I've been trying to figure out a quick, easy way to get the concept beind my novel Snapshot across. Here is my latest attempt ( Read more... )

This is a slightly updated reprint from an abortive series I started seven years ago, but didn't have time to keep up with. I hope it's useful.

How To Grow An Intelligent Alien (Part 1) (Lessons From Apes, Bears, Elephants, and Cockroaches)

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As of today, the Kindle version of the Exchange sequel is finally available. I keep wanting to dink with it, but I guess it's finally time to let go and see how well it flies. The print version should be out shortly. At the end of Exchange, I left Sharon Mack and her daughter stranded in Bear Country, an alternate dimension where there are no ( Read more... )

Recycle Alert: This originally appeared in my Science Fiction Adventure Zine about a year and a half ago.

This is a set of questions that popped into my head about science fiction and ethics. Most of them aren’t original to me, but I think they’re worthy of discussion and hopefully I add a few twists.

1) If you could go back in time and save an ( Read more... )

I'll admit it. Characters aren't the first thing I think about when I'm writing stories. I tend to build very elaborate world-building, which I then follow by coming up with a plot that fits into that world and finally characters that make that plot work. This isn't an entirely linear process. The characters feed back into the plot, shaping it as ( Read more... )

This is a snippet from a novelette I wrote ten or more years ago and have been trying to resurrect. Remember what I said a few days ago about that resulting in something better than the old story, but not as good as something I would write now? Yep. That's what I think happened. I'll let you be the judge.The North Central Illinois University ( Read more... )

Sorry about the long hiatus. I'm still battling some kind of cold or flu that is knocking me on my butt and trying to edit my 2012 NaNoWriMo novel into an acceptable entry for the Amazon contest (ABNA ( Read more... )

The first draft of my novels tend to grab concerns from my subconscious and toss them out. Sometimes that fits into the story. Sometimes it doesn't. This is part of a scene from my Work In Process, and it will probably get cut, but I like the conversation.

“Tell me about Amelia.”

Surprisingly, he wanted to, and words poured out of him. "She's not a ( Read more... )

By the time you read this, it’ll be December 21st. The Mayan calendar will have ended and the world either will or will not end. Of end of the world scares go, this is an unlikely one, but I I know some people seriously believe in it. A lot more play off of it. A local Anime con has an Apocalypse theme, and people are having end of the world ( Read more... )

I went to WindyCon, a Chicago-area con, this past weekend. It has a nice little Writer's Workshop that I've participated in the last several years. This time I submitted a short story that I've always considered one of my best, but that has collected a series of form rejections. The group at the workshop loved parts of it, but pointed to a fairly ( Read more... )