WOW. This was an amazing book. A highly memorable book. A book I will return to again and again in the future. There comes a moment when reading a truly amazing book when you don’t think that it can possibly get any better. It’s a ten out of ten, easily five stars. And then …… Continue reading Thoughts after finishing The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara
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The week from hell
That might be a bit of an overstatement, but this week is shaping up to be really crazy stressful. First, I’ve got to move out of my current apartment. I think I’ve got a place lined up to move to, when makes things a lot less stressful than they were last week, but I’ve still… Continue reading The week from hell
Short Blitz #6: A Hill On Which To Die
Title: A Hill On Which To Die Genre: Epic Fantasy Word Count: Word Count: 15,000 Writing Time: About a month IT IS FINISHED. Ugh, this story took forever. What started as a short story soon turned into a novelette, and then that novelette got longer and longer … and then life got crazy busy, and… Continue reading Short Blitz #6: A Hill On Which To Die
Why I couldn’t finish Gone with the Wind
For the past month or so, I’ve been on a Civil War kick. I watched the movie Gettysburg to celebrate July 4th, read Gods and Generals, wrote a short story about a time traveler at Gettysburg, and have been listening to a lot of Civil War music as I write. One of the books I… Continue reading Why I couldn’t finish Gone with the Wind
Why I quit Facebook
Last month, I made the decision to quit Facebook. Permanently. As in, the Facebook account that I created eight years ago as a college freshman no longer exists, unless Facebook continues to store and monetize data from its ex-users long after they’ve quit the service. Which wouldn’t surprise me at all, since Facebook is in… Continue reading Why I quit Facebook
Short Blitz #5: The Gettysburg Paradox
Title: The Gettysburg Paradox Genre: Science Fiction Word Count: 3,650 Writing Time: about 1 week Ever since I read The Killer Angels, I’ve been something of a Civil War geek. For July 4th this year, I rewatched Gettysburg and read Gods and Generals. I’m also reading Gone with the Wind right now, and plan to… Continue reading Short Blitz #5: The Gettysburg Paradox
A Letter to Mr. Bezos
Mr. Bezos, I know you’re a busy man, so if it’s true that you read all the emails directed to this account, I’ll keep it brief. I recently read an open letter written by Douglas Preston that encourages readers and writers to email you to let you know what they think about the hardball negotiating… Continue reading A Letter to Mr. Bezos
On Amazon, Hachette, and the future of books
I sincerely believe that this is the best time in the history of this planet to be a reader. There are so many great books coming out now–so many new authors who are writing stuff that is new and different and exciting. Because of the internet, it’s so much easier to find the book that… Continue reading On Amazon, Hachette, and the future of books
Towards a new measure of writing productivity
When I decided back in college that I wanted to write professionally, I made a point of tracking my daily word counts. I even made graphs with the data, showing both my daily count and a seven-day rolling total (some of you may remember how I used to post those graphs on this blog). Tracking… Continue reading Towards a new measure of writing productivity
The need to read
So for the past couple of weeks, I haven’t been as productive at writing as I’d like. I could list off a lot of reasons, some of which would be legitimate, others of which would sound like (and probably be) excuses, but that would get tedious rather quickly, so I’ll spare us both the trouble.… Continue reading The need to read