Hi All,

Just a quick announcement. Some services have been targeting my comments and I currently have over 40,000 comments in queue waiting for approval. Since less than 1 percent of these are actual, legitimate comments, I’m going to delete them all and install a better control widget.

If you’ve had an approved comment previously, it looks like the comments get approved automatically. If you’ve commented since early December and don’t see it up there, please try commenting again in one week. By then, I should have the new stuff in place.

Thanks, and please email me if you have a recommendation for a good widget to avoid the problem in the future.

Best, and happy new year.

Jason

Let’s talk about process. I love my iGadgets, cloud storage, wireless keyboard, voice-to-text tools and all the other trappings of living in the future. They make it possible for me to make a good living doing exactly what I love while spending lots of time with my family and other loved ones.

But sometimes you have to bang a couple of rocks together. I had to get old-school between first and second drafts of the first section of my current young adult project Rio Sangre, a story about zombies and high school and quantum mechanics.

I had 20 chapters written, liked the basics, but felt the need to fiddle with structure and make sure all my Chekov guns were appropriately holstered. So I printed them all out, and laid them on my conference table.
Continue reading →

Some of you might remember last week’s mention of gaming author Erin Evans. Thanks to her, I’m involved in a questionnaire/chain letter thing that’s kind of fun. Be sure to check out the authors at the bottom. You’ll meet some talented new people that way. 1) What is the working title of your next book? Continue reading →

Hi everybody, meet Erin Evans. Erin, meet everyone. Erin is a freelance writer, and author of the books The God Catcher, Lesser Evils and Brimstone Angels. Erin invited me to participate in an exciting little romp you’ll hear more about next week. Meanwhile, check out her web page. It’s worth the time.

Erin M Evans

Have a great weekend.

They say good writers borrow, but great writers steal. For today’s Friday Fun, let’s look at a perfect example of this.

Here we have a segment from Ren and Stimpy. If you’re unaware of what that is, it’s a cartoon that ran in the 90s. One of the first cartoons based on being funny by telling jokes it’s weird to see cartoon characters tell. Sort of a precursor to things like Archer and Drawn Together. Below is a classic Ren rant…

And here is a scene from the classic movie The Maltese Falcon.

If you’re an impatient sort, fast forward to 1:52.

I’m just sayin’.