This week has been a bit on the dreigh side. It’s been gloomy. My Beetle is encased in fallen oak leaves. I’ve had a cold rain for the past eighteen hours — and the remnants of Hurricane Zeta haven’t even arrived yet. Dreigh. Yesterday, though, I had a pleasant surprise. At 1:30 there was a … Continue reading Books in Hand
Category: Writing
I’m pleased to announce that my short story, “The Adventure of the Cursed Ruin,” will appear this December in Belanger Books‘ In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson, now available for pre-order on IndieGoGo. In the Footsteps is “a collection of seventeen all new Sherlock Holmes stories written specifically for young adults. The … Continue reading The Cursed Ruin
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
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