Despite all blogular evidence to the contrary, I am merely buried, not dead -- and nearly emerged. Since last we met, there was Thanksgiving (driving to San Diego), Christmas (see "Thanksgiving"), my father's 70th birthday (flying to San Diego), three Escapist articles, a two-month-long still-in-action sinus infection ("chronic sinusitis") with ( Read more... )

Hallo again all -- I am still behind on comment replies to the Mac Attack!, but am on a plane again tomorrow so wanted to post this quickly.

"Why Your Game Idea Sucks", a short-order article I wrote for the Escapist a couple of weeks ago, popped up in my google alerts yesterday. By the time I got to it, it already had about 25 comments, and now it ( Read more... )

One of the occupational hazards of being a game designer is an obligation to play up-and-coming games, both to stay ahead of where the market is moving and to dig for signs of the One True Game Design, aka universal mechanics that move people. Lately there's been a lot of buzz around Bejeweled Blitz, so I dug in for a sample today.

Blitz takes the ( Read more... )

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Valentine's Day dinner at home: steaks broiled with garlic and pepper, twice-baked potatoes with horseradish cheddar and scallions, spinach sauteed with shallots and garlic. And I know it's good because I set off all three smoke detectors with the steaks. Dessert was supposed to be raspberry lemon souffles, but I can't find the beaters for my mixer ( Read more... )

So, I am sitting here in my silk kimono robe (don't get too excited, I'm also wearing a t-shirt and jeans) and my slippers and I'm feeling very writerly. It's a nice feeling considering that over the past few days I've been going through one of those crises of conscience about what constitutes "important" writing (thanks, Time book). But now I ( Read more... )

Of the publishing variety. "Whatever Shall Grow There, Dear" is now live in the current issue of Lone Star Stories, along with other excellent fiction and poetry that you should imbibe immediately. Take a look at sovay's "Firework-Makers", and the poems of papersky and seajules. Everyone seems to be on LJ these days. ;)

While you're at it, head over to Schezerezade's ( Read more... )

Since he's already announced it, I gather that it is safe to mention here that Eric "lightning draw" Marin has accepted "Whatever Shall Grow There, Dear" for the June 2008 edition of Lone Star Stories"Whatever Shall Grow There, Dear" is one of three themed stories using lines from John Donne's "Lovers' Infiniteness", stories that wound up cutting ( Read more... )

It seems that the feminism issue rears its head on the speculative fiction blogosphere about once every six months, maybe more frequently if you follow specific blogs in question. I'd been meaning, with certain trepidation, to throw my hat in, and now seems an opportune time as I have found myself unwittingly participating in one editor's salvo in ( Read more... )

In 2007 I attended World Horror Con with thehollowbox, and for all of the sessions we made it to, I kept pretty extensive notes. I'd gone with the intention of doing a bit of an experiment -- a news-style writeup of the sessions, similar to conference writeups I've done for Gamasutra. There was nothing like this available for spec fic conventions, as far as I ( Read more... )