Category Archives: Writing

All things pertaining to writing

One Last Time: Returning to the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

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“One last time
Relax, have a drink with me
One last time
Let’s take a break tonight
And then we’ll teach them how to say goodbye
To say goodbye
You and I”

— George Washington to Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton: An American Musical

PFD_3rd-SQUAREIt’s hard to believe the summer is in full swing, but here we are; and if you’re following any of my social media streams, you know I’ve been busy…

  • A new podcast is in full swing. (I’ll share Episode #010 here when it goes live. Trying a few new things with this podcast.)
  • The Third Edition of Podcasting for Dummies is in the final edits, and both Chuck and I could not be happier. (And it’s been an absolute blast.
  • A new idea is still coming together, and the feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive.

But after a really hard start to 2017, I thought I had brought my year back on track. Thing is, I was putting off something that I know has been lurking in the shadows—the final installment to the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.

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4 Lessons from Wonder Woman for Writers

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wonder-woman-2017-5Last weekend, I — as many of my fellow nerds, geeks, and moviegoers also did around the world — made Wonder Woman a record-breaking film. Single-handedly, the Amazonian Princess of Themyscira pulled off a true wonder: an incredible cinematic experience from DC Studios. Guess it really does take a woman to do the job of two men.

But I digress.

Let’s just address the 800-pound Doomsday in the room: Batman V. Superman (where Gal Gadot’s Diana was unveiled) was nothing short of a red hot mess. It made its money back, sure, but so did Star Wars: Episode One, Two, and Three, so please, don’t use that as a dog in this hunt. On account of BVS’ reception, a lot was riding on Wonder Woman. A lot. Perhaps the future of DC’s cinematic franchise.

I’ve had a week to process it and some things have cemented for me about this film: Continue reading →

COVER REVEAL: Unleash by Lauren B. Harris

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laurenHoly Hannah in a Helicopter, how did it become April already?

So after attempting to get myself back on track with blogging, quite a few things happened (and yeah, I’m planning to follow up on the blog about the news, news that you know about if you’re listening to The Shared Desk) and I’ve got a few ideas for blogposts bouncing around in my head, but here we are in April.

Back to it, right?

I’m getting back on the blogging horse with a shout out to the lovely lady off to the left — Lauren B. Harris.

“Hold up,” you may ask, “is that Lauren Harris as in she who wrote for The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences?”

Or you might asking, “Hold up, is that Lauren Harris as in she who offers her vocal talents on Audible.com?”

Or maybe you ask “Hold up, is that Lauren Harris as in Scribe who appears on The Shared Desk?”

To which I say, “Yes, that Lauren Harris.” Multi-talented, and even a cover model in her own right. Lauren is one of those super-creatives that I hope to keep pace with.

Well, here’s the thing… Continue reading →

3 Tips on Getting Back on Track When Life Knocks You Down

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But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Tae a Moose
Robert Burns, 1785

 

1000px-Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895January is wrapping up this week, and for me this month has been less than kind. In fact, it has been a right train wreck. When I rang in the new year with friends and family, and celebrated its beginning with a day of great games, good food, and the best of people, I made plans to get cracking on a few major projects that would carry me into the summer. The first project was, of course, Operation: Endgame, the final adventure of Agents Books and Braun. Then there’s the fifth and final season of Tales from the Archives, kicked off on Christmas Day with our Christmas Special. I’ve also got an idea percolating pretty hard in my noggin to the point of where I’m collecting a lot of resources and researching hard how to pull this idea off. All this, and I’ve got a special photoshoot in the works for The Pixel Project and was gearing up for my first con appearance of 2017 alongside Nick Kelly and Robert V. Aldrich.

Destiny-ComeAtMe

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Six Characters in Search of an Author: A Review of Westworld

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***
SPOILERS AHEAD!
THIS IS A DEEP DIVE INTO WESTWORLD,
BOTH SEASON ONE AND ITS FINALE.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
***

This weekend, HBO’s science fiction epic Westworld wrapped up their inaugural season.

tomhiddleston-silence

Since Sunday night, I have been working through my feelings about that finale, and about this season…but that final episode of Westworld feels best summed up like this…

hgwells-confused

rreynolds-confused

One more…

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NaNoWriMo: It Should Be Your First Step, Not Your Excuse

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18691SD2November is upon us, and with the close of Halloween and the beginning of a new month you might be seeing across various social media platforms “daily word counts” being posted, sudden concerns about productivity, or rants over applications like “Scrivener” or “Write or Die” when they unexpectedly crashes. If this is happening to you, I’d recommend stocking up on coffee for your friends and patience with yourself. November is the month of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

I’ve seen writers react both positively and negatively over the event. The positive sentiment usually constitutes cheerleading, tough love advice, and an overall celebration of hardcore, P90 X-style word-herding. The authors who loathe NaNoWriMo? They hate it with a passion, and don’t get the nay-sayers started on the NaNoWriMo instances that see publication. That’s some prime vitriol there. Continue reading →

Five Things I Learned When Writing a Young Adult Book

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curseofthesilverpharoah_smallRecently, The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh went live on Amazon, print editions premiering this week at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, provided we get no unforeseen whammies from CreateSpace. (Thanks, Hurricane Matthew!) Silver Pharaoh is not my first novel, nor is it my first foray into steampunk, as many of you know. The thing about this book that has me fidgeting nervously as reviews start to trickle in is that Silver Pharaoh is my first step into the realm of Young Adult fiction.

And that terrifies me. Greatly.

I’ve got a lot of feelings about Y.A. Fiction, one being that those reading Y.A. are not necessarily “young” adults. Think about it—while Harry Potter could be easily dismissed as a “kid’s book” and is found in the Children’s sections of bookstores and libraries everywhere, just as many adults devoured the adventures of the Boy Who Lived just as ravenously as its target audience.

So, yeah, working in the wild and woolly world of Y.A. for the first time, I picked up a few things… Continue reading →

Writing Is Not a Solo Sport

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aly_drew

photo credit: Arne Parrott

Striking a hero’s pose here is Drew Mierzejewski. I briefly met him two years ago through Alyson Grauer. Now if Aly’s name sounds familiar, it’s because you can find her lending her voice to one of my podcasts here, hear her rock the steampunk here, do it again here, and then giving good panel at DemiCon 25. Aly’s got game. So does Drew. That might be one of many reason these two got married.

Check it out, Chicago. This is an up-and-coming power couple to watch. I’m just sayin’.

Thing about Drew—I wish I knew him better. Something just tells me we’d be talking to the wee small hours in the morning about…stuff. Deep stuff. I especially got that impression when I saw a random Facebook post from him yesterday about the road creatives walk. The entire thread is here, and you really should check it out or even chime in if you like, but this was the part that made me stop and think…

Therefore, I would like to place a hypothetical to each of you. Why do we do walk this road alone? There are many of us! Why do we not band together in a great bonfire of creativity and make art? Is it impractical? It is idealistic? Is it too terrifying? What is stopping us from creating a massive company that makes art year round, in which we pool resources and talent to make the best of what we have to offer? Now, I want to reiterate that I ask this in hypothetical but I do want to hear your thoughts on this. So please take a moment and tell me in the comments what you think. Tell me why.

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Just Not Feeling It: The Lack of Sympathy for Seth Grahame-Smith

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PPZIt had been a while since I’d been able to blog and I wanted a topic that would get back on writerly advice. This morning, I was intending to blog a bit about the beauty of research. It’s something I was reminded of when I penned for Tor.com a response to WIRED on the history of podcasting fiction. So “Research” was to be my topic du jour until I saw in my feed this morning the story of author Seth Grahame-Smith and his current battle with New York publishing house, Hachette. The Guardian reported that the author inspiring a string of mash-up novels (his being Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which led Quirk Books to publish other works such as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina) is being sued by Hachette for delivering a manuscript that claims is an appropriation of a public-domain work.

Just let that kick around in your brain for a minute: A New York publisher is suing a guy who took a Jane Austen classic, threw in a few set pieces from The Walking Dead, re-packaged it for a zombie-hungry market, and made a metric fuck-ton of money off of it, for writing a book that was a knock-off of a public domain work…like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Hold on a minute…KandP-seriously

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