DAVE FREER | Mad Genius Club

Sep 17

Writers and death

‘That I should rise and you should not.‘

I’m somewhat under-slept, as I had an ambulance call-out, and then spent much of the rest of the night with my littlest cat, who was in some distress. This did not end well, which leaves me less coherent than my usual incoherence. I’m tired and somewhat emotionally drained.

It’s been a rough period of partings for me. I had to deal with death first hand as a young conscript medic back before the dinosaurs went extinct, and the older you get the more often it seems to happen. I’m as soft as goose-grease, but it had to be dealt with, and as well as you possibly could – not only because the death of any man diminishes me, but because the living need you. That’s doubly true if you’re the one either deciding they have to die or doing your best to prevent that. They don’t need you less-than-competent because of emotion. Read more

Sep 10

33 Comments

Monday-itis

Image: Pixabay

Monday has been cancelled until further notice due to a complete lack of interest on the part of all participants. Tuesday is not looking so good either. And last we heard Wednesday only had ‘half way to Friday’ going for it.

One of the things about being self-employed (as a writer) is that every day is Monday (and you thought Sarah was a sadist). Fortunately it is a field which is well supplied with masochists – or at the very least, hopeless optimists. As you might gather I agree with Sarah’s description of the field – especially trad publishing. Well, with one caveat. I think she’s too generous to it. Read more

Sep 3

56 Comments

Legacy

I know that I have this legacy that will endure long after this mortal envelope become worm food and people have forgotten my name. I have, through the dint of unreserved effort and natural talent not granted to you lesser mortals, achieved much in the field which is my métier: being a good bad example. Indeed, I shall live on in the memory of mankind as a legend, immortalized in minatory tales to the tender young ‘uns which all go something like: ‘don’t be that guy!’

So: my immortality is assured. What are you guys going to do?

Heh. Ok, as you can tell it’s not something that troubles me much. I figure my reputation while I’m alive might sell a few books, but otherwise I’m not deeply concerned about what the world thinks of me right now, let alone when I’m dead. There are a few people whose opinion of me matters to me – but that’s not most of the world, and certainly I have no craving for respect from people I don’t respect. Read more

Sep 3

16 Comments

Dragon Awards

Foundations

If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?

One of the things I’ve learned in the process of building our own farm from nothing more than a patch of bush with a fantastic sea view, is that starting from absolutely nothing is one hell of a lot harder than starting from something. Literally, anything, but ideally something that requires little more than a redecorate and moving your furniture in is definitely this game on ‘lowest difficulty’ setting. From the regulatory/bureaucratic quagmire point of view, any sort of existing house, especially if it has electrical and sewage systems in place is going to save you a mint of money and may substantially reduce your chances of informing the FBI that your local council has a video of President Trump kissing Vladimir hidden somewhere on their premises.

Starting from nothing… well, you MAY get what you want, to your own desires and design. On the other hand, speaking from personal experience here, you may well end up building, taking down and rebuilding… at least three times to achieve something sort of Okay, in a good light, or at least when viewed through ‘I do not want to do it a fourth time, and it isn’t falling down immediately. Besides, it has character!’ Read more

Aug 20

63 Comments

Making young bookworms: looking to the future

Today’s post comes out of a librarian acquaintance commenting on the new YA and MG list he had to buy from, and this post on YA from David Farland. Now, David Farland is one of the mildest and politest people in the entire writing world. He makes a genuine effort to be supportive of other writers, and he goes out of his way to be nice and kind – even to those who really are behaving like their up-bringing was done in a sty. You can read his post here, and you might want to consider rewarding a decent man by buying the YA book he mentions at the end. Read more

Aug 13

132 Comments

Survivors

I haven’t paid a great deal of attention WorldCon this year: not my circus, not my monkeys. I must admit I’m very bitter with Nora Jemison. If she’d managed to hold off for another 24 hours with her magnanimous decision that she would, after all, grace the fortunate attendees with her participation in programming, I’d have been 50 bucks richer, instead of 10 bucks down (yes, 5:1 best odds I could get.) But other than that expected result, I haven’t paid much attention. Apparently John Scalzi informed us that the ‘SJW’ did not in fact eat each other alive, but created ‘a field of programming that is interesting, educational, and representative of the current state of sf.’ Oh, and apparently ‘mostly everyone’s happy.’ Read more

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Posts from the ‘DAVE FREER’ Category

Writers and death

Monday-itis

Legacy

Dragon Awards

Foundations

Making young bookworms: looking to the future

Survivors

Authors

Some Books by Mad Geniuses!

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