My Farewell as Stilts From Random Curiosity

It’s been a while. I’ll let you all know everything that’s been going on with me another time. Today, I wanted to commemorate a big announcement in my writing life that I just made somewhere else. After eight and a half years, today I stepped down from writing at Random Curiosity. For those who only know me from my fiction writing, this news might not mean much. But for those who first met me as Stilts from Random Curiosity, this is...

Celebrities’ Controversial Opinions

I used to believe that celebrities should avoid talking about politics. Why risk ticking off their fans? And from my point of view, I didn’t want crass politics to intrude upon my enjoyment of their work. I just wanted them to focus on that work, like a good little art robot (I have grown past that last part since I learned how difficult being an art robot is). My views on celebrities and politics has changed too. It’s not that...

An Author’s Review of: Freelance Heroics

As promised, here’s my author’s review of my second book, Freelance Heroics. Without unnecessary delay, let’s get to it! As I mentioned in my previous post, Freelance Heroics is the better written of my two books from a technical perspective. It would be worrying if this were not the case! An author ought to get notably better at the nuts and bolts of writing between his first and second books. This is especially noticeable in Adv5, where the combat writing is a lot stronger than in...

An Author’s Review of: Wage Slave Rebellion

Recently I embarked upon a novel project. Not a strenuous one, but certainly novel, and of concern to my novels. You see, once my disastrous two-year return to the world of full-time sales came to an end, and I began working on Book 3 again in earnest, I had an uncomfortable realization: it had been so long since I’d spent real time working on my books that I’d forgotten some of what happened. Embarrassing, to say the least. Not big things! Just...

Risk Tolerance in the Creative Life

The past two years of not writing very well have been instructive. I would rather they had been instructive and productive, but such is life, because what they’ve been instructive about is why they haven’t been productive. One major reason has to do with uncertainty. Writing novels is an inherently uncertain activity. Both in the day-to-day—I can plan out what a desk job day will look like, but dead ends and writer’s block can play havoc with an author’s best laid plans—and...

Forbidden Island, coast to coast

Forbidden Island is a cooperative board game where players work together to take treasures from a sinking island and get out alive. I started playing it years ago, after I saw it on Tabletop. It’s been one of my most frequently played games. Fast forward to last year. Me, my best friend, and his girlfriend were playing it, her for the first time. She loved it so much she bought it for her parents for x-mas, who had already played the Ticket to Ride she’d...

Book 3 Progress Report

Hi all. It’s been a while, right? I figured it was time to finally give you that update I promised two posts ago, which was, er, in August 2017. You deserve an update about my progress on Book 3. The long and the short: there hasn’t been much. Progress, that is. So this is going to double as an explanation (exploration) of why (what happened). But before that: I have not given up on writing the next Firesign book, nor on writing novels in general....

The Last Jedi SUPER SPOILERY Review

Here follows a review of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, written several hours after I saw it with reckless disregard for spoilers, because I don’t get paid to review movies and so I just can’t be arsed. You’ve been warned! My top line review is that The Last Jedi is a good movie, both on its own and in the greater Star Wars mythos. It’s not without its flaws, though many of them are imposed on it by having to clean up The Force Awakens’ messes, whereas...

Help Houston

What’s going on, y’all. Been a bit since I’ve posted. I’ll get into that in the next post. For now, I’ve something else to say. For those who don’t know, I’m from Texas. Though I was born in Grapevine, TX, and first lived in Hurst, TX, and went to college in the aptly named College Station, TX, I’ve spent most of my life in Houston. Until a little over a year ago, Houston was my home. Houston is drowning. If you...

I get it now!

I finally get it! Writers and salespeople are the same! They’re whiny, lazy, cowardly, constantly make excuses, always blame others, and are generally reprehensible! (Also, the drinking. All the drinking.) They’re the same because writers and salespeople do the same thing: they dance with the fear. Day in and day out, the thing they do is tiptoe up to the edge and, when they can no longer put it off any longer, they jump. And once you jump, it’s easy!...