Last post, I talked a bit about character motivation. Think of this as Part 2, but with a twist. To recap, briefly, if we’re looking at a major character, readers need to know what motivates that character, what gets him or her going, what causes the character to risk life and limb or to dig…
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As another round of student papers (the final set for this year) gets ready to come at me, I’m gearing up for looking at more careless mistakes: seemingly random uses of their, there, and they’re; sloppy pronoun references; uses of “now and days” or “now in days” instead of nowadays. Then there are the students…
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I’m offering my science fiction novel, Strictly Analog, as a FREE download today at Amazon. Ted Lomax does his best to get by as a private detective in a society where almost nothing is private any more. He lives in a near-future California that has gained independence from the economically collapsed United States and where…
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My science fiction novel, Take Back Tomorrow, is available as a FREE download today at Amazon. Eddie Royce thinks he’s got things all figured out. He’s managed to cheat the system and gotten himself published in the sci fi pulps by “borrowing” plots from Shakespeare. He doesn’t mind being a cheat and a plagiarist as long…
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You know who I’m talking about, right? The mustachioed miner from the Rankin & Bass claymation Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer from the mid-60s. He’s a bit rough around the edges but helps Rudolph, ends up on the Island of Misfit Toys, and finally helps save the day in the end. The thing I keep…
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Over the summer, I released my urban fantasy novella, Dead Man’s Hand, as an e-book on Amazon. Maybe it was a timing thing, but it really seemed to fly under the radar, so I thought I’d post a sample. What follows is a short excerpt from the third chapter. If you’d like to see more,…
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I am giving away 2 signed copies of my novel, Take Back Tomorrow, on Goodreads. The contest runs until the end of this month.
I had the opportunity to participate in Fullerton College’s Faculty Reading Event last month–a good experience and a nice chance to read some of my work for an enthused and appreciative audience. Before reading from her novel in progress, one of my colleagues made a joke about “book envy,” in reference to the copies of…
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If you’re thinking about turning that manuscript into a Kindle file and starting on your own path to indie authorship, you’re likely to find it a pretty easy process–but maybe with one exception. Your Kindle file is going to need an active Table of Contents so users can go to the different chapters in your…
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So the editor of the Times Literary Supplement feels that book bloggers are doing a disservice to literary criticism, watering it down. Anyone with enough know-how to set up a blog and read a book can become a literary critic. On the one hand, there’s a legitimate concern there. The proliferation of voices on the…
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