MoShang Week Recap

Last week was rough for a lot of reasons, but Moshang saved me from the worst of it. Moshang, for those who haven't fallen into the Endless Abyss of MXTX fandom, is the ship name for two secondary characters from Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's Scum Villain Self Saving System. SVSSS is a story about a…

Old Dog; New Tricks

Because I can only write for so many hours of the day (and because my mobility is still in the 'can only stand/walk for about ten minutes before it starts to hurt' range of things), I decided about a month ago that darn it, I was going to learn to draw! Other than a semester…

The Origins of a Scar

Yesterday I finally had the surgery for my hyperparathyroidism, which was diagnosed back in October, but then an ankle injury derailed me for the entire winter (and then, y'know... there was this pandemic thing that cropped up). One of the nice things about this particular surgery is that you know almost immediately if it was…

The Bread and Butter of Writing

Recently (as in, like, this morning while I was making toast), I’ve been thinking about descriptions at the sentence level, especially as it relates to character, character voice, PoV, and worldbuilding. The opening chapter of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a masterclass in this (and, not incidentally, my favorite book opening of all time).…

May Updates and Cover Girls

Two years ago in May, Marie and I said 'let's do this' and launched a whirlwind four months of writing. Most weeks, we put down 10k words or more, and by the time October rolled around, we had a 225k word book draft for what would eventually become The Mask of Mirrors. Last year in…

Not Another Writing Advice Post, UGH! – Passive Voice

Yes, another writing advice post. In fact, my first such post! Seems like an oxymoron, I know. The ‘not another – Ugh’ energy has more to do with how much writing advice there is out there, and my own hesitation over adding something useless or repetitive to the noise. My editor for the Mr. Mystic…

Got Masks?

A few weeks ago, I knocked out some masks for myself and my brother using t-shirts -- because I have waaaay too many t-shirts. Copyedits for The Mask of Mirrors are turned it, and since I'm in the ranks of the Covid-19 unemployed, I have some free time to make more.  I don't really need…

Level Unlock – Big Damn Trilogy Sale!!

Last summer, I started working on a collaborative project with Marie Brennan that ended up being more or less NaNoWriMo for four months straight. We finished the 220k word behemoth in October, tossed it back and forth between beta readers, our agents, and each other, and sent it out to editors this past spring. This…

My Worldcon Dublin Schedule

Worldcon Dublin is coming! I'm heading off a few days early so I can ride a bike along the Great Western Greenway and around Inishmore, but after that I'll be in Dublin with a few thousand other SFF geeks. Here's where you can find me: Making the transition from player to Games Master Format: Workshop…

My Favorite Trope — Time Travel, Pt. 1

We’ve all fallen down the bottomless pit that is TV Tropes (WARNING: Following this link will result in loss of time ranging from several minutes to several days or longer). Even if you don’t know what a trope is, you know what tropes are. For the purposes of this series, I’m not talking about the…