Dramatis Personae Part Deux: ShaChri “Feral Daughter” Patel
Of all the characters in the book, Feral is the most fun to write. She’s American born of Indian parents. Parents who have become very Americanized, but still hold to some of their Hindu traditions and still speak with a bit of an accent. ShaChri’s mother, Puja, wanted very much for her daughter to grow…Read More
Dramatis Personae Part 1: Will “WonderBoy” Kwan
Arnav Gupta, over at his Bookworm blog, has started a thread on characters and their development. He picked Hercule Poirot to start it out. That got me thinking about my characters. I had someone draw my two protagonists a while back. The drawings came out okay, but missed the mark. Probably my poor description of…Read More
English as a second language
I read an interesting blog last night by Beyza Çitak about struggling to learn English (blog link). I can relate. I don’t speak English. I speak American. The “English” speaking world tries to make everyone think that the language spoken by English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans, Indians, Singaporans, Kenyans, Bermudans, and Americans…Read More
Cupboard under the stairs
You should know this already. Prior to attending Hogwarts, when the Dursley’s punished Harry Potter, they made him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. We’re moving. Long tale of woe involving program issues and long delays and innumerable other problems familiar to anyone who has worked on a failed/failing project. So be it. Hey,…Read More
Cool Promo Stuff
I continue to be amazed at the high quality, highly creative people that my publisher, Inklings Publishing, is calling in to work on my book. Today’s shout-out goes to the graphic artist who did all of the promo material. Karina Winbigler is a wizard at this stuff. Check her out on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karinawinbigler/ She’s…Read More
Hey! I wrote a book.
Maybe highly experienced/published writers don’t get quite the same thrill as I’m experiencing right now. Pre-orders for my book just went live on Amazon, Square, and via the publisher, Inklings Publishing. Here’s the link to the Inklings market page: https://www.inklingspublishing.com/?fbclid=IwAR1Te_xsQ3V6yYlCWVeYrN3j3hUXJbPpjWcG_Mj9JYkC-JcJWWgGM19a2Ug If you want a hard copy, and I know that you do, best bet is…Read More
Writing help
Sometimes help comes from an unexpected quarter. It’s an old adage that in order to be a better writer, you must read voraciously. I do. Not quite at the level of Maria Popova (https://www.brainpickings.org). But I read a lot. In my entire life, I’ve only re-read a few books: Dune, some W.E.B Griffin stuff, Ready…Read More
Hey! I’m on a podcast.
A while back, Angie Drymala of Creatrix Chats interviewed me for her podcast. It was not what I expected. I was anticipating some of the standard author questions (and got a few of those) but our conversation ended up being fairly wide ranging over the hour we talked. Here’s the link to the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50554875?fbclid=IwAR2RcttxPujvjvziKhOKcIZTOMsq-rBXfho0uKvpEyv9vpspfjFnc7L1UTw…Read More
What’s up with Black Grass?
One of the fictions in Spark is black grass. Current trends in solar use only a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide energy. Solar panels (rooftop, satellite, etc.#) use primarily the visible spectrum – red to violet. Solar thermal facilities, like Solar Two, use mostly the infrared part. Both have advantages and both leave…Read More
Virtual Reality vs. Augmented Reality
Spark takes advantage of a technology referred to as Augmented Reality (AR). It’s similar, but different in important ways from Virtual Reality (VR). In VR, once you put on your headset, all of the real world is replaced in your vision by the fictional creation of the software. Orcs and dragons, damsels in distress, and…Read More