Month: December 2011

  • Year in review – 2011: Short fiction reading

    28 Dec 2011 » 6 min read about 2011, goals, Reading & Books, short fiction

    I have said that we are in a golden age for short science fiction and fantasy. There is so much good short fiction out there it is difficult to keep up with it all. I had no specific goals for short fiction reading at the beginning of 2011. Reading short science fiction is probably my…

  • Year in review – 2011: Blogging

    27 Dec 2011 » 3 min read about 2011, Blog & Site Meta, goals

    If my fiction-writing in 2011 was something of a disappointment, my blogging turned out to be something of a surprise. In my goals for 2011, I made mention of only one item relating to blogging: Triple the traffic to my website by providing more relevant content, more frequently. This means more content about science fiction and…

  • My latest Wayward Time Traveler column is up at SF Signal

    27 Dec 2011 » 1 min read about Blog & Site Meta

    My last Wayward Time Traveler column for 2011 is now available over at SF Signal. In this week’s column, I point out that the Golden Age of science fiction isn’t always golden.  Head on over to SF Signal to check it out.

  • Year in review – 2011: Fiction writing

    26 Dec 2011 » 3 min read about 2011, goals, Writing & Publishing

    I didn’t do so well meeting my writing goals for 2011. I now have some idea of why that may be, but I’ll discuss that in due course. First, let me review my fiction-writing goals from 2011 and see how I measured up in reality. My writing goals for this year included some elements that…

  • Vacation in the Golden Age, Episode 29: November 1941

    25 Dec 2011 » 21 min read about 1941, episodes

    Forgive me, it’s been four weeks since my last Vacation episode. Early in my reading for this episode, I caught a cold that was followed by the first ear infection that I can recall since childhood. It made it impossible to do any reading or writing and so I really had no choice but to…

  • 2011 – A year in review: Introduction

    24 Dec 2011 » 1 min read about Personal & Family

    Over the next 7 days, I’ll be doing a series of posts that look back over my various goals for 2011 and set some new ones for 2012. Last year, I mostly did this in one or two post. So why spread these over 10 posts this year? A couple of reasons: I wanted to…

  • Why no notes or highlighting in Kindle magazines?

    23 Dec 2011 » 1 min read about iPad, kindle, magazines, Reading & Books, Technology & Gadgets

    I’ve written before of the many reasons why I love e-books. One of those reasons is the ability to highlight text and make notes about what you are reading. I find this enormously valuable, and it is something I would never dream of doing in a physical book. I’ve been reading a lot of magazines…

  • A typical winter vacation day in sunny Florida

    23 Dec 2011 » 2 min read about Personal & Family

    What I’ve done so far today: Both kids slept through the night. Again. That means that we slept through the night, too. That is two nights in a row for me, something that hasn’t happened since well before the Little Miss was born. Maybe it’s the warm Florida air? The Little Man and I took…

  • Yesterday’s payroll tax deal

    23 Dec 2011 » 1 min read

    At this point, I’d be happy to trade in my $1,000 tax break for a new Congress. One that, you know, has something resembling a spine running down its back and guts that aren’t quite so yellow. One that makes it clear they do what’s best for the people and not what’s best for the…

  • Reason #67 to love short fiction

    23 Dec 2011 » 1 min read

    If you have to walk somewhere, you can read an entire short story on the way there. And another one one the way back.

  • An “I just don’t get it” story involving Robert Reed and F&SF

    22 Dec 2011 » 2 min read

    So I’m sitting out on the lanai here in sunny and warm southwestern Florida. I got my Golden Age reading done this morning. I did some writing on my work in progress. And I was spending most of the rest of the afternoon going through my back issues of magazines for 2011 and catching up…

  • Rich-text blogging on the iPad

    22 Dec 2011 » 1 min read about Blog & Site Meta

    Prior to the most recent update to WordPress 3.3, I never had access to the rich-text editor when blogging on the iPad. Quite to my surprise this morning, when I went to write that last post, I discovered that the rich-text editor in WordPress now works on the iPad. This is a very big deal…