Author | Joseph L. Selby

Category: Uncategorized

  • Grooving

    Things on JEHOVAH’S HITLIST slowed down for a couple weeks. It occurred to me that I was fast approaching maximum word count and the pacing was too slow. I also was bored as a writer, which means I’ll probably be bored as a reader. I pushed through what I had and sped things up. That…

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  • The Roast Beef Sandwich…FROM HELL!

    I held onto this comment because I wanted to maintain the positivity of Thanksgiving, my second-favorite holiday of the year. Five days later, it’s still such a wild ride that I’d feel horrible not sharing it with you. It is Wednesday evening, the night before Thanksgiving, and my wife has been preparing various foodstuffs for…

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  • Living the Dark Crystal

    First, yesterday was awesome. My niece began her freshman year at Boston University, and the person with whom she was going to have Thanksgiving dinner bailed. Which meant she ended up at my place. I’ve never had the opportunity to hang with her without one of her parents around and this is the first time…

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  • Hellloooooo (Male) Nurse!

    Just to be fare to all the readers out there after yesterday’s Julia Stiles pic, I totally have a man-crush on Nathan Fillion. He is, was, and always will be Captain Malcolm Reynolds. My obsession with Firefly is total1 and despite the days where he spams my twitter account trying to make a fad (the…

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  • That was EPIC!

    The fastest way to start a literary nerd fight? Say X fantasy book is/is not epic fantasy. Epic fantasy may be the poorest defined genre currently being published1. I think this is a result of the ’80s/’90s where almost all fantasy published was epic fantasy. Epic fantasy was so pervasive within the genre that epic…

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  • Hellllooooooooo Nurse!

    What’s that? Julia Stiles is in an ad for Stoli vodka, and she’s plastered all around Boston North Station? What’s that? My train is boarding? Ummmm, I think I’ll take the next one. I could sit here awhile longer.

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  • Stranger in a Strange Land

    It’s a fair bet most of your writer friends aren’t your real-world friends. They’re online. The internet has been a terrific tool for us to gather and discuss and be. You may have been trapped previously with those that said they wanted to write, but whose offerings amounted to nothing more than literary masturbation, taking…

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  • Finding New Meaning in Old Emotions

    A scenario. Your character has: Given up professional and post-graduate dreams to aid a friend Moved to a new city to aid said friend Then been let down by said friend Which resulted in the loss of your character’s entire circle of friends, who had really been said friend’s friends Only speaks to his ex-fiancee…

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  • It’s good for a laugh, at least.

    This is a query I submitted1 to one (and only one) agency for my first novel, BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. I repost it here as a lesson for you all. How not to get an agent: Attention humans I am Cyrus the Conqueror. I am not Mr. Whiskers. I am not Kitty the Conqueror.…

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  • Redux: What Rejection Means to My Work Week

    It’s a Friday, I have a full manuscript with an agent, and I’m querying others. This reminds me of a meme the Rejectionist had on her blog. It feels poignant today: The Rejectionist asked another question, one I felt worhty of a response. The question returns us to a topic I have written on frequently…

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