S.J. Reisner's Blog, page 86
July 20, 2011
Pizza Delivery… "Umm, are you a witch?"
It didn't occur to me why the contractor was looking over my shoulder and fidgeting nervously. It didn't occur to me until after he'd left. I wonder how long he'd been staring at the Anubis statues and the ritual dagger sitting next to a piece of parchment dotted with my blood. Across from that, the offering bowl with burnt bits of paper and two black candles. The silver pentagram stood stark against the black backdrop of the altar cloth. To me – this altar in my living room is just a normal ...
July 19, 2011
The Best Of…
Today I really didn't have much profound to talk about (it's payroll!) so I thought I'd do a BEST OF post to share with you some of my favorite blog entries from years past.
Back in 2009 I shared some of my views of Pre-1990 Paganism and magick. Back in the day when I started out — it wasn't "The Craft". Don't get me wrong — I love how stuff has changed for the better, but I think in some ways it's gotten a little worse. And my friend Val could be right – maybe we do have better educated...
July 18, 2011
Shorter Series
I've been following a lot of series work in the paranormal mystery/urban fantasy genres and it seems to me far too many series start sucking between books 6-8.
Rowling was smart to end Harry Potter on number 7. That was just the right number of books to tell the story she wanted to tell. Right now I'm on book 7 of Victoria Laurie's Psychic Eye Mysteries and now they're just getting cheesy and repetitive. I'm on book 11 of Harris' Southern Vampire series and I have to admit that I was rolling ...
July 15, 2011
Healthy Changes or Futile Effort?
So more and more I read about how they're just now discovering how all these chemicals in stuff we use everyday can cause everything from obesity to cancer to birth defects and infertility. See, what happened is we were so busy rushing this, that, and the other to market that we completely skipped the whole testing thing.
Now that we have long-term exposure data — oops.
This seems to be happening more and more. And sure, by itself one chemical or another in low levels probably isn't a big...
July 14, 2011
The Shy Writer
Earlier this week I wrote a post about fantasy author Steph Swainston's career change and how I felt about all the things she really disliked about being a career novelist. There's a part of every person's job that they may dislike or not be so good at.
So today I'm going to share with everyone my biggest obstacle as a career novelist.
Something a lot of people don't know about me is that I have difficulty with marketing myself and interacting with fans in person. My problem seems to be that I...
July 13, 2011
Dear Indie Publishers
I wrote this post in response to the sudden onrush of indie publishers who have contacted me in the past three months about publishing my non-fiction. It's been a fascinating phenomena indeed…
Dear Indie Publishers,
Thank you for taking the time to write me asking if I'll consider placing my next NF esoteric manuscript with your press. I am flattered that my work has gained enough attention that publishers are actually approaching me with offers to publish my next esoteric non-fiction book...
July 12, 2011
To Keep Silent
A lot of people ask me why I don't blabber on and on about my magickal work online. I guess they assume that if I'm not talking about what I do spiritually, that my spirituality doesn't exist. That couldn't be further from the truth actually. Quite honestly the reason I don't chat about my spirituality constantly is because what I'm doing is really no-one's business.
I know that sounds mean and bitchy, but let me explain. I don't really need to share my every magickal working or offering or...
July 11, 2011
A Day in the Life
I woke up to the laughter of characters talking. They have entire scenes and dialogues already worked out and they're begging me to write them down. Sadly I don't work on "character" time. I've got responsibilities. I have to get up, get ready, and go to the office for the day because I've agreed to help at the family business. Now it's not like they don't pay me, but it's not something I have to do. I do it because my help is needed and at the moment it would take too much to replace my...
July 10, 2011
Fans, Publishers, and the Writing Life
The entire story that broke over the weekend about Author Steph Swainston giving up her day job (writing) to teach chemistry has a lot of writers whispering.
Are publishers really expecting too much from writers by expecting them to crank out a novel a year? Is the Internet really poison to authors? Are fans putting too much pressure on authors? Are the critical fans really causing authors to make changes to their entire career path?
Is the solitary, self-promotional, prolific writing life for ...
July 8, 2011
Hold, Please.
Earlier this morning on the news they were talking about how our economy was moving toward a service based industry. (This news on the same day that our space shuttle program runs its last mission nonetheless. ::sob::) The coining of our economy as service-based — this is usually a bad sign. It generally means there isn't as much of a call for technical professionals. It means we've kind of lost our edge. We don't produce anything anymore. We're no longer on the edge of any technology. It...
