Category Archives: Commentary
Replenishing Your Creative Coffers
Creative work, whether it’s fiction, art, music, etc., takes a special kind of energy. Like any work, creative work demands our attention and concentration. However, creative work is usually something we have to fit in around other time demands, such … Continue reading
Writing Convincing Aliens Part 1: Biology and Ecology
This series is intended to help writers brainstorm the elements that go into creating convincing aliens*. It can also be applied to creating convincing nonhuman fantasy creatures, artificial intelligences, and so on. My science fiction novel, Absence of Blade, is … Continue reading
Posted in Articles, Commentary
Tagged aliens, science fiction, worldbuilding, writing craft
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This Book Is Not Yet Rated
About a year and a half ago, I was spending a lot of time on the fiction sharing platform Inkitt. Inkitt lets writers create a profile and upload short stories and even entire novels to the site, where other users can … Continue reading
Why You Should Create Ugly Characters
Bear with me. Anyone who’s watched any Hollywood release or network television series in the past, well, ever, knows that lookism is a powerful force. It shapes not only the actors chosen to play leading roles, but also the types … Continue reading
Have You Done Enough in 2016?
For many people this is a loaded question, apt to inspire feelings of guilt, panic, and apathy. We live in a society where doing, doing, doing is presented the bedrock of productive citizenship, where activity is lauded as the path … Continue reading
8 Things I Learned From NaNoWriMo
Well, I did it. I completed NaNoWriMo with a grand total of 50,029 new words drafted between November 1st and November 30th. This was my second time attempting NaNoWriMo; the first stalled out due to student-related deadlines. Though completing the … Continue reading
Don’t Sell Your Books on the Cheap!
I was strolling through the comments to a recent post on Chuck Wendig’s writer blog when I came across a commenter lamenting that recent changes in Amazon’s pricing structure have slashed profits for self-published authors. Having planned to go into … Continue reading
A Singular Enlightenment
I’m a reformed Singularitarian. In high school, my dad gave me my brick-like copy of Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, a spiritual successor to his speculative books on the future of artificial intelligence, The Age of Intelligent Machines, followed … Continue reading
Large Hadrosaur Collider*– Or, Thoughts on Jurassic World
Jurassic World takes the opportunity to engage with the themes of Jurassic Park and turns it into an hour and a half of plastic dinosaurs smashing together. Continue reading
Why Can’t Deadpool Die?
Warning: Spoilers for Deadpool 2, Logan “There are two constants in life: death and sequels.” – Me I saw Deadpool 2 last weekend. Despite a problematic, fridging-dependent premise, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it nailed the fourth wall-breaking, … Continue reading →