I was recently asked to prepare a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of Agnosis for a deal that ultimately fell through over novel length and money (meaning, the publisher quite correctly determined that the book was too long to market effectively in a way that would insure a decent return on their investment). Being of a rather pessimistic [...]
Filed under: Writing | Tagged: Agnosis, chapter-by-chapter synopsis, not a how-to | 2 Comments »
Indiana Memorial Union — photo by Kagan Tuncay When I set about to write Agnosis, I’d just finished reading a book called The Rule of Four, a murder mystery/thriller set on the campus of Princeton University. To be honest, I liked the idea of paying homage to one’s alma mater in fictional form, especially (and [...]
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So I spent yesterday up to my eyeballs in the guts of Agnosis. Why would I do this, you ask? Well, it turns out that I queried/partialed a certain major SFF publisher about this novel almost a full year ago — an act which I had largely forgotten because, well, it was almost a full [...]
Filed under: Miscellany, Writing | Tagged: Cherry Pie | Leave a Comment »
In a quintessentially Web 2.0 statement, Cory Doctorow wrote in a June 2006 article for Locus magazine (“Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet”) the fundamental mantra for modern fiction writers: An SF writer’s biggest problem is obscurity, not piracy. Of all the people who chose not [...]
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I like software. I like to play with shiny little utilities that are well designed, have small computing footprints, and do what they claim to do simply and well. Writer and programmer Simon Haynes, author of the Hal Spacejock series, has a nice collection of utilities for writers and readers available for free (FREE) at [...]
Filed under: Miscellany, Writing | Tagged: simon haynes, spacejock software, writing software | Leave a Comment »
As we start winding down A Vessel for Offering and begin thinking about the next project to be posted here, I’m feeling a bit ambivalent. What I’ll be posting soon is a science fiction novel called Agnosis. It is by far the longest work of fiction I’ve ever produced. It took me more than a [...]
Filed under: Miscellany, Writing | Tagged: encephalitis, fear, Writing | 2 Comments »
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently as a writer (somewhat behind Where do you get your ideas? and Where do you find the time?) is How many drafts do you do? The simple answer to this question is As many as it takes. In general, whatever I write one day gets it’s initial [...]
Filed under: Writing | Tagged: editing, science fiction, Writing, writing craft | 3 Comments »
