Jason Córdova's Blog, page 79

A Very Bad Idea

In the past few weeks, we have heard rumblings on the borders of a coming war. Between traditional publishing and the battles for authors to retain their e-rights to the industry, as a whole, ignoring the vast importance of the growing ebook phenomenon, authors have been watching as the entire industry has begun to adapt (poorly) to the growing change of media. This week the war has finally spilled forth as agents have fired a shot across the bow.

In the past, an agent was the go-between for a...

PSA 1924

Today's Public Service Announcement comes at the behest of the neighborhood children.

Thou Shalt Not Mow A "Landing Strip" Onto Thine Front Yard

Yeah, apparently it's frowned upon…

*There were no "safe for work" pictures I could find online. My apologies.

Off The Rails

I really tapped into one of my neurotic, psychotic characters from a short story last night and had a moment where nothing made sense and everything was clear. That was… adventurous, to say the least.

Note to self: do NOT write freaky, insane, mind-twisting, paranoid and spooky characters while stressed out about multiple projects and events going on in real life. That is not the way you get to sleep, nor does it make the stress levels go down.

Yeah, I'm a moron.

But… that brings me to a...

Big Whoops

So much going on, so little time…

In setting up a business, one needs to check to make certain that there's nobody else out there using your name. You'd think that this is an obvious one, but for those of us who are more focused on getting the book out it just is one of those things that you don't think about. Something you take for granted, especially when you came late to the party.

Yeah, whoops.

It's not the end of the world, however, figuring out what it should be called. However, it's one o...

A Snippet!

Seems like everyone in the house is busy this weekend.

First off, happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there. Okay, it's only Friday, but since I try not to post on the weekends (primarily because I'm usually out of town) I'll go ahead and get it out of the way with now.

Have my convention plans finalized (at last) and, barring a last minute change of plans, everything looks good. Back-to-back weekends in July may seem like a bad idea, but I'm glad it's 11 crazy days and then…. nothing...

Time Waster, That's Me

I must've really needed sleep last night because I slept through two different alarms this morning. Granted, I usually sleep through the first alarm (0645) anyways, but the second alarm usually gets me (0710).

But… I'm so tired because instead of writing yesterday, I was drawn into a muckfest on Wikipedia. And as any editor on that thing knows, when the mud is flying, it's going to be a long, drawn out war.

I'd normally ignore something like this (I usually avoid all of the Wikipedia wars...

Sick Kitty

Didn't get a lot accomplished yesterday because my cat, back in Colorado, is sick and I've been pulling my hair out (figuratively, I shaved my head over the weekend) while I waited to hear anything. She's not out of the woods yet, but she's got her appetite back, which is a start. Hopefully this new round of antibiotics clears everything up, though they didn't know what exactly was wrong with her.

I should be back on the writing train today, though I wouldn't be surprised if my usual output...

Thus Ends A Life Not Worth Living

No writing accomplished today because my day started off at 0114 (got a text roughly half an hour later confirming what the rest of the world undoubtedly knows by now) with an email. I am glad I kept some ties to friends in the military, as I had a double-confirmation about the death of Osama Bin Laden by 0200. Went back to sleep and, upon waking up, thought it was a dream until I had another confirmation. Three independent confirmations means that the old boy is well and truly dead and this ...

Building Stuff

Hrm… my desk is getting messier than allowable. I'm not nesting, am I? I must rectify this today sometime, probably after I finish up In the Shadow of Paradise, another short story I hope to sell to the next Heroes in Hell book (Adventurers in Hell). It's a better story than And Injustice For All, so there shouldn't be any problems there. This is the Juan Ponce de Leon story, for those paying attention, that was originally titled The Shadow Behind You. That title didn't vibe with the overall ...

Weather and SF

That was one wild storm that rolled through here last night. Everything is okay here, just a little wet from the storm. No massive trees down this time, though there was a little flash flooding.

You know, I've always wondered just how many stories use weather as the driving antagonist in a story. I've seen people using a thunderstorm as a herald for the incoming antagonist (Jim Butcher in Storm Front does this wonderfully), but other than the late Michael Caffrey's Joey Maverick short I read, ...