Part of the reason that I have struggled with writing these last few years is because I haven’t had time to think. I don’t know about other writers, but for me, thinking is 90% of the job. The rest is essentially dictation. If I don’t have time to think, there just isn’t much to dictate.…
When I wrote about playing the long game recently, I said at the time that I wouldn’t really begin working on something new until September. When I wrote it, I thought it would take me longer to come up with a plan of execution. I also realized I was hedging a bit. Why wait, if…
When I started writing with the idea of selling stories, I was 20 years old, going on 21. When I sold my first story, fourteen years had passed. I wrote intermittently during those years. Sometimes pouring out stories, other times going months without writing a single word. Funny thing is, from the very start, I…
This morning I finished reading Jason Schreier’s latest book on the video game industry Press Reset. These days, the overall process of video game development is very similar to that of making movies. There are three major phases: pre-production, production, and post-production. Thinking about this, it occurred to me that writing a story or a…
I am reading Andy Weir’s new novel, Project Hail Mary, and enjoying it quite a bit. It is the first science fiction novel I’ve read in a while. As I started it, however, something seemed vaguely familiar about it. If you are not familiar with the book, here is part of the publisher’s description: Ryland Grace…
At least 60% of the time when I sit down to write one of this essays, I have an idea in mind. Sometimes I think it is a particularly good idea I am nervous that I won’t carry it off the way I want to. Other times, it seems like a worthwhile idea, but not…
Today marks one hundred consecutive days of blog posts that I have written thus far in 2021. 109 posts in 100 days, totaling about 70,000 words. As I said in my post of January 1, I miss the days of just sitting at the keyboard and pounding out something that just occurred to me. And…
I bought myself an early birthday present: a fountain pen. I’ve been wanting a fountain pen for some time, but I didn’t know much about them. I wanted it mainly for my journal writing. I’ve been using a Pilot G-2 0.7 pen for my journal since late 2017. I mentioned to someone a while back…
I just completed a demo1 for software that me and my team have been working on for nearly a year. It isn’t quite done yet—we still have a few months of work left, but it feels good to get to the point where you have something to show. Indeed, it’s not that different from getting…
This morning I wrote a post and when I finished, I decided to set it aside, and maybe come back to it another time. The reason: it was a stinker. I’d say that 99 out of 100 times, when I write a post for the blog, it feels right to me and goes up without much…
First admit you have a problem Of all of the stories I’ve written, my favorite thus far is “Gemma Barrows Comes to Cooperstown.” The story was published as the lead story in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show in May 2015. I finished writing the final draft of the story on Friday, March 13, 2015, and submitted to…
I learned this morning that science fiction Grandmaster James Gunn has died at age 97. His novel, The Listeners, set the standard for first contact stories. He created and ran the Center for the Study of Science Fiction in Lawrence, Kansas. His Road to Science Fiction anthologies offer an eclectic range of stories that chart…