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  • Finally Read the Original

    So, there are certain canonical books that have spawned countless reinterpretations, and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is no exception. I am a little ashamed to admit that I had never actually read the original until quite recently. And, to my surprise, I rather enjoyed it.

    A lot of the fiction from the late 1800’s/early 1900’s I just find to drag on with unnecessary philosophical discussions or endless discussions at parties, but Wells keeps this story short and sweet. It is about a young inventor who develops a time machine and travels so far into Earth’s future that there is hardly anything left that is recognizable as human. The human race split long ago into subterranian and surface-dwelling races, with the surface people living on fruit and the cave dwellers living on their surface cousins. When our traveler leaves this world, he travels even farther into the future to find a desolate wasteland peopled by hideous creatures and living under a dying sun.

    As many of the pieces from the time, it is presented from the perspective of a companion of the main character, though in this case he does not travel with the protagonist; instead, he is hearing the man relate his travels at a dinner party. This allowed the story to have a much smoother and leaner view of the protagonist’s adventures that made it seem almost like a modern adventure novel.

    The book also offers an interesting judgement on humanity, hinting at the splitting of our race into the pretty useless people supported by the people who live below who make the world run. I’ll leave it to each individual reader to decide just how much of the social commentary they choose to read into it. Personally, I prefer just the hint of it to flavor the adventure of it all. Though I can’t help but feel that his commentary is even more relevant today, with the rich beautiful people marrying and producing useless pretty offspring (*cough* Kardashians *cough*) while a good portion of the world sinks into the darkness of their own uneducated worship of these creatures.

    All in all, its a fun, and fast, read. I suggest giving it a go if you’re a fan of classic science fiction, especially if you’ve enjoyed any of the iterations that have since followed.

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  • Writing Prompt! A philonoist is one who

    Writing Prompt! A philonoist is one who obsessively seeks out knowledge. What kind of trouble can a philonoist get into? Can they get out?

  • Amazon’s New Fan-fic Program

    Most of you at this point have heard about Amazon Worlds. At least, you have if you connect with any kind of social writing media. For those of you who wisely avoid this cess-pit, let me inform you as to what is happening. Amazon has optioned rights for a bunch of worlds/character sets and is about to open the floodgates on those worlds to fan fiction authors to sell their work on Amazon.

    My initial reaction was, “Oh HELL no.” This stems from a sense of ownership over my characters and worlds. If anyone is making money off of it, I should be. But then we look at bit closer at what Amazon is doing. They will only publish fan fiction that is optioned by them, so nothing that the authors/writers/producers haven’t already given the go ahead for (and been paid for). And on top of that, the original content creators will get a cut of anything that’s published.

    Well then, that’s alright, isn’t it? You get paid for something you didn’t have to write and your characters and world get more air time which equates to more exposure and better sales of your original work. Or it should, at least in theory.

    But here’s where I get hung up and I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to license saleable fan fiction until after my death or the onset of dementia…you have no control over what these people are making your characters do.

    Have you READ some of the fan fiction out there? It’d make the sado-masochistic lead of 50 Shades blush. I mean…the things they make Harry and Malfoy do…and then they add in the basilisk…Emma’s face says it all:

     

    So, I’m left with this uneasy feeling that this is going to get away from Amazon, particularly since they just tightened their restriction on adult content in their bookstore. Half the fan fiction they are about to receive will be so absurdly smutty, bizarre, gross, and just unsaleable that I hope they’ve hired the sexual crimes division of the local prisons to scan them because those are the only humans who are going to be able to stomach it.

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  • Missing Children’s Day

    This week’s post is coming to you a bit early to coincide with the day commemorating all the missing children in our world. I know this post is a bit of departure from my usual posts, but it does deal directly with my novel, Undeliverable. In the novel, Ben is struggling to deal with the disappearance of his son, and in rather unhealthy ways. So I decided that on this day I would do my part of help draw attention to the sheer number of children who go missing every day, and the families that struggle with that horror. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children states that in 1999 (the most recent comprehensive survey of the data) 800,000 children were reported missing. Thankfully, a large portion of them were returned to their family. Quite a few were involved in custody disputes, some were runaways, very few were stranger abductions. In fact, out of those 800,000, only 115 of them were the stereotypical kidnappings that every parent dreads: the stranger in the night making off with their child. But the Center is there to help find the missing children, regardless of the manner in which they vanished. Between their tip line (which has received nearly 4 million calls since its inception), trainings for local and national law enforcement, and avid lobbying for laws to make our children safer and to make it easier to look for them once they’re gone, they have made quite the difference in the numbers of recovered children. If you want to help support their efforts, they are always open to donations of time or money. I am also announcing here that a portion of the cover price for Undeliverable, when it launches next spring, will be donated directly to the Center to assist them in their efforts to recover every missing child, because no family should have to deal with the disappearance of their Benny.

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  • Writing prompt! Ever think about the per

    Writing prompt! Ever think about the person who makes the tools we use to make the things we use everyday?

  • Help 500,000 books find homes! http://ow

    Help 500,000 books find homes! http://ow.ly/lfyYw

  • Without a Cover

    Books wrapped in brown paper with keywords on them.

    This wonderful image came across my screen a while back and I thought it would be fun to try a guessing game! I’m going to list a few of my favorite books below by the keywords that come into my head, and you all can try and guess them! Alternatively, list a new book in the comments and let others try and guess! To make it a bit harder, you only get three keywords, or terms, if you will…

    Book 1:
    Science Fiction
    Mars
    Philosophical Commentary

    Book 2:
    Fantasy
    Purple Eyes
    Gender-change

    Have fun!

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  • In Honor of Fitzgerald…

    I know, I know, it’s been a long while, but I promise, I’m back now! Things have been more than a little crazy. But, since this weekend is the opening of what I am sure is a glorious rendition of The Great Gatsby in theaters across the nation, I wanted to pay tribute to one of Fitzgerald‘s lesser known works: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

    This novella has the same flair for the dramatic and absurd indulgence as Gatsby, but this story is actually a retelling of an old fairy tale, The Glass Mountain. It’s once again the neighbor’s point of view (after a fashion) of a young lad who is befriended by the family that is at the crux of the story. He is invited by a mysterious schoolmate to visit his family’s hidden home which is actually built on top an enormous diamond in an inaccessible portion of the Rockies. Our protagonist marvels at the splendor, falls in love with the sister, and eventually escapes the mountain fortress with the skin on his back barely intact.

    I personally found this little novella to be quite enjoyable. Even moreso than The Great Gatsby. While I enjoyed the ludicrous nature of the parties and Gatsby himself, I struggled to identify with the story in any fashion. But the protagonist of Diamond is different. I could really sink into this little fantasy world and enjoy it to its fullest, with Fitzgerald’s flair and verbosity serving well to emphasize the fairy tale underpinnings.

    You can find this in various formats, both print and digital, but my favorite is by the Melville House Art of the Novella series. They are gorgeous little books and I am determined to collect them all at some point. And I am seriously tempted by the subscription option…

    Cover of Diamond as Big as the Ritz

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  • A Dress of Books

    So I opened Poets and Writers this month and came across a little article about this dress:

    The dress

    A dress literally made out of a book. To be specific, Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales. The dress was made for Claire Massey to wear while she read a fairy tale she had written specifically for the Lancaster LitFest. Adding to my excitement, the article included a link to the site to see the in-process photos, which, let me tell you, are rather exciting. If you like books and sewing, that is!

  • Sometimes the muse just clobbers you over the head…

    After a long, long absence from you, my friends, I am returning to make my thoughts heard. I completed an edit of Undeliverable, sent out queries, started and finished the first draft of The Mark of the Storyteller, and am just about to return to editing Undeliverable per some quite excellent feedback from an agent (with an R&R no less!). And I find myself desirous of re-initializing my online presence.

    To that end, let me share with you a story, a story that the universe chucked at my head yesterday, screaming for attention. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, but in case you don’t, here’s how to tell when a muse has a story for you…

    I was walking back from work to the train station when I spotted an abandoned scrap of cardboard. There were frequent panhandlers at that traffic light, so I thought nothing of it until I got close enough to read it. In carefully lettered sharpie, it read, “PLEASE HELP ESCAPE.” That was it, one line along the top of the board, as though it’s author had been leaving room for more of a message, but never got around to it. I thought perhaps their escape had been granted. Or perhaps their escape had been thwarted. What a delicious prop, thank you universe.

    And then I reached the train station. The first thing I noticed was the fact that the homeless man who had been living in a sheltered corner of the steps to the parking garages was gone. And when I got into the station, it was crawling with transportation police. They were very carefully watching for someone, a man posted at every stairwell and entrance. And this gave me hope that the older man had managed his escape, and I wondered how I might follow suit…