Book Review: Pighearted by Alex Perry
It was pure serendipity. Slogging through my first draft of Book 1 (which I was convinced was a masterwork but later learned was crap), I found the Houston Writers Guild and joined a critique group. As I read through the work of the other four authors, I smugly thought: Okay, I’m better. Yep, better. Is this…Read More
Book 2: Fire – first draft complete!
During the 12 Days of Page Turners online event, the host, Aimee Ravichandran (@aimeeravichandran) of Abundantly Social, asked me how long it took to write SPARK. I told her that I thought it took about a year to finish the first draft. There were eight drafts before it was done. So, having just finished my…Read More
Thank you, Matthew!
We dwell in a universe of quick, easy, “likes.” So, when I checked the mail last week and saw a hand-addressed envelope, I was surprised. Inside was my first ever piece of fan mail. An honest-to-God, hand-written note to me: As Newcomer put it: “There will never be a digital form of communication which will…Read More
Book Review: The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Game was the first book I read by Orson Scott Card http://www.hatrack.com. I read it when it first came out and was hooked by Card’s writing. It may be one in my top 10 of all time. Janne from SPARK was named after the AI in Ender’s Game. A couple of weeks ago, I…Read More
A nice review
SPARK was reviewed by onlinebookclub.org. Here’s what they had to say: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=200256 Reading through the comments below the review, it seemed that some readers of the review came away thinking that it was a “sad” book. Yes, some sad things happen, but is that what those of you who read it thought?
The death of words
Edward R. Murrow said of Winston Churchill in 1940, “Now the hour had come for him to mobilize the English language and send it into battle….” President Kennedy later used this quote when presenting Churchill with honorary American citizenship. It’s still at war, only now it’s under attack. English morphs as times change. Words fall…Read More
Will’s first brush with Death
When my editor rightfully shamed me about Will being such a wimp that he stayed away from SPARK for 40 days, I had to make some other tweaks beyond getting rid of the dog. One sub-theme I liked was the impersonality of the universe. The black grass didn’t care. It just turned toward the strongest…Read More
A boy and his dog
In Draft 2, Will spent a lot of time being homeless in Barstow. 40 days, actually. Yes, that was an allusion to another great hero who spent 40 days in the desert. The instigating event was the same as it is in the published version – an uncomfortable run in with Feral and an anonymous…Read More
Recursion (@Blake Crouch) Review
I was trolling for something to listen to as I commute between Houston and San Marcos. I was done for the moment with non-fiction, having just finished the truly excellent Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin ( @aglafley https://www.linkedin.com/in/ag-lafley-2381b3201/ and @rogerlmartin https://rogerlmartin.com – seriously, if you’re a business person, read this…Read More
Deleted Scenes
Sometimes a scene is fun to write and gives the author a chance to vent his spleen, cry out against the injustice of the world. It just doesn’t make it to the final version of the book for the sake of word count or “do you really want to piss off this demographic?” By popular…Read More