Christopher B. Wright's Blog, page 57

The Points Between - Chapter 16

Heat and humidity weighed heavily on Matthew as he struggled to stay awake. The darkness and the warmth pressed down on him like a blanket, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until at last his head drooped forward. He felt a slightly dizzying rush as his consciousness fled.

"Here we go," Buck said.

Matthew jerked awake, spilling a bit of his coffee. He winced as the hot liquid rolled over the side of his ceramic mug and spilled down the back of his hand. He yawned, stretched, and forced ...

Inside the Creative Mind

Have you ever wished you could peek inside a writer's mind to learn why it does what it does? Of course not. You're basically a decent human being, and you would never stoop to the level of prurient interest required to peek behind that veil. There are far more socially acceptable activities you could be doing instead.1

But maybe, every once in a while, there's a piece of you that looks at a writer in the throes of creative activity, and you can't help but ask yourself "why? Why that? Why...

After a week's delay, I'm back.

If you were wondering where I was last week, the answer is pretty simple: I was where I always am, I just wasn't making any comics. The answer to why I wasn't making any comics was a little more complicated, but can be summed up with the phrase "writer's block."

... well, OK, that one was pretty simple too.

Anyway, Help Desk is back.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

Oh! The things I have read (by a man, alas, dead):

There were eggs that were green! And a fish that was red!

And a fox wearing socks (although otherwise bare!)

And a Cat in a hat, with exceptional flair!

And butter! In battles! And sneetches with stars!

And the sneetches without, and their star, no-star wars!

And a turtle named Yertle who toppled a king!

And the one-and-two creatures who shared the name "Thing!"

Oh the books! Oh the topics! Oh the rhymes that were freed!
Oh the Grinch on his...

Slashing prices for science (SCIENCE!)

The month of March will be host to a little experiment I'm performing. I've heard a lot of independent authors who sell eBooks rave (rave, I tell you!) about the advantages of selling an eBook for only $0.99 (that's right -- 99 cents). There seems to be a general feeling that this price point is so low it encourages "impulse buys" and can significant increase sales.

Is it true? Can it be done? Or is it simply the fevered imaginings of desperate authors looking for patterns to explain why...

Pinterest: Do What We Say, but Don't Blame Us Afterward

So there's this new thing out there called Pinterest which is becoming extremely popular. Pinterest is essentially a web-based pinboard -- users can post images to a page that other people can view. The images can be collected from all over the web, and when an image is "pinned" in Pinterest it also links to the original site.

It's kind of similar in some ways to Tumblr, except that it's not a closed system -- you can go to a website that has a photo or graphic you like and "pin" it in your...

The Points Between - Chapter 15

"Here we are," Buck said.

Matthew leaned right as the pickup truck turned sharply into a long gravel road that sloped down into a thicket of trees. Patches of water could be seen between tree trunks and through branches.

"This is River Road?" Matthew looked at the road doubtfully. It looked narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other by, and large gashes where the gravel had been stripped away were half-filled with brackish water.

"Someone just outed himself as a big city boy,"...

Eric Raymond on Internet Censorship

Eric Raymond in an open letter to Former Senator Chris Dodd:

We will not have it censored. We built the Internet as a tool to make every individual human being on the planet more empowered. What the users do with the Internet is up to them – not up to Hollywood, not up to politicians, and not even up to us who built it. Whatever else we Internet geeks may disagree on among ourselves, we will not allow our gift of fire to be snuffed out by jealous gods.

I recommend reading the entire letter...

They Are Still Waiting

"We stand here waiting to be outdone."

Who said that? Scott Carpenter, one of the first Americans in space, and, along with John Glenn, one of the last survivors of the Mercury Seven. Why is he saying it? Because right now we're still coasting on the gains we made when they were risking their lives, willingly strapping themselves to the tops of large bombs that exploded them into space.

Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr., Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom, John Herschel Glenn Jr., Malcom Scott Carpenter...

Great Review of The Points Between

One of the editors from Web Fiction Guide posted a brief but great review of The Points Between. You can read it here.

Which reminds me, I have another chapter to post. (And another... and another... and another...)