I’m mashing up two tropes this week because I’m not satisfied with the one. There are a bazillion tropes about characters who are sexually active, but very few about sexually chaste characters that don’t portray them as weak, clueless, or socially inept. According to tvtropes, a celibate hero is a main character who “doesn’t do… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Celibate Hero vs. The Fettered
Category: Gaia Nova
Desert Stars is now published!
Desert Stars, my third novel (and second in the Gaia Nova series), is now available as an independently published ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Within the next couple of weeks, it’ll be available through Kobo, iTunes, Diesel, Sony, and Xinxii as well. It’s been a long journey, and I’m thrilled to finally… Continue reading Desert Stars is now published!
Desert Stars cover is finished!
Here it is, guys! What do you think? I played around a little bit with the text this time, coloring it and putting in some noise to give it a hint of texture. The title and subtitle font is LilyUPC, and the author name font is Alpha Centauri (from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri–best empire building… Continue reading Desert Stars cover is finished!
Desert Stars cover art is in!
I just got the final version of the cover art for Desert Stars, and it looks great! Here’s a preview: Many thanks to Hideyoshi, who also did the art for Genesis Earth. I’ll finish the cover and upload the ebook over the weekend. By Monday or Tuesday, it should be up for sale across all… Continue reading Desert Stars cover art is in!
Climbing the 10k mountain
I recently read an amazing blog post by Rachel Aaron, in which she explains how she went from writing about 2k words per day (about what I’m doing) to routinely breaking 10k. This is something I really want to do with my own writing. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I need to… Continue reading Climbing the 10k mountain
On the eve of publication
First, some housekeeping: I recently did an interview over on Slava Heretz’s blog, which you can find here. I talk a little bit about Desert Stars, as well as how traveling has influenced my writing and how I overcome writer’s block. In other news, I got smacked upside the head with the flu yesterday and… Continue reading On the eve of publication
Am I swamped, or am I lazy?
This post might get a little emo, so I apologize in advance. I feel like I have so much on my plate right now, and yet when I look back at what I’ve accomplished each day, I wonder if I couldn’t have been more productive. I’m moving out of my apartment on the 21st, so… Continue reading Am I swamped, or am I lazy?
Trope Tuesday: The Bechdel Test
The Bechdel Test is a way to measure how prominently women figure in a story. It mostly comes up in discussions of TV and film, but can also be applied to works of literature. To pass the test, the story must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Bechdel Test
Heart of the Nebula 2.0 is finished!
That’s right: the second draft of Heart of the Nebula, direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, is now finished. Here are the stats: words: 90,081 chapters: 20 ms pages: 426 start date: 7 Nov 2011 end date: 4 Dec 2011 And the word splash: This was just a quick draft to fix some of the… Continue reading Heart of the Nebula 2.0 is finished!
Thoughts on kickstarter
So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars. Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal. First of all, I… Continue reading Thoughts on kickstarter