Monica Valentinelli's Blog: booksofm.com, page 116

My New Guest Series at Apex: Creating an Alien Language

Blogging for Apex Book Company has been a lot of fun, in part because I get to talk about things that interest me and loosely relate to things that I'm working on as well. I decided to write a series of posts about creating your own alien language, in part because I have to do the same thing for a project I'm working on. The first post is entitled Creating an Alien Language: Your Language, Your Rules and discusses the key points I consider when I think of language.

Here's a peek:

What is a...

E-Books Are Not Liquid Gold

In a fit of…well…angst, last week I had made a retort to "yet another" discussion about e-books about how they weren't liquid gold. Well, you know the part about how sarcasm doesn't translate well online? Yeah, the end result of a snarky comment is this rant. Which, no doubt, may either cause you to weep, shout "Amen!" or have you shaking your heads in disagreement. Fortunately, I am not the one to blame for said rant. To find out the mystery culprit, you'll have to read to the bottom of the ...

New Guest Post at SFWA: Social Media and Your (Lack of) Privacy

This month, I decided to discuss the issue of privacy from my perspective at the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America blog. This is a very in-depth article that addresses the issue from a few, different perspectives. I felt that this particular topic was pretty timely, given the fact that Facebook has been publicly bashed for its recent privacy updates.

Here's a sample of the article:

No doubt, many — if not all — of the social media business models that are out there include the...

Inside VioletWar.com

One of the things that I'm always conscientious about is providing an image that is both professional and creative at the same time. While I enjoy writing and sharing posts with you on my blog, it's not the same as what I write for VioletWar.com. There, I can be more personal because people are investing their time to read more about my fiction efforts and my process for writing stories set in that world. Here, I've often taken a more professional approach and, in many ways, that has paid...

A Noise Detox

If you've been following my blog, you may have read some of my posts about writing and depression. One of the things I talk about there, is that writing is a solitary activity that is part and parcel to a writer's ability to focus on what they're doing. As you know, depression can be caused by too much solitary activity. However, I've found that whatever angsty "thing" I just went through, it was caused by the precise opposite to that — too much connectivity.

For me, I need those moments of s...

Guest Post: 3 Science Fiction Writing Exercises at Apex

This month, I decided to offer a few writing exercises for those of you who want to work on your science fiction stories. This post is especially timely for me, because I'm working on a new novella for a setting that has a lot of different features within it. It's not a post-apocalyptic setting, but rather one that has elements of religion, politics, breaking technology, alien races, etc.

Here's one of the exercises from the article:

Create an Alien – Whether you create something that's...

Don't Give Up

The following message is dedicated to any writer who has ever felt discouraged and depressed.

Hey, you! Listen up. Yeah, you. Why the long face? Oh, I get it. You're depressed because either:

a) you don't have any readers
b) your book isn't selling
c) you haven't been published
d) your peers are surpassing you
e) you have no idea how you're going to make ends meet
f) you're frustrated as hell with the publishing industry
g) your work keeps getting rejected
h) your contracts aren't coming through

Yeah, ...

Guest Post: Three Reasons To Self Publish (And A Big One Not To!)

Today's guest post about self-publishing is brought to you by author and game designer Jess Hartley. Jess is a professional writer who is experimenting with different options to expand her readership and engage existing fans.

Due to recent trends in technology and on-line marketing options, it is easier for a writer to self-publish today than ever before. Whether entirely on their own, or with the help of a plethora of book printers and retailers that specialize in small print runs, Print on D...

Why Piracy Might Just Be "Black-and-White"

The subject of "piracy" seems to pop up on my radar every now and then. Since this is an issue I deal with directly, I thought I'd chime in with some of my thoughts on the subject.

I feel that the topic is fairly complex, because many of the arguments I've been reading online don't address piracy directly. Rather, the articles seem to talk "around" the issue by trying to determine either "why" piracy is occurring or justify "why" content should be freely shared and distributed. So, for...

Reading a Novel on the iPad

Last weekend we headed down to Chicago for a road trip and I had the chance to sit back and read a full-length novel on the iPad. The experience was pretty interesting, because this was a case where I was simply reading for pleasure.

What I Liked

I enjoyed being able to make the font larger and smaller and change the typeface. For whatever reason, I felt that the larger the text was, the easier the book was to read. I also liked that the book automatically re-calculated the number of pages...