Blog Post No. 482
There’s a George Carlin routine that I remember from time to time. In general he was a funny and insightful guy (though I don’t think it was a perfect genius like some folks do). Either way, the joke was about stuff. How people surround themselves with the objects they buy and when they go somewhere, they need a place to put it all. It’s an concept that I’ve dealt with for most of my life. Continue reading “Home Base”
Blog Post No. 481
Welcome to February of 2022. Right now I’m trying to figure out what this blog will look like for the year after having one of the best (in terms of views and visitors) years in the last decade. It’s hard to not take stock of the first month’s numbers, compare them to last year’s, and make predictions. If those numbers are any indication (and they probably aren’t) I won’t be breaking any records. But that’s okay. Not going out for readings or other events is strange and I’m sure it’s limiting my audience growth, but so is having as limited an internet presence as I currently have. I’m not a big fan of social media (though I check it enough). I hate making posts that feel empty. I believe in the concept of paying for a person’s attention with either information or entertainment.
Blog Post No. 480
January was tough. All my shifts at the day job were cancelled (as I mentioned recently) which means I had no money coming in. The plan was to use the time to write short stories and get ahead on the edits for Snow from a Distant Sky. Unfortunately, despite the free time, I just couldn’t seem to get motivated at all. Continue reading “2006”
Blog Post No. 478
I’m off from the day job again for pandemic reasons and while it’s mostly a good thing (both having time off and not being at risk with omicron running wild) I’m also not making any money. You’d think that with this sudden time off, I’d be writing up a storm or getting way ahead on edits for the new novella, Snow from a Distant Sky. Unfortunately, edits grind to a halt when you have to wait on people to get back to you with their beta reads. As for writing, I’m still struggling with short stories as a whole and I still haven’t cracked the ability to write while in the middle of an edit. Continue reading “Never Enough”
Blog Post No. 477
Several years ago, I noticed a dead pixel on my laptop screen. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was there or not, but after some very simple tests, I was certain. Thankfully, my laptop was still under warranty. Since it’s a MacBook, I had to bring it in to an authorized repair place. The closest Apple store (in my country (there’s a closer one over the border) is two hours away, but there was a place in my city that was authorized to make apple repairs. I took my laptop in and they replaced the screen at no cost to me. Continue reading “New Monitor”
Blog Post No. 476
I’m not alone in thinking that 2020 was a strange year (it totally was) but 2021 was something else entirely. I’ve tried to limit the amount that I write about the pandemic (especially as a main topic of a blog post) but it’s crept into my posts more and more. The reality is that we’re still in the middle of a deadly disease sweeping the globe and in August, I had to go back to the Day Job. As you can imagine, I wasn’t super stoked about going back (most due to the risks). I did have half the year to keep acting like a full time author, though. Continue reading “Nine Years of Posts – 2021 in Review”
Blog Post No. 475
This is it. The last post of the year. As any readers who have followed me for a while know, I reserve this space for looking forward to what next year may hold. There are usually a lot of hopeful expectations that don’t always turn out, but I’d like to think that over the course of writing this blog, I’ve made real progress. As for predictions, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. I missed the mark when I guessed what 2020 would hold and even when we were mid pandemic, I was way too optimistic for 2021. Not in terms of writing or productivity (I’ll get into looking back in January when I reach the new year mark from when I started this blog). Continue reading “2022”
Blog Post No. 471
Being on fire is a weird metaphor. (Though not any weirder than all the other cliché metaphors). It can mean good, like in NBA Jam when your player literally catches on fire when you play well (or I guess in every day life when a normal person is doing well in consecutive tasks). On the other hand, fire is bad. Things on fire burn and turn to ash. Right now I’m kind of feeling both meanings of the phrase. Continue reading “On fire”
Blog Post No. 470
Most of the artists I know don’t have a ton of extra scratch to pay for things. Sometimes when you’re making, say, a book, you need things like good looking covers. How does an artist pay for a good looking cover when they don’t have enough money to get a kindergartner to finger paint for them? That’s right, they trade for it. I was lucky enough to find someone to trade with in Glen Hawkes. He did the covers for Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and is working on the cover for the upcoming Snow From a Distant Sky. He’s not only a talented painter, he’s a skilled graphic designer, so he knows how to make a cover.
Blog Post No. 469
My main project at the moment is editing the fifth novella in the Synthetic Albatross Series, Snow From a Distant Sky. Like the last two books Broadcast Wasteland and Break/Interrupt, I wrote the first draft in a mad sprint. Broadcast was started in September but seeing as it went long, I bumped Break up to August. (It ran even longer, so it was good that I gave it the extra month). This time, I actually managed to get the first draft of Snow in before the end of August and I somehow kept it from ballooning out of control. Continue reading “Update: Snow From a Distant Sky”
Ben Van Dongen 