The Third Degree
Here’s something fun I’m trying out. I was invited to work with two other authors to package our mysteries together into a single bundled download. We called it “The Third Degree Bundle.” The idea was that you get three books for the price of one. And maybe find some new authors to check out! It’s a low-risk way to fill your Kindle with 885 pages of mystery and thrillers! Here are the three books: The Saints Go Dying, by Erik Hanberg A computer hacker turned detective is hunting a serial killer in Los Angeles targeting modern day saints. Project Moses, Read more…
Six habits for writing (and finishing) a novel
I wrote my first “novel” when I was in the seventh grade. It was 80 pages long and I thought it was a masterpiece. I was going to be the first middle-school bestseller. I later wrote a sequel in eighth grade. Then another sequel in ninth grade. Finally I realized I had an actual novel, and put it together as a single book. Since then, I’ve written another ten novels, and self-published four of them. Having been through it that many times, I think I’ve discovered that the biggest challenges with writing are not about the writing itself, but the Read more…
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
Normally I post book reviews on Goodreads, but I wanted to make an exception for this one, since it fits with the posts about games this year. The Queen’s Gambit [that’s an affiliate link, btw], by Walter Tevis, was just a joy of a book. A young orphan named Elizabeth Harmon is discovered to be a chess prodigy at age eight, and the book follows her story as she developers her talent. You don’t have to know chess to enjoy the book, although I was glad to discover it while in the midst of several games. If you’re familiar with the Read more…
Adding Primes to a Story
Thanks to Robin Sloan and his always-interesting newsletter, I discovered an interesting idea about stories: it’s the primes that really matter. The stories that have stayed with us for years (or centuries or millennia) have not stayed with us because every word or every scene is important. There are key elements that are important: a scene, an image, an idea, a certain archetypal character. In other words, these are the prime numbers, the tentpoles for the rest. If the key elements in the story are the prime numbers, then the rest are just regular numbers, and you can move and Read more…
Where will House of Cards Season 3 leave us?
[Warning, this blog post is full of spoilers for House of Cards, not to mention The Player, All About Eve, Breaking Bad, and The Great Gatsby. Proceed with caution] House of Cards is great television. Season 1 is better than Season 2, I thought, but both seasons are very good. The drama is excellent, even if the show’s reading of politics is a little absurd. But that’s like complaining that Lost didn’t show what it was really like to crash on a tropical island. If you’ve watched the show (and again, this is your last chance to avoid spoilers) Read more…
The #5RTs Project is out of “beta”
Since November(ish) I’ve been doing something called #5RTs on Twitter. Every Sunday through Thursday night, I retweet five tweets, usually links or pictures, but not always. I will often add a word or two of commentary in front of it, even if it’s just a LOL. Sometimes there’s a theme, sometimes not. They’re numbered too. Before them, I usually announce that they are coming (although since it’s a needless tweet, I have often made that announcement bombastic or silly). After the tweets, I sometimes add another tweet or two of commentary about them that didn’t fit into the RT. For Read more…
The Legacy of Technology
As I continue to work on Book II of The Lattice Trilogy, I am writing more and more about the legacy of old technology. Writing about “old” technology in 2081 means writing a lot about current times (and the next few decades). But there are so many examples of legacy technology today. We are surrounded by it. We often think of technology as this march of progress, but a better image would be of geologic strata. New technology is layered over older technology, but the old technology doesn’t go away. It’s just not as visible. It’s a much more accurate Read more…
More Games
My plan to play more games in 2014 has gone quiet well so far. In addition to the chess tournament in January, I’ve been able to play a lot of friendly games with folks around Tacoma. Ticket to Ride A few weeks ago I went to Tacoma Games, where I played Ticket To Ride with some local fans of the game, (game pictured above). Tacoma Games sells board games, and also has board game nights, where you can go in to try out new games. This is a really fun game. I have the “Europe” map, but have also now played Read more…
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