Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 165
August 7, 2014
Mixing water and oil…
[Note from Steve: Readers of this blog already know that ecological and environmental issues represent one of my passions. I’m a card-carrying member of The Nature Conservancy, for example, and would probably belong to many similar orgs if I had more time, energy, and money. In particular, conservation isn’t something to take lightly. Read on….]
“…like oil and water…” is a simile often seen when a writer is trying to describe incompatibility. For ecological problems, though, water and oil DO m...
August 6, 2014
A Man’s World, 4011
Steven M. Moore
Copyright, 2014
[Note...
A Man’s World, 4011
Steven M. Moore
Copyright, 2014
[Note from Steve: Motivated by Fox News diatribes and recent SCOTUS decisions, I wrote this new short story about Doctor Carlos Obregon and the exploratory starship Brendan. This is sci-fi but also a romance. Enjoy! Caveat: Attackers of women’s rights, both male and female, read at your own risk!]
Carlos Obregon had decided to keep his mouth shut. The five-person delegation from ITUIP (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets) was suppose...
August 5, 2014
When old hatreds don’t die…
[Note from Steve: I hope you enjoyed the series of classic posts on writing. It gave me a welcome respite from my own writing and some much needed R&R via casual reading—I read four novels, finishing the last yesterday (speed reading and touch typing were my most useful courses taken in high school). So, it seems reasonable to return to my op-ed posts with a highly controversial topic, the Palestinian situation. I’ve tried to be very fair here because neither side owns the moral high ground....
August 4, 2014
Editing myths (#7 in a series of “classic posts” on writing)…
Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers [Note from Steve: you’ll have to look for it—I don’t think I pulled it as one of the “classic posts.”]. Now I’d like to consider some editing myths. Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicate...
August 1, 2014
Sense and sensibility (#6 in the series of “classic posts” on writing)…
No, this post isn’t about Jane Austen. I loathe most 19th century sappy novels in general and hers in particular. Yeah, I know she’s enjoying a revival of sorts—like an oozing zombie rising out of the tomb to bore us to death with romantic drivel [Note from Steve: maybe like these “classic posts”?]. Instead, I want to talk about all the senses you might use as you write your thriller or mystery.
I was reading Preston and Child’s Two Graves (no one gave it to me as a gift—it was on sale at $2.9...
July 31, 2014
Writing dialogue (#5 in the series of “classic posts” on writing)…
If you’re an avid reader (I read more than I write, if you can believe it), you know there are certain things that slow you down. One is what a prospective agent of mine long ago labeled in a critique of my MS (after sitting on it for many months): “…too much narrative.” I wrote and asked her to define that, but received no response—not surprising, because it required more than a form letter, so she couldn’t bother. I was left to figure out what she meant, naively giving her the benefit of th...
July 30, 2014
Character names (#4 in the series of “classic posts” on writing)…
I’ve discussed naming characters in other posts to this blog, but today I thought I’d dedicate a whole post to the subject. I probably spend an abnormal amount of time fretting over titles and names of characters. Here I want to throw a wee bit of mud at my fellow authors: don’t be so politically correct! Readers and writers both might enjoy the mudslinging. Or not. (It’s really not a strong critique, so don’t get all snarky—and read on.)
When I’m reviewing a book and an author’s description o...
July 29, 2014
Location, location, location (#3 in the series of “classic posts” on writing)…
Last Tuesday’s post was a bit heavy on Catholic humor—I’ll admit it. [Note from Steve: I don’t have any idea about what I’m referring to here, but I must have had a brain fart.] All churches, synagogues, and other places of worship are often home to well-meaning people who enjoy giving a helping hand to people in need. The emphasis is on “well-meaning people” and not the actual building, of course. (In Soldiers of God, for example, one of the main protagonists is a priest who thwarts a terror...
July 28, 2014
When two parallel lines intersect (#2 in some “classic posts” about writing)…
I shook the mathematical beliefs of my thirteen-year-old niece the other afternoon. An elementary problem in algebra required knowing that the measures of the interior angles in a triangle sum to 180 degrees. That’s in Euclidean geometry. [She’s sixteen now and through geometry too.] I commented that there are other non-Euclidean geometries where that “rule” is not true. In one of these geometries, parallel lines can meet.
Many of you might be yawning now, I suppose, but there’s a message abou...
July 25, 2014
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #68…
Item: Borrowing v. buying. I think I’ve talked about this before, but now it’s official: most ebooks you find listed on Smashwords, which already distributes to Sony, Apple, B&N, and so forth, are now available on Scribd. Maybe in response to this, Amazon has created a new program, Kindle Unlimited, to complement its Prime lending service. In other words, you can borrow my ebooks through Amazon’s Kindle Prime or Unlimited (about half of them, the ones in Kindle Select) or Scribd (the other ha...
