I must have been about eight years old. Our neighbor, a grandmotherly type whose children had all grown up, was cleaning out her garage and brought over a box of books, mostly Whitman Classics hardcovers. I could have them if I wanted them, she told me. I wasn’t a big reader at eight, but it…
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Some critics and some unhappy fans have said that Neil Gaiman’s latest book is too short and too unremarkable, not worthy of rubbing covers with Neverwhere or American Gods; many latch onto the fact that this book started as a short story, and they shout “Aha! Gotcha, Gaiman! You should have kept it short. Clearly…
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Okay, just to get this out of the way first, let me say that I’m not one of those writers who feels the need to respond to every poor or weak review of his work. People can say they don’t like my stuff, and I don’t feel like I have to defend it publicly. However,…
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Several years ago, I was lurking in the shelves of a used bookstore looking at the science fiction section–all the way at the back of the store. It was one of those stores that functioned largely as a paperback exchange: if you brought in 3 books, they’d give you credit for one of theirs. It…
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I’ve put together a playlist for my novel Strictly Analog–songs that would either fit the mood of some of the scenes or that go along with the story. I’ve linked the tracks to other cites where you can listen (mostly YouTube). Think of it as the soundtrack for the book: 1. Charles Mingus. “II B.S./Haitian…
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Take Back Tomorrow is available as a free Kindle download today at Amazon.com. Eddie Royce thinks he’s got things all figured out. He’s managed to cheat the system and gotten himself published in the sci fi pulps by “borrowing” plots from Shakespeare. He doesn’t mind being a cheat and a plagiarist as long as no…
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Last post, I talked a bit about character motivation. Think of this as Part 2, but with a twist. To recap, briefly, if we’re looking at a major character, readers need to know what motivates that character, what gets him or her going, what causes the character to risk life and limb or to dig…
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As another round of student papers (the final set for this year) gets ready to come at me, I’m gearing up for looking at more careless mistakes: seemingly random uses of their, there, and they’re; sloppy pronoun references; uses of “now and days” or “now in days” instead of nowadays. Then there are the students…
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