I have a writing hat. As a writer, I have a routine, much like athletes have routines to put on their game face. For me, it involves putting on a beaten-up baseball cap. It’s a white baseball cap. Says “Richmond Baseball” on it. It has a blue bill. The only significance to it is thatContinue reading “On My Writing Routine”
Category Archives: Writing
On Committing Fiction
I’ve committed fiction. Okay, it’s just a start. It’s hardly complete, and there’s a long way — maybe seventy, eighty thousand words — left to go. Around Easter, an idea struck me. I saw the beginning. I saw the ending. It was the part in the middle that was fuzzy. The part in the middleContinue reading “On Committing Fiction”
More on the End of Short Trips
On Friday I wrote about the end of Big Finish Productions’ Short Trips line of Doctor Who anthologies. The final volume in the series, Re:Collections, is coming out next month, and it will be a “best of” volume, featuring one story from each of the preceeding twenty-eight volumes. I found on Big Finish’s website thisContinue reading “More on the End of Short Trips”
On Talking With William Shatner
Three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview William Shatner. He has a line of comics coming out from Bluewater Productions, an up-and-coming comic book company. Bluewater is adapting some of his science-fiction novels including TekWar and Quest for Tomorrow — and launching a new original-to-comics property — beginning with the William Shatner PresentsContinue reading “On Talking With William Shatner”
On Existential Angst
Bear with me. I’m suffering some existential angst. A friend e-mailed me on Friday afternoon. I’d written her about some recent doings in my life, and in her reply she asked a basic question. “Why are you writing science-fiction?” She didn’t put it quite like that. But that was the point she danced around. TheContinue reading “On Existential Angst”
On Missing Lids
The lid to the peanut butter jar is missing. At 10:15 this morning, while fixing a cup of coffee, I saw on the kitchen counter the jar of peanut butter. Lidless. It is a new jar, I opened it yesterday when fixing peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches for lunch. A survey of the kitchen counter revealed noContinue reading “On Missing Lids”
On Saturday’s Plans
Last night, after work, we held a wake. Layoffs had come to the company on Thursday, and my department lost two — a writer and a graphics artist. Usually, when there’s a departure, the department goes to lunch on the last day at a local restaurant. That, sadly, wasn’t an option this time, so theContinue reading “On Saturday’s Plans”
On a New Favorite Font
I think I have a new favorite font. As many people know, I refuse to work with Times New Roman. I find it… unattractive. The shapes are common. It doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t reveal my inner self. Instead, I work in Palatino. Sometimes its close cousin Book Antiqua, but I’ve gotten so thatContinue reading “On a New Favorite Font”
On Unusable Ideas
It happens to every writer. They get an idea, a really cool idea, an idea that consumes their world for days on end… Only it’s an idea that they can’t possibly use. There’s an idea, an idea that’s been nagging at me for months. I can’t use it. For that matter, no one can. TheContinue reading “On Unusable Ideas”
On Saturday Randomness
At long last, it’s snowing. I looks nice, from out the office window. I’ve installed new fonts. I even got them to work on my Ubuntu install. Yes, I installed Ubuntu a few weeks ago, on a slave hard drive I wasn’t doing anything with. I’m not doing anything with Ubuntu, except to play Sudoku.Continue reading “On Saturday Randomness”