In which we learn two old yarns about elephants. Eating an Elephant There’s an old adage that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It’s a somewhat gory reminder that large and daunting tasks can be handled in smaller chunks. Be it cleaning out your garage or writing that next [...]
I, Lord Admiral Norvaljoe Carroll, of His Magesty’s fleet, seize this ship in the name of the king. And with it, her crew, cargoes, Fiction Tuesday, and Courage to do the What’s Write. As befalls Fiction Tuesday, I declare the Prompt for this day, and any after that you wish, to be, “Weiner Dogs”. Use [...]
In which our well-meaning would-be novellist goes about doing things completely wrong…. Maybe. I had the idea that if I over-analyzed a ton of advice for writing a novel without actually gaining a lot of wisdom or insight, I might still be able to give myself some (large) amount of structure to use as a crutch for [...]
Character Growth No character in the Star trek universe undergoes as drastic a change as Seven of Nine. While most of the characters not wearing red shirts in Star Trek grow, and many of them grow a lot, none of them change as much as she does. In sticking with my theme, this piece was [...]
Worldcon, Part II By Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll So I’m safely home from World Con. Back at the day-job-ball-and-chain, and missing the carefree immersion into a society I feel totally at home with. (Well, not so at home that I would dress up with a bowler hat, goggles, and a bullet proof corset.) But the [...]
I am Captain Kirk Writing by the Seat of your Pants I am Captain Kirk. As much as I was Captain Picard on my way to work last week, when It comes to writing, my style is much more Kirk than Picard. Let me see if I can explain a little better. Kirk and Picard [...]
Please Spay Your Tribbles by Laura Nicole Each week I will be analyzing an object from the Science Fiction and Fantasy world to project just how it would pan out in modern society. Clones Yes, I know this one is about 12 hours late, but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in a day. I [...]
While all my friends were at Balticon living it up By: Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll While all my friends were at Balticon living it up, making new connections and reestablishing old, I stayed here in the Golden State. I was raised here. So, even though we’re in a real estate slump that has decimated people’s [...]
Starting Over by J-P Losier You’ve written some absurd, terrible garbage. So have I. Sometimes, the entire short story you’ve written screams for you to throw it away. All seventy-three chapters of it. It is beyond all hope of redemption by even the most skilled of editors. Don’t delete it. It’s worth something later. There may be a clever [...]
We are fast approaching the anniversary of this little endeavor. It’s amazing to think how much we’ve done in the past nine months and how much more we want to do in the coming years. To celebrate all of that, we thought it would be ultra-super-mega-awesome to do a theme for the release of our [...]