I’ve spent fifteen years in publishing—working as a retailer, editor, copyeditor/proofreader, managing editor, production supervisor, and writer. As a result of these experiences, I have formed some opinions, many of them centered around how subjective the rules of grammar and language style are.
One of those opinions is that semicolons are the devil. I fucking hate [...]
Semicolons are the Devil
I Know I’m Biased, But…
Aidan Moher asked me for an excerpt from The Desert Spear to post on his SF blog A Dribble of Ink sometime in March. I agreed and took my personal reference ARC to leaf through, looking for something cool to lift out that didn’t have any spoilers.
An hour later, I realize all I’ve done is [...]
Book Review: The Blade Itself
Bias disclosure:
I have no relationship with Joe Abercrombie or his publisher. Never met the guy and haven’t read any of his other work. I picked up this book in part on the recommendations of friends, but partly because Abercrombie is, in the vernacular of The Blade Itself, a Named Man. Online, his name is often [...]
A Note on Book Reviews
I don’t review many books on the Peephole these days. Part of that is a kind of professional awkwardness. When I was blogging in obscurity, I could say whatever I wanted about a book. Say it fucking sucked, speak ill of the author’s mother, whatever. Alternately, I could gush about how awesome it was like [...]
The Daylight War Stage I: The Stepsheet
A lot of people, usually other writers, e-mail me asking questions about my writing process. Love love love to talk process, we writers. I’m not sure where the fascination comes from. I wonder sometimes if it has something to do with all of us feeling insecure. Like deep down, we all feel like we have [...]
The Author’s Catch-22
Aidan at A Dribble of Ink essentially retweeted a post from George RR Martin’s “Not a Blog”, wherein Mr. Martin discusses the current state of the long-awaited A Dance With Dragons, and gives some small insight into his creative process.
Every time GRRM makes a post like this, there is a ripple through the blogosphere as [...]
DSAC Round 2
I haven’t been blogging as much as I used to. Part of this is being super-busy, but another part of it is circumspection, out of a desire not to offer any spoilers about The Great Bazaar or The Desert Spear before people get a chance to read those stories for themselves. In the same vein, [...]
Patrick Rothfuss Interview (and another way to win a Desert Spear ARC)
A few months ago, Patrick Rothfuss, author of the internationally bestselling epic fantasy novel The Name of the Wind and all-around nice guy, asked me if I would be interested in doing an interview on his blog.
Of course I said yes. To date, I have never turned down an interview request, but this one was [...]
Holiday Cheer, DSAC Style
Looks like I opened up a can of worms yesterday by responding to a reader review on Amazon. You can get the story over on Grasping for the Wind.
But it’s Christmas, and my loving readers have been more than willing to spread me some sweet holiday cheer with new DSAC entries from women I adore. [...]
Merci Beaucoup
Probably one of the most gratifying things about being a writer is seeing how one’s work inspires other people, either creatively or in their daily lives. There is no author I know that doesn’t love reading their fan mail, and who doesn’t have some prized letter or gift displayed in their office that came in [...]