Last night, I moved a few things on my desk — I was looking for my Age of Empires 3 disc, because I wanted to commit some war crimes — and the rejection letter from Random House for the Merlin novel, and the outline for said novel, were sitting there. It’s a lovely rejection letter.Continue reading “On Thanksgiving Day Musings”
Category Archives: Writing
On Thoughts This Wednesday Morning
Matt Frewer is coming to Farpoint! Okay, okay, many people are going to be geeking out that weekend over the winsome Felicia Day. But. Matt Frewer, people! Max Headroom! Sherlock Holmes! Doctor, Doctor! (Which so needs to be on DVD, dammit! I’d buy it. Right now!) Yes, I liked Frewer’s Holmes, from those four moviesContinue reading “On Thoughts This Wednesday Morning”
On Story Submission
At 11:25 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, the short story left the nest. It had grown this morning to 2,296 words. Okay, okay, enough of this faux-baby announcement stuff. I rewrote some of the story on the train this morning. Several new paragraphs were added in the middle. A one-sentence paragraph was expanded into something moreContinue reading “On Story Submission”
On Completion
And at 11:34 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, a short story was born. The short story entered the world at 1,971 words, following a gestation of several weeks filled with false starts and blind alleys. The short story was finished with a final push of 1,498 words. The short story has been put to bed forContinue reading “On Completion”
On Linguistic Oddities
Dear Microsoft, “Peckish” is a word. It means “hungry.” I use it in regular conversation. Okay, maybe twice a month. If I’m lucky. But certainly more than five or six times a year. About “peckish.” Word not only flagged it as a misspelling, but Word also tried to change it to “puckish.” I may useContinue reading “On Linguistic Oddities”
More on Some Reading and Writing
A week ago, I read Nick Hornby’s screenplay for An Education, the new film starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgard. I liked it, I was entertained by the screenplay, and I’m looking forward to seeing the film at some nebulous point in the future, and… Well, there’s a but. The “but” is that it suffersContinue reading “More on Some Reading and Writing”
On Writing and Reading
I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year. Sort of. National Novel Writing Month is a bit of literary insanity where people of all literary skill levels try to write 50,000 words in a single month. Specifically, the month of November. I’m not planning on using the month to break ground on a new novel. I’m going toContinue reading “On Writing and Reading”
On First Drafts
While cleaning up the office this morning, I saw a pile of handwritten notebook paper. My first thought was that it was from some of my early work on “THOD.” But when I picked the papers up and started reading them, I discovered it was something else entirely. It was a partial first draft ofContinue reading “On First Drafts”
On the Weekend’s Plans
I brought home no work this weekend. The past few weekends, I’ve brought something home to work on and write. Not this weekend. Though, I suppose if an e-mail had come through this afternoon with a dozen spreadsheets, I’d have slapped those onto my flash drive and cleaned them up tomorrow or Sunday. The truthContinue reading “On the Weekend’s Plans”
On Reading and Writing, but Not Arthmetic
We’ll start with reading. A few weeks ago, on TrekBBS, novelist Greg Cox recommended in a discussion about alternate histories, a series by Harry Harrison and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey (writing as John Holm) — The Hammer and the Cross. The premise? The Norse religions put up more of a fight against Christianity in theContinue reading “On Reading and Writing, but Not Arthmetic”