I'm not certain if it was a case of great minds thinking alike, or just something in the air, but Thursday I woke up with fragments "Mr. Roboto" and "Ironman" playing in my mind's ear. Which got me to thinking about robots, and my aversion to them as an author. Part of this is because... Continue Reading →
Tools for Survival
Before I was a SF geek, I was a survivalist geek. And yes, I mean that just as it sounds. I grew up in the woods, reading books about everything, but for a long time I gravitated towards books like Julie of the Wolves, Call of the Wild, Tom Brown's semi-fictional survival guides, Wildwoods Wisdom,... Continue Reading →
Saying goodbye is hard to do
No, I'm not leaving MGC. But I am saying goodbye, at least for awhile, to a set of characters that have been with me for a decade. When I sat down to write the book, I knew it would be difficult. I love these characters but the story has run its course. The series is... Continue Reading →
Creeping Tyranny
It's actually not all that common to have the Evil Tyrant take over the land and impose crushing new rules that the Hero and friends spend the book trying to overthrow. No, more commonly the Evil Tyrant replaces the previous Evil Tyrant (meet the new boss, just like the old boss) and changes who's on... Continue Reading →
Seeing Your Writing
Sorry, today I'm not doing my installment of how to do covers. We're traveling out of town come Thursday, not back till Monday, and it's one of those events where there will be pictures, so I need to be decently dressed. We start with this part of how writers see -- or don't see --... Continue Reading →
Swords For The Modern Writer
The thing to know when you go to choose a sword is which miscreants you’ll be using it on. No. No, wait. The first thing to consider when looking for an appropriate sidearm is what you’re going to wear- Stop. No, the very first thing to consider is whether your locality will even allow you... Continue Reading →
On Reviews (Redux)
Last week, I wrote about the need to read, write and review and not necessarily in that order. I promised to be back with more on the topic. I'll be honest, that's not going to happen today. I'm up to my eyes finishing several projects and deadlines are looming. That means my mind is busy... Continue Reading →
Reality and expectations
I’m neck-deep in construction work on our little farm – we had – we thought, an agreement until December on the place we’re renting, so that when we moved the house (structure) -- planned for April -- onto the property, we’d have time to do the whole making it habitable part. Unfortunately that just got... Continue Reading →
One of these things is not like the other
After getting a few reviews of Scaling the Rim that graded it as a romance, not a science fiction book, I got curious. So, the past few months I've been reading several Romances, subcategory SF to try to figure out the difference between Science Fiction, subcategory romance and Romance, subcategory science fiction. At first glance,... Continue Reading →
5 Steps to Open a Small Business
How do I start a small business? I’ve been asked that a couple of times recently, and my flippant answer is ‘you just do.’ And in some ways, it’s that easy. In others... Look. I can only give you loose guidelines, because opening and running a business is going to be different in every country,... Continue Reading →