Tagged by Keith DeCandido: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pickContinue reading “On the Book at Hand”
Category Archives: Writing
More on Constellations
Today, editor Marco Palmieri announced the table of contents for Constellations, Pocket Books’ 40th-anniversary Star Trek anthology. The authors involved have been known for about six months now, but today the anthology’s running order and individual story titles, some of which had not been revealed, were announced: Introduction by David Gerrold “First, Do No Harm”Continue reading “More on Constellations”
On Philosophy
Polished crap is still crap.
On Paper Sizes
I’ve just spent a half an hour researching paper sizes. Who’d have thought there was an international standard paper size? Who’d have thought it wasn’t letter-sized paper? Well, this webpage set me straight on the matter. I knew there was something callled “A4,” which as far as I could tell in Microsoft Word was almostContinue reading “On Paper Sizes”
On Page Proofs
The page proofs for “Make-Believe,” my story in Star Trek: Constellations, arrived today. There's a part of me that keeps expecting Ashton Kutcher to come along and say, “Dude, you've been Punk'd!” Edits, copy-edits, contracts, now page proofs, and I just can't shake that feeling, that I haven't really sold this story, that it's allContinue reading “On Page Proofs”
On Suessian Poetry
Bill Leisner pointed this out–if the Bush Administration were a Doctor Suess poem, what would it be like? I’m the decider. I pick and I choose. I pick among whats. And choose among whos. And as I decide Each particular day The things I decide on All turn out that way. There’s more, a lotContinue reading “On Suessian Poetry”
On Constellations
On Being an English Nerd
I saw this test on several friends’ webpages. Am I an English nerd, or what? 😉 True English Nerd You scored 91 erudition! Not only do you know your subjects from your objects and your definite from your indefinite articles, but you’ve got quite a handle on the literature and the history of the languageContinue reading “On Being an English Nerd”
On My Font of English
It was Sherlock Holmes in “His Last Bow” who said that, and I’m paraphrasing here, that two years undercover as the American Pinkterton detective Altamont had left his font of English permanently defiled. I’ve watched too much British television. My own font of English has been permantently defiled. I typed out a sentence, and wroteContinue reading “On My Font of English”
On the Ptolemaic System
I mentioned a week ago, perhaps a little more, that I an idea struck: tell a story set in a universe where the Ptolemaic system were true, where Earth was the center of the universe around which everything–moon, sun, planets, stars–revolved. A silly idea, true. I realized, though, that I really didn’t know quite howContinue reading “On the Ptolemaic System”