• My Life

    Rewards and Incentives…

    When I left BioWare, several years ago, I thought my time best spent pursuing a writing career and so most of my “deliverables” were writing related. Each year end I planned what projects I wanted to work on over the course of the next year. For the most part I exceeded my productivity goals. I wrote dozens of stories and several novels. But I did not hit my milestones however. Time and again I failed to sell the number of stories I needed to. After winning a place in the Writers of the Future Contest I became even more aggressive with the milestones I wanted to achieve but after the…

  • The Lazy Designer

    Want to Read the Lazy Designer for Free?

    I’ve started a newsletter. Well, actually I’ve had a newsletter for a long time but have not really done much to promote it. My intention going forward is to begin releasing sections from the Lazy Designer, starting with the first book. But before I proceed I’d like to acquire a few more subscribers. So if somebody you know has been wanting to read the Lazy Designer but hasn’t bought it yet, maybe direct them to the sign up form for the newsletter: http://blog.brentknowles.com/brents-mailing-list/ Let me know if you have any questions. In regards to newsletter frequency, I’m thinking 1-2 newsletters a month to start. (And I still intend to post…

  • The Lazy Designer

    Console vs PC?

    I don’t think I’ve spoken much about how I play games on this blog beyond mentioning that I strongly disliked the previous xbox and that mostly we play PS3 games (with a bit of Wii mixed in). At one point I was not playing any games on the PC anymore. Over the past couple years things have slowly started to shift. I started using Steam again and purchasing more games. Then our xbox finally died. When I carted off all the games I had owned for it and its predecessor, I became rather pissed. We owned some fun games and with the console’s demise I knew I would never be…

  • My Life

    The Basement Disaster

    No, this is not the title for my next novel. A few weeks ago our sump pump failed and we had a bit of a basement flood. We caught it early and no furniture or possessions were damged, but the insurance guys still decided to tear the carpet out. This is what our basement looks like right now. It is kind of creepy. And noisy. A person forgets how much noise carpet and furniture absorb. We also have the pleasure of working with various contractors again, to rebuild. I’m being sarcastic. I have nothing against builders, of course, it just seems to me that most of the ones we end…