1 I’m at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. Dude came with me. He went off to have a meeting with someone at the Google headquarters in Mountain View – “I used to live in Mountain View,” I said, with maybe just a touch of nostalgia, which is odd, because that was not an…
1 If this blog has a purpose, it’s to explore the question of how to be a successful professional writer in the twenty first century. Part of that sums up in two words: author platform. I’m not sure when I first heard the term, or realized it now applies to me. My understanding of ‘platform’…
Fear of failure is a bitch. It’s like the bitch god or bitch goddess – depending on your preferred visualization – holding sway over so many of us. We learn young – especially in this culture – that people can be either winners or losers, and to be a loser – to Fail – is…
1 Reading came first. It always does. Reading is the inhale, writing is the exhale. I once read somewhere that kids who like to read fall into two groups. The first naturally picks up reading from their environment: they see their parents reading, they find books in the house, they go to libraries and bookstores…
*cross-posted to Storytellers Unplugged When I was in university, one of my closest friends asked me if writing fiction couldn’t be a “hobby” instead of something I staked my future and my livelihood on. I was adamant that it could not. I had to create or die, dammit! I was born to be a writer!…
My first tweet of the day: My protagonist already a bit different than originally envisioned; you don’t know who your people are until you start to write them. Or at least I don’t. I can make all the notes I want, brainstorm, write up elaborate backstories, pick apart their psychology, deliberately choose bits of personality…
A reader had asked about the title of the forthcoming zombie anthology that includes a story of mine called “Best Served Cold”*. The editor of the antho, John Skipp, took it upon his gracious self to answer the question in full, so I’ll just reprint him here: The book’s called ZOMBIES: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE HUNGRY…
1 So I’m planning a new blog (as part of a new website) and I’ve been wondering what to do about this LJ. What makes sense to me is to keep this livejournal as very much that — a journal — where I can write about whatever doesn’t fit the new blog (Pop Angel: The…
