No writing tonight, but I spent the last hour or so filling in more details of the plot and why things are happening, as well as motivations behind the various characters and how those motivations influence the actions that characters will take throughout the story. I’ve got nearly a full handwritten page in microscopic pencil…
Edmund Schubert continues a debate on his blog that Rob Sawyer started, asking if speculative fiction is an endangered species. Edmund was asking for thoughts on this topic and the question struck a chord with me. I posted a rather lengthy response in which I take the role of the optimist and argue for three…
The May 2007 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN was waiting for me when I got home this evening and it looks like a particularly juicy one with articles on space science, medicine, energy, paleontology, information science, neuroscience and physics. Can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. Also in the mail was an application for a…
Scott Adam’s Dilbert Blog post for today is hilarious. Occasionally, he posts how a current Dilbert comic evolves. He draws something, the editor rejects it, and then he reworks it. You have got to check out the evolution of the comic he talks about today!
One of my favorite bookstores in the whole world, The Iliad Bookshop just got a nice little write-up in the April 2007 issue of Los Angeles Magazine. For 8 years, I lived virtually around the corner from this bookstore, and during that time, I probably purchased 100 or more used books, and spent an equal…
Ugh! Up too late again last night so I slept in late this morning and didn’t get up until 5:30 AM. I have done all my cardio this week so far, but no strength training in nearly 2 weeks now. I’ve really got to get back on the ball! Monday will be 9 weeks to…
Each night, for the last three nights, I have insisted to myself that I will be in bed at 8:30 PM, which is when I have to go to bed on a school night if I want to be able to get up at 4:20 AM to hit the gym in the morning. I got…
Writing isn’t always writing. Tonight, I spent the time I usually set aside to work on some outlining and character sketching for NextLife, my first ever attempt at a science fiction novel. I have a pretty good strategy that I use when writing short stories. (Most of the advice I have gotten for the writing…
Today is national Administrative Assistant’s day, or something like that and I sent flowers to my assistant Cathy, who works in Santa Monica. Actually, she is the department assistant, doing the jobs of nine or ten people in her quiet and remarkable way. She is one of my favorite people at my company and she…
Moments ago, one of the office assistants came up to me in order to schedule a meeting with me next week. We went through the usual dance, and I finally told her any time on May 1, 2, or 3 was fine. A few minutes later I received an email that said: How about May…
There are three things that I do on my lunch hour throughout the year. (1) I sleep; (2) I end up in a meeting; (3) I read. And on days as pleasant as today, it’s always the latter. I head out of the office and over to Pentagon Row, find a chair, prop by feet…
Up at 4:30 AM and into the gym by about 5:50 AM. I managed to get in a full cardio workout this morning, even though I got to bed late again last night, which makes it very difficult to get up at 4:30.