• Clipping

    Next time you’re listening to an audio medium (such as the radio or a podcast), listen to how the person speaks rather than just what they’re saying. Much like “he said” as a dialogue signifier, there are certain sounds that go along with actual words that our brain just ignores. The inhalation at the beginning…

  • Ink Failure

    Up until 2006, you could look at me while at work and never know that I had a tattoo. Of course, at that time, I had eight tattoos. The only one that was ever visible was the one on the back of my neck and only then if I wore a shirt without a collar.…

  • Streaming Netflix over my Xbox (really, it seems that’s the only thing I use my Xbox Live account for any more1 2), I watched a miniseries with Daniel Craig called Archangel. Though I think I may have seen the ending before, the rest of it was quite interesting. Especially the first two episodes. General premise…

  • Fried Ocher

    I was talking to Elizabeth Poole yesterday who had been absent for a week because she thought she deserved to vacation in another state rather than hang out and talk to me over IM. Silly girl. Anyway, she asked me for an update on JEHOVAH’S HITLIST. I didn’t have much to report. I had invoked…

  • Conservative blowhard commentators often accuse this or that media of being liberal (depending on which media they want to accuse at that particular moment). While I feel the following is true about any medium, I am speaking today about print publishing so will keep this opinion only there. I don’t think publishing is liberal. I…

  • So, invoking rule 2a didn’t have an immediate impact. I chose to finished Bujold’s CRYOBURN1 before getting back to work for a few reasons which I may or may not enumerate below2. Anyway, this morning was technically a writing day, but I quickly realized that rule 2a was unnecessary. The writing was crap, but it…

  • Whether you love the smell of paper books or not, digital distribution will be the primary means of accessing text-based media within your lifetime. Three years ago I was in a meeting of department heads and vice presidents and all the people that make decisions on things. We were discussing the company’s ebook strategy. Three…

  • My wife and I were passing through Greeley Park a number of years back during a summer art fair. Painters, photographers, and home jewelers displayed their wares. This was back at a time when my then-employer continued to promise me an office. When I passed a small photograph that I absolutely loved and it was…

  • This has been a reading week. I finished JULIET1. I’m almost half-way through CRYOBURN. I’ve finished the first disc of ARABIAN NIGHTS. I keep taking my Eee PC to work because I feel the need to write, but when I think of what to write next, it’s not clicking. I know what I need to…

  • 1. One work in progress (WIP) at a time a. A work may be suspended to revise a draft of a previously completed manuscript or edit galleys of a manuscript being published b. A work may be abandoned if it is not salvageable and a new WIP begun i. If an abandoned WIP is resumed,…