Belated Happy New Year! It's been a while since I blogged. No, it wasn't the longest coffee break ever. To be honest, I've had enough medical, legal, and dentistry distractions to set me back more than a few months, but I'm bouncing back! Anyway, I had to put my writing and publication on hold, …
Category: Musings
Guilty As Charged
In my previous post, I dangled some "click bait" about how I was over-committed, then offered only a cliffhanger. My bad. Seriously, I found myself in a time bind over the last few months... My next novel is a 1950's L.A. noir, "Private Vices". I was working hard on the final revision while looking …
Happy News/Strange News
Happy News #1 Had a great time at the UK's annual Sci-Fi and Fantasy Convention (Follycon) in Harrogate. Met some old friends and made some new ones. Learned a lot and had a few new ideas sparked. Delighted to say that my friend David Allan got his first publishing contract. Congrats, David! Happy News #2 …
A Christmas Tail
Wait! This is not turning into a cat-thread. It's a one-off, I swear! Let me explain... We're currently looking after a cat for one of our daughters but had to spend Christmas in the UK. So we asked a friend to cat-sit. After a few days, text messages began to arrive from the cat. Clearly, …
On Words: Word Power!
I love words. Hey, I'm a writer: if I didn't love words, I'd be a censor, a redactor of government documents who gets his kicks from defacing them. I love the truth in words. If I didn't, I'd be a politician or still working in marketing. Sounds shaped into words are the basics of spoken language. …
Back Home
Turning Worlds So much catching up to do now my I'm back home! The world just keeps on turning, even if I'm not watching it. (Quantum physicists are invited to comment below on that observation.) Distribution Channels My novels' distribution network continues to grow effortlessly! I use the Mention app to notify me if my name or my …
66 and Counting…
I made it. Sixty-six years old! Sixty-six! And counting. So how does it feel? I asked myself that last year. The answer's pretty much the same as then... It feels like when I was younger. You know -- 65, 64...? But a year ago, I hadn't published any novels and here I am, finalizing …
The Price of Fame
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been running an Instafreebie promotion (where science fiction readers sign up to my newsletter and receive a free copy of my novel, "FACES OF JANUS"). Then Google Alerts notified me that the novel was available on a few pirate sites. I checked and found that one site claimed not …
The Economics of AI: Example
I recently had a great time at the 68th British National Science Fiction Annual Convention: meeting old friends; making new ones; attending some fascinating panels... The panels prompted my restless mind to explore tangential threads, as they should. Example... During the Artifical Intelligence (AI) panel, someone mentioned that when driverless trucks take over, some 3.5 million USA …
What’s With Wattpad?
I heard a few good things about Wattpad during 2014. Wikipedia (December 20, 2016) says... "Wattpad is an online storytelling community where users post written works such as articles, stories, fan fiction, and poems, either through the website or the mobile app... As of April 2014: [Yes, 2014] 85% of its traffic and usage comes from …
