I’m not sure what compelled me to reach over for my phone the other night and Google, ‘how to write pulp fiction.’ Maybe it’s that something that has been nagging me about my novel. On a subconscious level perhaps, I have worried that my main character is too angsty, or that my premise is too abstract and symbolic, at times. I Googled around, skimmed a few blog posts, and eventually came upon an entire book Read more…
I had every intention of finishing my manuscript rewrites before my kids left on spring break, but as it happens March is too busy for me. Life has taken hold and I’m averaging less than 1 chapter per school day. All that to say, I have to push back my timeline to sometime in early April. The good news is that my method for rewriting is working and moving at a steady, albeit slow, pace. Read more…
This morning I went running and finished, Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. Since I was running, I wrapped up the epilogue in the audiobook format, which is read by the author himself. The chapters I read via the physical book were also entertaining and went by quickly. The book traces the history of the internet by way of its physical location. I thought that Andrew Blum did a great job getting Read more…
I started writing The Crucible Experiment sometime in 2018, and I expect to have it completed and ready to pitch to literary agents (fingers crossed!) before my kids are out for spring break. It’s probably a good time, then, to reflect on what I’ve learned these past four years in writing this thing. While I don’t expect that what works for me will necessarily work for you, I am a believer that this book-writing journey Read more…
It’s a Friday afternoon in glorious Florida, the thermostat in my car read 83 degrees outside. I know this might sound hot, but to me it’s just great. Especially when I was supposed to travel to Dallas this weekend. They’re supposed to get clobbered with a snowstorm this weekend. Sorry, Dallas. I have spent a lot of time in this book lately, it’s Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and it’s one of Read more…
After Philip K. Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1968, the novel quickly attracted the attention of Hollywood filmmakers. Martin Scorsese was interested before the project landed with Ridley Scott, who had just left the production of another major science-fiction franchise: Dune. While one can only guess what a Scorsese adaptation might have looked like, Scott’s Blade Runnerbecame one of the most genre-defining science-fiction films ever produced. Read more @ Coffee or Die
The cohort for the Clown School class of 2022 met in the lotus auditorium on a cool September afternoon in Los Angeles. The black curtain covered the stage, everyone waited for the president of The Clown School to make her grand appearance. Everyone except Jecinda expected the grand entrance, anyway. Jecinda expected a normal entrance, if only because everyone expected the grand entrance, and clowns like to surprise. “Why hello Clown School students,” said a Read more…
In each genre, there are conventions that readers expect to find. Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, General Fiction, non-fiction, and the rest each have norms that define them. This information helps readers decide whether he or she might be interested in a book, and helps the storytelling along. So, there is both a marketing piece and a storytelling piece to genre conventions. I find genre and genre conventions interesting because as I have studied Read more…
Before there was Game of Thrones or Star Wars, there was Dune. War and the power struggles of those who wage it have been central plot devices for millennia. War is as primal as sex and love. Now, take a world with a cosmic power struggle and add man-eating sandworms, a hostile desert planet, and an addictive magical substance, and you’ve got the epic war story baked into the science-fiction universe that is Dune. Read the rest at Coffee or Die…
I’m switching gears from science fiction to read and review a war novel for Coffee or Die Magazine. I pitched it to their Senior Editor who handles the entertainment section. After a few emails and spitballing ideas over the phone, I have concluded that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced few war novels. Sure, vets and journalists have written loads of books, loads of memoirs, biographies, and investigative long-form. But as far as I Read more…