I was thumbing through my copy of Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a book on Douglas Adams written by Neil Gaiman!) and came across a great passage. It certainly made me feel a little better about my glacial writing pace. This is Douglas describing how the Restaurant at the … Continue reading How Douglas Adams wrote The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
What follow is a post, verbatim, from the Valancourt Books Blog, posted on Saturday, October 27, 2018 and reprinted here simply to help them get the word out. Between print books, Kindle e-books, and Audible audiobooks, these days Amazon accounts for at least 90% of our sales. Although our books are available on plenty of … Continue reading Valancourt Books Give Amazon an Earful
There are few things finer in this life than books and booze. My personal heaven is when I get a moment to myself, make a drink (beer, more often than not) and read a good story. Enter, Molly Tanzer and Nickmamatas' Mixed Up, a collection of flash fiction and cocktail recipes. Oh, this book is … Continue reading This is THE Perfect Gift for That Book-and-Booze Lover in Your Life.
These days I'm re-reading Raymond Chandler's masterpiece, The Long Good-bye. I do this as I'm nearing the completion of my own book; I don't avoid fiction as some writer's do to avoid being overly influenced but knowingly read books I want to be influenced by. In this case it's mostly four books I read and … Continue reading Now That’s a Simile
Us writers can obsess endlessly over the optimal amount of daily writing time. Should it be measured in words written? Pages? Hours spent ass-in-chair? I try to get up at around 5:30 to get some writing done before going to work. It doesn't always happen, but I've learned that the best time is from 6:00 … Continue reading Take a Look at Joe Lansdale’s Writing Schedule
Dan Simmons is a writer you might know, and he once said something about writing and reading that has stuck with me ever since. His best-know books are The Terror, Summer of Night, Drood (personal favorite) and Carrion Comfort. The Terror was recently made into a fantastic, if somewhat slow, TV-series, and the book is … Continue reading The 79 Authors You Need to Read to Become a Writer According to Dan Simmons
Sometimes you come across passages that remind you again of what good writing is. I just started the classic Wuthering Heights last night (yes, you need to read the classics) and was taken aback by a passage not just because of the quality of the prose but also by the tone. It was like the … Continue reading The Best Writing of the Week – Wuthering Heights
Graphic novels, comic books and kids' books with too many pictures are given a bad rap. But a surprising new study shows that we are wrong to worry. (Not that I was worried). Parents are often in a rush to get their kids away from comics and over to "proper" books. But now, thanks to … Continue reading I Just Realized Why Books With Pictures Are So Great for Kids
In my edition of The Hobbit, cheap mass-market paperback, there is an introduction by Peter S Beagle from 1973 that contains not one but two passages that are amazingly political and powerful. A Quote For Today, From 1973 The Sixties were no fouler a decade than the Fifties - they mere reaped the Fifties' foul … Continue reading Two Awesome Quotes From The Hobbit’s 1973 Introduction
...to begin with, that is. And Pixar isn't afraid to admit this. In the sublime business book Creativity Inc. (which is also a great book on managing creative teams), Ed Catmull explains how this works as they work on a movie. They get sold on an idea, knowing that the first version is going to … Continue reading Pixar’s Movies All Suck…
