Terrorism used to be a strategy of violence against a civilian population for political or religious expression. A terrorist act was a “statement” by people who otherwise had no voice. It’s hard to imagine groups that literally have no voice … Continue reading
I started my fiction-writing career with mystery, which I chose precisely because it is formulaic. As a beginner, I wanted to be guided by a lot of structure. I never held the delusion that I possessed some towering talent burning to be … Continue reading
The screenplay adaptation of my detective novel came in at 93 minutes. I learned a ton. One lesson was that I am capable of taking an objective view of my own work. I slashed mercilessly. Several beloved secondary characters were … Continue reading
This book falls into in the category of magical realism by most accounts, but I didn’t see a lot of that, especially compared to Marquez or Rushdie, for example. Instead, the stories told are better characterized as fantastic, amazing, improbable, … Continue reading
I am still dazed from a weekend-long sci-fi / fantasy conference, Tuscon 42. The name of it looks like a misspelling of Tucson, but it isn’t. It’s supposed to mean something like TUS (the airport designation) + CONference, hence Tuscon. Cute, … Continue reading
I have 11 minutes of screenplay written for my adaptation of Desert Justice, a cop novel I recently completed. So far, writing it has been an amazing learning experience. I can already see how the novel needs to be reorganized. … Continue reading
I just completed a revision of my detective novel, Desert Justice, and it was major surgery. I took out 5,000 words, dropping the word count to a mere 70,000. Was the detective really so flabby that there were 5K words … Continue reading
Ex Machina Writer and Director: Alex Garland Stars: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac I read the screenplay for this movie while I was writing my own AI-android story, The Newcomer. There are similarities. The main questions are, what distinguishes a human from … Continue reading
Life at the Bottom of the Food Chain The images and details in this novel are haunting. They linger in the mind days after you’re done reading. To me, that’s a sign of good writing. Here are some passages with the … Continue reading
I just returned from a local book fair where I sat behind a table and greeted walkers-by, most of whom were other authors in the hall taking a break. Very few civilian customers from outside the hermetic literary world were … Continue reading