Copyright Notices

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November 7, 2013

Having just spotted another one, I decided to detail this particular peeve. I can’t say it’s a personal one, because I’ve never met an editor who said they didn’t mind it.

If you send in a query letter and/or manuscript and say that your work is copyrighted, I’m 99% certain to reject it. It’s very insulting and shows that you are an amateur. View full article »

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War of the Worlds

Filed under: Just For Fun — Leave a comment
October 30, 2013

Now, live on your radio, we bring you the latest from the alien invasion. But first, these messages.

It’s been a really busy month for me. I’ve got posts I want to write, but between work and my new physical therapy program (which is doing wonders for my mobility), I’ve fallen behind on nearly everything. I’ll hopefully be caught up next week and start doing more blogging.

However, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the 75th anniversary of the original War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. It’s not only a wonderful production (seriously, listen to it if you have the chance; I have it on old-fashioned cassettes, so I should get a digital version myself sometime soon), but it’s even more notable for the panic it caused. View full article »

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