On Writing and Emotional Movement

Over the past week — and more intensely since Saturday — I’ve been working on an outline for a novel. It’s… interesting stuff. To be honest, I know that it’s not working. To be slightly more specific, it’s not working the way I want it to. The story is developing in interesting directions, but theContinue reading “On Writing and Emotional Movement”

On Robbie Greenberger and Farpoint

On Thursday, Robbie Greenberger passed away. The son of longtime DC Comics editor Bob Greenberger, Robbie had been battling leukemia since January. Thursday, Robbie’s battle came to an end. He was twenty. I wrote, Friday morning, a tribute to Robbie, and I never posted it. Looking at tributes better written than mine, more personal thanContinue reading “On Robbie Greenberger and Farpoint”

On the View From the Sixth Floor

My cubicle is on the building’s sixth floor. The building is glass. Blue glass. Windows run from floor to ceiling. At a guess, I’m sixty-five, maybe seventy feet off the ground. Could be a little higher; the ground floor isn’t quite level with the ground. Birds fly by. Clouds look amazing from up here. IContinue reading “On the View From the Sixth Floor”

On Tortured Similes

I frequently read Penny Arcade. The creators bring a snarky eye to pop culture and video games, and the web comic rarely fails to amuse me. Today’s strip concerns, of all things, literary criticism. Specifically, the tendency in science fiction to invent really complicated similes for really simple comparisons. Throwing in random, made-up words —Continue reading “On Tortured Similes”