Blogs

  • Hello Predator—Meet Prey! You'll get along famously

    [CENTER][MEDIA=youtube]dK80v17Fkcw[/MEDIA][/CENTER] Finally I've found a good and fairly comprehensive video on this subject, something I've tried many times to elaborate on throughout this blog. [B][I]Iain McGilchrist[/I][/B] seems to be just about the only scientist concentrating on this subject today, aside from some low-key research groups doing studies nobody ever hears about (unless they look into McGilchrist's work). He's its popularizer, the way [B][I]Carl Sagan[/I][/B] and [B][I]Neil DeGrass Tyson[/I][/B] are for astrophysics and science in general. Several times I've explained...
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  • A Phantom for My Opera?

    Some days when I doubt myself and my abilities to write I think of employing a ghost writer. But in a bit of a different setup. I will write the first draft and then the potential ghost writer can refine it to a readable/enjoyable state. I love storytelling, and I love the creative process. But my produce just isn't up to par most of the time. Training is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I read, I watch, I practice... I learn? Yeah, sometimes I do learn. But I will continue to try my best. So no, I will not employ a phantom for my space opera. I will be the author of my own...
  • The Desperate Search for a New Idea...

    I think I have it... Not a truly different idea in that it's completely unheard of on any level.. But I had quit story-telling for a while because I couldn't think of something genuinely new and interesting. Different in terms of style, structure, and idea. As a fiction writer...I tend to want to [I]create [/I]something. To flex my imagination rather than offering stylistic renditions of the same types of stories. Only problem is...I think I will never complete it in time. I know...cryptic. Useless...but this is more a time-stamp for myself. Maybe, in time, someone will look back on...
  • Time, time, time

    On our neighborhood walks my wife and I used to walk past a big old deciduous tree (as I recall, though it may have been a pine). A couple years back, though, it dropped its biggest branch and some others in a storm, and the property owners had it removed. All of it, stump and all. This year when we walked past that spot, there is absolutely no indication that the tree was ever there. Once the next generation of property owners move in, no one will recall that tree. It existed, but now it's totally gone. When we moved into our house more than 20 years back, a semi-retired surgeon and...
  1. Military Youth Camp Days

    When I was a teenager I attended a week long military youth camp. There I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I sucked at guiding an airplane bomb run. (I bombed the wrong city. In theory, not practice.) I got to shoot a .22 long. A cartridge got stuck in the loading mechanism, I thought something was wrong so I raised my hand and the instructor came. He just used force to guide the cartridge into where it was supposed to be. I thought the damn thing would explode in my face if I used...
  2. Been a while

    It's been a while, since I posted here. My boss has been a slave driver of late, which is an odd statement since I am my own boss. My trilogy is on the back burner for now. Book 1 has a word count that is acceptable, Book2 is still a bit shy of acceptable, and Book 3 needs a lot of work to be done. But I ran out of gas with the project, and my work schedule, so let it sit for a bit and let myself recharge for that project.

    I have started a new project that is coming along nicely. I tossed...
  3. 101 alternative uses for a lightsaber - #4

    Deadheading geraniums, petunias and rhododendrons. .
  4. If a flamingo gets in your yard

    If a flamingo gets in your yard

    If a flamingo gets in your yard, don’t shoo it away. There’s no need to fear. Cautiously approach, and take some time to really notice it. Pink is a comforting colour, after all. There’s an elegance in their long necks and long legs. Appreciate how it is formed. If there are two flamingos, even better. When the two of them get together, beak to beak, and breast and breast, they make a heart, and we all know what that means.

    If a flamingo gets in your...
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  5. Looking into the Creation of the MCU


    Don't be put off by the name of the channel (It Was a Sh*t Show)—this guy actually does a deep dive into the making of various movies, and he's extremely fair in his reporting. I think the name is mostly clickbait, though when you look deep enough, the making of most movies really is a shit show, even the ones that come out excellent. It's basically a miracle when Hollywood is able to make a good movie. He gives plenty of praise...
  6. The Altered Self


    I hadn't heard of a sci-fi genre called The Altered Self before, or of Evolutionary Horror. And yet some of the most powerful books and movies I know of fit into one or both. I guess it's because I never really looked into sub-genres. But honestly, I don't think truly evolutionary horror would be frightening at all, since evolution takes like millions of years and affects, not you directly, but your very distant descendents....
  7. Something to say?

    Must a writer always have some underlying message in their fictional works? Or can they exist as mere entertainment and information?

    I don't know.

    Personally, I write to entertain and bring people to another reality, another universe. But even if I don't consciously implement messages, they are still there. In the shadows of my words.

    There is a suicide in one of my works and it seems portrayed like a pointless death. So, is that my eternal message about suicides?
    Not at all.

    I hold no...
  8. Alan Watt (not Alan Watts) on writing from the unconscious


    Just stumbled across this, and so far I'm loving it. He talks (among other things) about the need to allow story to emerge from the unconscious (he calls it the subconscious, but it means the same thing). That's just the first video of a playlist—if you click through on the YouTube logo down in the corner it should open the playlist. If not, here's a link:
    • ...
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  9. Old, Brown, Run-down Home

    Back in 2007 when me and my siblings were still children, my parents built a beautiful home for all of us to move into and live in. The home had several small balconies (as many rural homes in Greece do) and one very large one. The large balcony faced a field. And in the middle of that field, surrounded by overgrown trees, was a colourless home. It had the ash-like colour wood takes when you leave it outside in the rain for enough years.

    Nobody lived in it. It was just an old, brown,...
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  10. Self Plagerizism

    Anyone ever look back on their old work and realized they've duplicated scenes? Even bits of dialogue. It's freaky. I've been typing an old story from paper into my computer to preserve it. I haven't read the story - fully - in decades and I'm shocked to find I've duplicated several scenes. In my old work I have a young girl talking to an older man - she asks am I ugly? - he says fishing for compliments?
    I gave the same scene to my younger man and his director - two decades later. Creepy....
  11. Things that you can’t have just one of…

    Things that you can’t have just one of…

    Top of everyone’s list is chips (crisps in the UK). That intoxicating mixture of fats and carbs gets me every time. I’m a kettle-chip lover, salt and vinegar. Not everyone likes the vinegar chips, but they are my favourite. And of course chocolate. I got a good supply of Lindt Lindor chocolates for Christmas. Can’t eat just one. Maybe some people can, but I bet it takes will power.

    Cups of coffee. Gotta have three or four...
  12. Perfect Bananas

    Perfect Bananas

    Can you imagine them? Without blemish or bruise or speckle, a uniform yellow colour, maybe a hint of green at the corners and stems.

    [​IMG]

    Perfect bananas are rare. Not surprising, considering the long journey they make from where they grew to where they will meet their fate.

    But I can really appreciate a perfect banana. It’s a thing of surreal beauty. Look at it, resplendent in its...
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  13. Examining the writing in Sail and The Man Who Liked Dogs

    These are my two favorite hardboiled stories I've run across so far, both of them in the same book—The Hard Boiled Omnibus, published in 1952 and edited by Joseph T Shaw. It's a collection of some of the best stories from Black Mask magazine. I've already linked to Sail twice, but I feel I should include links here for both stories:
  14. World building

    I am continuing to go back through the "Wandering inn" Series by Pirateaba. This series is a fascinating case study in world building. Since the genre is fantasy, the author has multiple races to deal with. There is a detailed profile for each race, Drakes, Gnolls, Goblins, Antinium, Humans which are the main races on the main continent in the story. Each race is detailed in culture and politics. Things are gradually revealed using an ignorant character, learning about the world. The culture...
  15. The world as a character

    This is likely more of a genre item, for SciFi and Fantasy, but it is something worth considering.
    How much attention do we authors pay to crafting the worlds we write in? I ask this going beyond simple logical continuity. I occasionally run across works that the world itself is almost another character in the story the way it engages the reader. It is well fleshed out and engaging, in such a way that it has the reader wanting to learn more about the world itself. Granted this gets deeply...
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