Back in the fall of 2016, I decided that I was out of shape. I hadn’t ever been much of an athlete, but I had the urge to get in shape. I took a wind trainer, a device to which you attach any road bike that turns it into a stationary bike, and set it… Continue reading Feel the burn
Category: Writing
Leather-bound journals, solid-gold pens, walnut writing desks, premium beer, single-malt Scotch, filet mignon, French wine, Cuban cigars, fast cars, faster women, private jets, beach-front villas, luxury yachts, high-stakes gambling, death-defying feats, life and death situations—the daily life of a writer.
Not all is lost
So if my last post sounded self-pitying, I should qualify it by saying that this past winter I sold a short story to a forthcoming anthology. Go me! it's due out later this year in December and is set in Julie Czerneda's excellent Trade Pact universe. I'm really looking forward to seeing it in print.… Continue reading Not all is lost
Moleskine’s Smartpen Digitizes Your Notebooks as You’re Writing In Them
Moleskine, makers of some of the most popular paper notebooks in the world, have teamed up with the creators of the Neo Smartpen to make it a lot easier to digitize your hand-written notes and sketches, to move them onto your mobile device, and to share them. Source: Moleskine's Smartpen Digitizes Your Notebooks as You're… Continue reading Moleskine’s Smartpen Digitizes Your Notebooks as You’re Writing In Them
Halloween Short Story
An excerpt from a short story I'm working on, just under the wire for Halloween: He started in bed with the call half heard from sleep, and from instinct he was half out of bed. Again, a little girl’s drawn out and plaintive cry. “Daddy.” Fully awake now he froze. She was dead. Buried in… Continue reading Halloween Short Story
Baseball is stranger than fiction
Fiction for all that it frees the writer to bend the world to our will can still seem a step too far beyond reality when we create a certain situation or a character. It would be hard to believe that someone could get to the queen's bedroom if Michael Fagan hadn't done it. Or that… Continue reading Baseball is stranger than fiction
A Canadian highway on a winter night
It's not technically winter, but it feels like it. The snow swirls in the headlights, and the mix of salt and spray from fellow travellers need constant applications of washer fluid. Further on no one's left on the road I'm driving. It's dark, it's isolating, cold, and the air from the car's defroster is drying out my eyes.… Continue reading A Canadian highway on a winter night
A Writer’s Guide to Home Ownership
In a word: Don't. In more words: Don't unless you have the time for another hobby. If you're anything other than a full-time writer then home ownership is a time-consuming endeavour. If you start in a new house that still takes your time. There are upgrades, like painting the walls other than builder's beige, put… Continue reading A Writer’s Guide to Home Ownership
Actual writing, albeit in someone else’s IP
Finished and posted the fourth chapter in my Mass Effect fan fiction. And even though fan fiction sometimes feels like the writing equivalent of masturbation, at least it's also better than not writing at all. If you're interested in Mass Effect, or fan fiction, the story is posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/~mrladouceur
Your fallback is a trap
Young artists and anyone getting into a risky career path that doesn't involve sitting in a cube or standing at a factory line is likely told, "have a fallback position/safety net, that you can do if this doesn't work out." It's well meaning advice given by those who care about your future or happiness. It's… Continue reading Your fallback is a trap
A quick update on writing and stuff
Writing Need to do a proof pass to see if my novelette is as error free as I can make it. Plan to do some outlining to expand on my short story as my experiment in scriptwriting. Practicing writing through fan fiction; another 400 words the other night. Reading Finished An Astronaut's Guide to Life… Continue reading A quick update on writing and stuff
Dispatches from Obscurity 