This is one of those eternal writer questions, getting into the heart of the creative process. For those of you who don’t know, a “plotter” is someone who plots out (outlines) their entire story before writing it and a “pantser”…
So I’m about halfway through my last polish pass on my third major draft of Untimed. [Update 7:44pm, finished the polish] This is one of the umpteen revision passes. Only another day or two to go before I send it off…
I just finished the rough cut of the third major draft of my new novel, Untimed. Just in time too to get out of town. This weekend will be quiet and post free. I’m off to Vegas with the Foodie…
As I slog toward the end of my third major draft of my new novel, Untimed, I felt the need for brief procrastination in the form of detailing the process. Most people seem to discount how much grind and sheer…
I read this after two different friends recommended it in the same week. Wow! If you’re one of my (presumably) many readers who love video games. Go buy and read it. This is pretty much the ultimate classic video games novel!
This is one of the best and most unusual books I’ve read in a while, although it’s not for everyone. It’s set mostly in England during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s also written in a very clever approximation of early 19th century British prose. Think of it as Dickens or Vanity Fair with magic.
I think I’m over the hump with the third major draft of my new novel, Untimed (for a quick blurb see here). Story structure is hard. And while this book is much better structured than early drafts of my previous…
City of Bones is the first in a series of fairly typical urban paranormal. We have a girl who thinks she’s nothing special, but she discovers she’s part of this whole world of demon hunters, fairies, vampires, werewolves, etc. And right under our noses in New York City! But for the most part, it’s a pretty fun romp.
The new Conan is surely a guilty pleasure for the fantasy hound like myself. Yeah, the plot and characterization is a little weak, but it is gorgeous, and the action is comprehensible. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. It’s certainly faster paced than the awesome although slightly dated and admittedly cheesy original.
I saw and loved the original Fright Night when it opened in 1985. Truth be told it was always one of my favorite vampire movies. The 2011 is loosely faithful to the original film. I was pleasantly surprised…
In my continued effort to improve site navigation I’ve introduced a new page to index all my writing posts, sorted by topic. You can also find it in the “Writing” menu at the top of the site or by clicking on…
I’m always reading books on writing and storytelling. In fact, I read three this week. One of them was Save the Cat by the late Blake Snyder. This post isn’t a review per se of that book, but more some…
During the long long dark ages of fantasy filmmaking, before the wonder that is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, or the epic new HBO Game of Thrones, we fantasy fans had to be content with a sorry set of films indeed. Above the pathetic likes of Willow and Krull, the 1982 Dino De Laurentiis epic starring the pre-Terminator Mr. Universe was high art indeed.
This novel has the amusing premise of taking the straight up traditional noir detective novel, like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep, and giving it a modern paranormal spin.True to it’s noir roots, the book is pretty dark, with grisly murders and (off screen) sex. But by being supernatural, and more importantly campy, it looses that black edged moral ambiguity that the best classic noir had, making it just a fun read.
My post showing Game of Throne’s transparent CGI was wildly successful (over 25,000 views on my site alone). Apparently its been popular across the web at large because the SFX company released another video of even more. Particularly interesting is how many…
My second novel, Untimed, is a YA time-travel adventure. And I just finished the rough version of my second draft. Whew! Happy to be done with that. The book grew to 84,000 words (it’ll probably get trimmed down a bit…
This is a very interesting little video showing off how the Game of Thrones locations are built up using Computer Graphics, substituting effectively for matte painting in traditional film. In my extensive reviews of the show one thing I’ve noted…
Martin’s books are among my all-time favorite novels. I enjoyed the book immensely, and eagerly await the the next volume (and I’m sure I’ll be waiting for a long time), but I can’t help but think it could have been SO much better if Martin had taken all the material in both Feast and Dragons and reedited them together into two chronological and slightly leaned down volumes.
It’s interesting that in the last year or so there have been two movies about the Roman legion “lost” in North Britain during the Hadrianic period. It just goes to prove that Hollywood loves to copy. Two volcano movies? Two Wyatt Earp films? Two Lambada films? And, to boot, it’s unlikely the legion was actually “lost” (as in militarily). More likely it was just disbanded and the sketchy historical record makes it seem to have disappeared.
Just finished up a new “working cover” for my second novel, Untimed. Thanks a million to my friend and long time business partner Jason Rubin for concocting the excellent logo. He is a true Photoshop wizard. If any of you…