Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 128
June 1, 2016
Should an author be “writing to market”?
[This post is an elaboration on several themes I’ve presented in earlier writing posts, my little course on writing fiction, in particular. BTW, I’ve compiled the lessons from that course into a PDF. You can receive it for free just for the asking. Note that I don’t keep your email addressed. My newsletter, out most Fridays, is completely online.]
I suppose “gurus” (agents, editors, publishers, PR and marketing experts, and even other authors) have been telling authors for decades (maybe cent...
May 31, 2016
What happens after June 7?
Because the GOP already has their candidate, for better or worse, the last big primary day is June 7 and features Clinton v. Sanders. For a while it seemed like the only debate you might see before that is Sanders v. Trump, though, but the Donald was stared down by Bernie. The states with the most delegates at stake are California, NJ, and New Mexico. The first two are semi-closed (you need to be a registered Dem to vote in the Dem primary, but undeclared voters can declare at the polls); the...
May 30, 2016
Monday words of wisdom…
Save your breath. Don’t worry about Death. A better praxis is to worry about taxes.
Have a safe and relaxing Memorial Day, but please remember what it’s all about–all the brave lives lost while protecting this country.
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“Clones and Mutants” on sale. Some authors bundle a series or part of a series. Here’s an alternative: from now until July 1, all three books in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” are on sale AT SMASHWORDS, $0.99 for each ebook, reduced from $2.99. The clones make their appea...
May 27, 2016
Movie Reviews #28…
Money Monster. Jodie Foster, dir. With Hollywood A-listers like Julia Roberts and George Clooney, Jodie can’t miss, right? Wrong! First, Jack O’Connell, as the mad guy waving the gun and holding the dead-man’s switch to a suicide vest, steals the show, as does the crowd at the end who sympathize with him in his quest to expose yet another Wall Street sleazebag. Unlike Flash Boys, the book, which is real, this story about e-trading’s excesses seems a wee bit dated, contrived, and as farfetched...
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #122…
A reading life. I love Goodreads. It has taught me that there are many people still living the reading life.
Goodreads had 26 million members in January, 2014. Sure, the number of readers overall is decreasing—there are so many other alternatives for acquiring information and having some R&R. That 26 million is worldwide, remember—the actual number of U.S. readers is smaller.
But people are members of Goodreads because they read books, so you wonder what else people are reading, whether they’...
May 26, 2016
Single-payer sophistic attack…
A 5/17 op-ed piece on page three of the NY Times, “Why a Single-Payer Plan Would Still Be Really Costly,” was as bad as the hit article about Mr. Trump on an earlier front page that he has debunked. “All the news that’s fit to print” should be changed to “We’ll slant things to our agenda—everyone else does”! The article about Trump’s dalliances was an outrageous attack on one candidate (what about Mr. Clinton’s philandering?). The op-ed piece was an even worse attack on another, Mr. Sanders,...
May 25, 2016
Review of Leah Devlin’s Ægir’s Curse….
(Leah Devlin, Ægir’s Curse, Penmore Press, 2013, 978-1-942756-44-6)
This archaeological thriller was a special treat. First, there is an interesting cast of characters, many flawed, and relationships among them representing a microcosm of the diversity in American society. The author uses internal dialogue to allow the reader to get inside the characters’ minds; we understand why they’re flawed. The real villain here is Ægir’s curse, where Ægir is the Vikings’s sea god—if you discount the per...
Steve’s shorts: Sessions…
[PTSD can occur in many situations, even the battlefield of our city streets.]
Sessions
Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore
Session 1
“How do you feel about the shooting now?” said the shrink.
The police psychiatrist spoke in a whisper, making Gina Peralta wonder how she could hear the woman above the traffic noise just two stories below the window. The detective was standing behind the shrink’s desk chair. She spun and looked across the desk at the empty sofa and the shrink sitting in the armcha...
May 24, 2016
The Clinton dynasty is in trouble…
[This post is long, but it’s important. The future of our nation is at stake. Read on, please.]
It’s enough trouble that Mrs. Bill Clinton is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Donald Trump in a recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll—IN VOTER DISAPPROVAL RATINGS as well as popular vote. Mr. Sanders is consistently doing better against Mr. Trump in national polls. She can’t generate any enthusiasm; Mr. Sanders generates the crowds. The news media wrote off that Carson, CA crowd cheering Bernie Sande...
May 23, 2016
Monday words of wisdom…
Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French café, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”
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Rogue Planet is now available for all reviewers on Net Galley.
The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. This novel, which is a bridge between the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” and the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy,” considers t...
