Category Archives: Writing

Apropos of Not Much

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This is the jacket copy from my first novel, The Long Look. Why? Because I always liked it. And just because.

“Everything you know about evil magicians is wrong.

Tymon the Black is the latest in a long succession of magicians to suffer under a curse called “The Long Look.” He gets glimpses of future horrors, horrors that will almost certainly come to pass unless he acts. When one such glimpse prods him to arrange for the murder of a headstrong young prince, he sets a cascading chain of events in motion that could lead to a future even more terrible than the one he tried to prevent.

Now all he has to do is hang on to a friend, train an apprentice, prevent a prince obsessed with revenge from destroying himself and his entire kingdom, help a princess come to terms with guilt and grief, make sure a wedding happens, make sure a war doesn’t, and send a creature of ultimate darkness back to the void from whence it came.

All in a day’s work for the world’s most evil wizard? Not quite. There’s also a goddess to contend with, and there’s nothing like attracting the interest of a goddess to upset the balance of any evil scheme. No matter. No one ever said that the life of a fiend was an easy one.

THE LONG LOOK is a fantasy novel with a unique blend of action, introspection, speculation and humor that should keep any reader both involved and confused, but don’t worry. It all makes sense. Eventually.”

Proof, If Any Was Needed, That I Just Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

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Those who have been following this blog know that I’m a beginning guitar player. Very beginning, and a slow learner (ask me how long I’d been writing before I was selling regularly, if you want proof). But that aside, I’m also still working out what sort of guitar I want to play. Do I, will I have a preference? Les Paul? Stratocaster? Both? Something else entirely? Right now I’m in the experimental phase. My first guitar was and is an Epiphone Les Paul Special II, which I still think was a smart choice for a beginner’s electric guitar. The controls are relatively simple and it sounds great except when it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t I know it’s me and not the guitar. No excuses.

Yet I admit I’m Stratocaster curious (Let’s face it—like the Les Paul, the Fender strat is iconic), so when this pawn shop special showed up on an online auction, I bid low. And won, somewhat to my own surprise. That’s the first photo. It’s an entry-level Squier Affinity Stratocaster, made in 1999 in Taiwan (Squier is to Fender as Epiphone is to Gibson, sort of). The resolution of that photo is such that you really can’t tell, but believe me, that guitar was pretty beat up. Playable, but just barely. One of the tone controls was out, all switches were “scratchy” from accumulated dust and crud and three of the machine heads (tuning pegs) were shot. You could tune it, but it wouldn’t stay tuned for very long or sound very good even when it was tuned.

So what went through my mind? Aside from “WTF was I thinking?” I mean. Sure, I hadn’t paid much for it (to put it mildly), so the smart thing would have been to cut my losses. Riight. I went straight to “I can fix this!” but wasn’t content to stop there, oh no. I proceeded right along to– “I can make it better!” The tone controls weren’t really a problem; I found a broken solder joint on a capacitor that would have been an easy fix. I used to make up serial cables for our old mini-computer system, so I’m not afraid of a little soldering. But the pickguard was flimsy white plastic, the pickups (what feeds the sound from the strings to the amp, if you didn’t know) were low-end and cheap even when they were new. So if its immediate problems were corrected, the guitar still just wasn’t good enough. But it could be. Continue reading →

I Think “Gobsmacked” Just About Covers It

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I’m not British, but I’ve always liked that word. It’s both vivd and precise about the condition it’s describing. So at the risk of sounding a bit affected, I will admit that I am completely gobsmacked to learn that The Heavenly Fox is a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in the Adult Literature category.

Yep. Gobsmacked.

Just What the (Bleep) Do I Think I’m Doing? – Redux

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“I never plan things. I start writing them, and it’s like a magician forces a card on me. ‘Pick a card!’ I couldn’t start it if I knew what I was going to do.” – William Gibson

I’ve said it before in a slightly different context, but now it’s time to explore the idea to its logical conclusion. So repeat after me: “I’m a writer. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

I’ve talked about “foxes and hedgehogs” to compare and contrast different approaches to writing. Today I want to talk about different approaches to process. Specifically: how do you begin? As with the whole fox/hedgehog metaphor there are no absolutes, but there is a spectrum, and we tend to gravitate toward one end or the other. In short, to begin a project we either tend toward Order or Chaos. Continue reading →

Afterwords to “Worshipping Small Gods”

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These are the afterwords/author’s notes I wrote for the stories in my second collection, Worshipping Small Gods. They didn’t appear in the actual book for two reasons. 1) There wasn’t room and 2) They hadn’t been written yet. I think the second reason is probably the one that matters. Some readers are interested in this kind of thing, some aren’t. If you fall in the “aren’t” category, you can bail now. Fair warning. Continue reading →