Category Archives: Writing

"It's the Romulans! Quick! We need to talk this out rationally before we act!."

Picture this: The U.S.S. Enterprise (D) is facing some sort of massive problem that threatens the existence of the ship, crew and Life As We Know It. The legendary Jean-Luc Picard stands up from the captain’s chair, stares into the viewscreen and gives a fateful order.

“Conference,” he intones.

And everyone files out off the bridge — in the middle of a crisis — and heads back to the conference room, with its plush chairs and lovely views of space. Everyone sits down and begins to share information. Data expounds, Worf says something crochety, the counselor lady gets all new-agey, and Picard then makes a command decision. It’s all very civilized. If cappuccinos weren’t involved, they should’ve been. Continue reading →

It’s hard to think of a less privileged creation than the second novel. When we admire a writer’s debut, it’s like falling in love across a crowded room; we are seduced by a part that we have mistaken for the whole. And when the follow-up reveals, as it must, a more complex picture than we at first believed we saw, our feelings are mixed.

I find that, for the writer, the feelings when writing that second novel are equally mixed, if not more so. Continue reading →

Listen, bub. Writin' is writin'. Now I gotta churn out 500 words in the next ten minutes. Shoo. (For the record, this is not me. Thankfully.)

Originally, my sailing-ships-in-space idea wasn’t going to be a novel, but rather a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons. At the time, I had plenty of reasons for taking that tack — a strong DIY game e-publishing market, low overhead, Wizards of the Coast’s “d20” open-source rules system and, perhaps most importantly, a geeked-out personal background.

But you know what? Looking back, I can honestly say that, at the time, I simply didn’t think I had it in me to write fiction. Continue reading →

C'mon, baby. Papa needs a literary agent.

I’m thrilled to be repped by the talented Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency. Getting an agent is a big victory for a debut writer, and it’s not easy. Here’s some humbling stats, courtesy of Kristin Nelson’s blog. In 2010, the agency received an estimated 36,000 queries. Mine was one of them. Of those queries, Kristin and Sara requested sample pages (generally the first few chapters) from just 839 queriers. I was also one of those. Continue reading →

A really old-school approach to writing?

Alchemy — lead into gold, right? Take something common and turn it into a treasure. It works for writers, too. Take an idea and work your magic, transforming it from a mere notion into something that can transform the reader’s imagination.

The ancient Art of Transformation plays a big part in my novel’s setting, but it’s not a bad metaphor for the craft of writing. I had the germ of the idea: I wanted sailing ships in space, and I wanted to do it right. I had to take that little nugget, break it down and build it back up into gold. And it started with a single question. Exactly how am I going to have sailing ships in space? Continue reading →