The Farpoint convention is this weekend in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The headlining guests are Wallace Shawn (My Dinner with Andre, The Princess Bride), Maurice Lamarche (Pinky & the Brain, International Talk Like William Shatner Day), and Rob Paulsen (Pinky & the Brain). I will also be there, as I’ve been ever year since 2006, and … Continue reading My Farpoint 2019 Schedule
Category: Writing
Last Monday, I started writing a short story. I was driving to work that morning, and idle thoughts played in my head. “What if I took this kind of character, put them in this kind of setting, and told this kind of story?” None of these three things should go together, but sitting in my … Continue reading Pounding Away at the Keyboard
November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. People attempt to write a manuscript of fifty thousand words within the 30 days of November. I’m giving it a try this year. Maybe because of the writing I do every day professionally (for which I write 85-100k a month), maybe because of other issues, I’ve written … Continue reading Writing a Novel in a Month
Matt Frewer was the headlining guest this year at Farpoint, an annual science-fiction convention held near Baltimore, this weekend. While I know that most people wanted to meet him because of Max Headroom or roles in other shows like Eureka, Orphan Black, and recently Altered Carbon, I really wanted to meet him because of Doctor … Continue reading Meeting Matt Frewer
This weekend is Farpoint, a science-fiction convention in Hunt Valley, Maryland that I’ve been attending since 2006. (I was supposed to be at the famous “Snowcon” Farpoint in 2003 — I’d registered for it and was looking forward to it — but when I saw what the weather forecast for Maryland was, I cancelled my … Continue reading My Farpoint 2018 Schedule
Last night after work I stopped at 5 Below for trivial reasons — I needed a new mouse, I knew they had computer mice for four dollars, and they happened to be more convenient than other retail options. While I was there, I took a look at their book tables. I’ve turned up some interesting … Continue reading Write the Story
Two weeks ago I wrote that I’ll be a guest at Farpoint this year. Farpoint, I should note, is a science-fiction convention held near Baltimore every February, and the headlining guests are writer David Gerrold and Firefly actor Sean Maher. Before the weekend, I received my schedule for the convention, but I haven’t had a … Continue reading Farpoint 2016 — My Schedule
Hard to believe we’re a month away from Farpoint. Farpoint is a convention held annually outside Baltimore in mid-February, usually right around Valentine’s Day. This year will be my eleventh Farpoint; I’ve been attending since 2006. The headlining guests this year are novelist David Gerrold (writer of Star Trek‘s “The Trouble with Tribbles”), Sean Maher … Continue reading T Minus One Month to Farpoint
About a year ago I had to edit some copy a colleague had written for the catalog. It was a thoughtful, well-written piece, and it also happened to run over five hundred words, which was about two and a half times the number of words that would fit into the space we had on the … Continue reading The Semi-Colon Is Never Not Stylish
I found something unexpected on my hard drive yesterday, working scenes from my first draft of “The Spindle of Necessity.” “Spindle,” as you may know, is a Doctor Who story I wrote for a Big Finish Short Trips anthology in the spring of 2007 in which the sixth Doctor goes on an adventure with the … Continue reading Lost Scenes from a Doctor Who Story
I have crazy ideas sometimes. Often, I can do absosmurfly nothing with those crazy ideas, like several years ago when I wrote about the Doctor Who/Uncle Scrooge crossover I would love to write. The latest The Daily Post blogging prompt brought another one of those unusable ideas to mind. It’s not exactly an original idea; … Continue reading When Mars Attacks Equestria
Around the age of nineteen or twenty, I had the idea that I might want to work in film. I had no talent as an actor, I had no desire to attend film school or take classes, and my attempts at writing scripts were laughable at best. At the time, the Star Trek television series … Continue reading On (Not) Going Hollywood