• Uncategorized,  Writing Resources

    His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

    I should preface this post by noting that I know Naomi, having worked with her for a short period of time on the first Neverwinter Nights expansion pack, Shadows of Undrentide. Though to show how little I knew her, I had no idea she was writing (or was going to write) a novel. She was mostly doing scripting work (setting up game plots, et cetera), though I think she also did some dialog writing and art/animation tasks for Shadows. Anyways, a few years later I found out she had written His Majesty’s Dragon, the first in a series of novels set in an alternate Earth wherein dragons have always existed.…

  • My Life,  Writing Resources

    Writing Awards, eBooks, and other thoughts

    So, I’m back from a short vacation and while I was gone most of the major awards, Huge, Nebula, Prix-Aurora, and so on have announced their lists of nominees. There are several stories that I haven’t read in the lists so I’ve been trying to snag the ones that are available. Luckily I have subscriptions to several of the magazines (but haven’t read them all yet, as I have such a huge backlog of unread books and mags). But some of the stories I’ll be reading the online versions. And that’s the problem. I hate reading stuff on my computer. I spend most of my time in front of the…

  • My Life,  Writing Resources

    Associated Content

    I’ve posted a little article about my experience with developing basements to Associated Content. This is the first article I’ve posted there and is a bit of an experiment… anyone else have experience using this site to host/broadcast their stuff? http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1539713/develop_your_basement.html“

  • Writing Resources

    On Spec #75 Winter 2008/09

    A solid issue, as usual. My favourites this time around would be: Every Single Round a Last Call – Ryan Laliberte     This was a more interesting than normal time travel story. A man is stuck moving through time, but sits in a bar, the bartender a constant presence in his life while everything else  changes constantly. I found this story enjoyable because both characters were interesting and both had secrets that were only revealed through the course of the story. Plus the events occuring in the background, outside the bar — the constantly changing timeline — were interesting.     Graveyard Orbit – Jon Martin Watts     A man,…

  • Writing Resources

    Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter

    This is a beautiful story, I read it over a year ago and just reviewed it today and was surprised at how readily I remembered this interesting tale. Set in a Cambodia that is not quite the same Cambodia of our world but one that feels authentic, this is the story of ghosts, specifically ghosts that cause photographs to be printed, even from disconnected photocopiers. This is also a romantic tale, sort of. The story transported me to this other world and I really felt I knew the characters and was desperate to learn more about them, especially their secrets. And there are secrets in this story, secrets hidden in…

  • My Life,  Writing Resources

    Update…

    I am off work for a while and am attempting to catch up on numerous projects. I finished my first story since our second son was born last year and have sent it to the Writers of the Future Contest… I used to submit to that every quarter but I’ve missed the last few. I then finished a second story over the course of a couple days but it needs some revision before its ready to go out.  Starting to get back into the writing groove, I hope. I am also continuing to develop YourOtherMind version 8.2, working a lot on making it more useful as a writing environment (and not…

  • Writing Resources

    Writers of the Future XXIII

    I have a huge backlog of books to read, among them a bunch of L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future volumes. Anyways I just finished volume XXIII and there were several stories I really enjoyed (I liked them all, but a handful stood out for me). The Sun God At Dawn, Rising From a Lotus Blossom by Andrea Kail. Interesting story about clones of famous people and the lives they might lead. The letters between Lincoln and Tutankhamun were intensely interesting. The Frozen Sky by Jeff Carlson. Beautiful story about exploration of Europa and what happens to a researcher as she tries to survive contact with a rather unusual, but interesting…