I’m again taking one of my periodic vacations from the day job to work full bore on the current work in progress. I’ll be busy until after the holidays. But stay tuned, I have a special feature all lined up for the last ten days of 2008, after which we’ll Read more…
On Dear Author we hear of a woman who’s held a funeral for her failed writing career. When I read the post my thoughts went something like this: Sixteen rejections is a low threshold for career failure. Can you base a career on the viability of a single novel (probably Read more…
I’ve been doing this writing thing professionally for about fifteen years or so at this point, written 20 novels so far and a handful of short stories. I am, however, constantly reminded that there are always things I’m still learning. A recent post by Steve Buchheit (here and here) reminded Read more…
Following up on the sense of wonder post, as well as picking up some threads from my earlier post on Mundane SF, and the latest Scalzi article for AMC, I’ve had a lot of different thoughts percolating about a particular question: “Why write SF in the first place?” Of course Read more…
There’s been a grumbling brewing about various places that seem to question one of the core attributes of science fiction. It’s a point of view that I think is crystallized nicely in a recent post on Nancy Kress’ blog: Maybe the world has gotten too grubby and jaded for “awe.” Read more…
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying manuscripts. From Pubisher’s Weekly: Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has “temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts” across its trade and reference divisions. The directive was given verbally to a handful of executives and, according to Blumenfeld, is Read more…
Joe the Plumber has written a book, or has had a book written for him. Now I have no gripe with the guy, and I bear him no ill will, but I will say that the details of the book “deal” seem sort of, well, odd. First off, I’d think Read more…
About those counters I have in the sidebar here: In one sense they tell you (and me) how close to completion a given project is. In another sense, they’re a lie. I am tracking, essentially, the progress of a first draft. A worthy achievement, but nowhere near actually done. My Read more…
Perhaps you remember my post about this wonderful website brought to my attention by the Smart Bitches. That post was well intentioned, if completely clueless. Now the Smart Bitches have highlighted an equally craptastic post of a bit more sinister bent. I present to you “Got The Thing In Becoming Read more…
I wanted to write a follow-up to two other blog posts I wrote back last summer. The story at that point was as follows: Sherry Jones writes The Jewel of Medina, a historical novel that features one of Mohammad’s wives. She sells it to Random House. Random House sends an Read more…