Modblog

No, not batting practice, though my beloved Cubbies could use some. I’ve added buddypress functionality to this blog, in anticipation of the imminent death of the Gernsback Continuum, as ning is discontinuing free services, and of the exodus of folks from writingforums.com as that site’s sale appears imminent.
I don’t get along with the prospective owner. [...]

I’ve been running a discussion group at writingforums.com for quite some time, six months or so, and, while the discussions are interesting, the format leaves a lot to be desired. Instead of creating a forum here or going through the steps of learning how to run forum software while I have other stressful activities on [...]

I’ve been unpacking book boxes at my leisure, since my bookcases didn’t make the trip down here. I know pretty much what’s in each, and so am able to pick and choose which to unpack based on what I feel like reading.
Under ordinary circumstances, I have a number of books going. One in the bedroom [...]

Another November, another NaNoWriMo novel…this was my second official year, and both novels went smoothly, way ahead of schedule. Last year’s entry, MILK, is undergoing editing and will likely be finished in the reasonably near future. It’s part of my future history arc, and I’ve been working on making that whole series internally consistent. Takes [...]

The Big Dumb Object is a science-fictional plot device, as described in the linked wiki entry. Examples would be the Ringworld, Rama, Gaea, or Jack Kirby’s Ego, the Living Planet.

I got to thinking, while driving cross-country and sucking caffeine to stay awake, about big dumb objects. More specifically, I started thinking about the planet Carcosa [...]

You might anticipate some small changes to this blog and site-namely, the addition of a book database, courtesy of the Book Collector software, which will be appended to the “sf booknerd” section, and will include all of my titles in due time. Coupled with that, I’ll be doing at least a capsule review of each.
More [...]

Well, since it’s been a week since I was able to log in, I’m going to bid a sad farewell to Writers’ Forums/Writing Forums, at writingforums.com. (Cue bugle).
The odd thing is that I had left the site for almost three months due to the abundance of dunces, wannabes, and never-will-bes that infested the place, following [...]

Your preference?
Mine is near-future, though I like some far-future things. The ones I generally don’t care as much for are the ones set a couple of hundred years from now that have everyone behaving like the 20th or 21st century. Think of how much we’ve changed over the years, and how rapidly!
near future examples: Stand [...]

I just don’t get it. During the last few days, I came under a lot of heat from people at the Absolute Write SF/F forum for opining that the modern version of vampires is based on the writers’ ignorance of the vampire myth in general and the wampyr/vorwalaka myth specifically, and for further opining that [...]

Well, I didn’t do so well at keeping this series updated. Ah well…let’s just say that I fulfilled all of the requirements and then some for NaNoWriMo, writing 81,389 words and finishing the first draft of my novel “MILK”, which I’ll be editing/rewriting during December and January, with an eye toward agent-shopping in February and [...]