MCM's Blog, page 48

Creative Commons Christmas Guide

This year, I want to do something Good for the world.  For the holidays.  Because the radio tells me it's almost Christmas. Bloody hell.

Here's the plan: I'm assembling a catalogue of consumer-friendly content (books, music, movies etc) under permissive licenses (Creative Commons being the most obvious)… works that won't get you sued if you share them with your friends.  It's like an ACTA-safe Christmas Guide for the socially-conscious shopper.

It'll be a website, nicely designed in the...

Monday Observations

Here are some things I have noticed over the course of the day that I think apply to humanity as a whole.

Facebook sucks.  I started to dislike Facebook when it became clear it was aiming to replicate the worst parts of the BBS era without any of the goodness… but after discovering that you can't even run a little contest on your own page (and thus killing my Dustrunners contest in its last minutes of life), I am now fully sick of the site as a whole.  I was skeptical about diluting my brand...

Topic Tag: Inhospitable

Topic Tag Tuesday returns with an all-new story about love and sacrifice in a hostile land…

For the fifth day in a row, Lisa woke Barney up at three in the morning by sighing loudly and rolling over in the covers until they came right off him.

"You awake?" she asked suddenly.

"I am now," he grumbled, pulling some of the covers back.  "What's going on?"

"I'm hungry."

He rubbed his eye, sat up, turned on the light.

"Fried goat again?" he asked.

"No," she said.  "That'll make me ill."

"Then what?" he...

A Final Experiment

All through 2009, I've been trying different experiments with my books, trying to see what works and what fails, so that others can save themselves some time.  2009 is running out, but I have one last experiment I want to try…

A few months ago, I hit on the idea of compartmentalizing the publishing game, so rather than a big company producing and packaging a book, writers would work with freelance agents to get their stories bought.  I've been batting the concept around, and I think I've come ...

Topic Tag: Fall Line-Up

Yulga is finishing her third cup of coffee in an hour, but by the jitter in her hands, it must be the fiftieth today.  Her prospectus is curled and worn as she fiddles nervously, sunken eyes darting left and right, brittle skin almost creaking with the action.  Even her leather bodice seems emptier than it should be.

"All right," sighs Finn, peering out the windows onto Wall Street.  "We're a bit behind the ball here, but we can catch up, yeah?  The important thing is that you called."

Yulga...

Pre-Order #3D1D Typhoon

It's been 20 days, and I'm finally ready for pre-orders.  Formatting #3D1D into a book has been an insane undertaking, but I've learned a lot.  Most notably: you are all insane.

I still need to finish writing the Fangirl and Sock stories, but the rest of the book is fully done.  It should end up a little over 650 pages (and a 7×10 book, too, so it ain't tiny).  Because of this (and the brutal truth of publishing), I've created a few options for buying the final product.

#3D1D Typhoon...

Topic Tag: What You Paid For

This week's topic tag is a mix of so many strange ideas, I was seriously worried I wouldn't fit them all in.  Luckily, I am insane.

The door was open a crack, but Oscar knocked all the same.  There was no answer at first, so he took hold of the door knob and knocked again, with slightly more force.  Something inside shifted, and he thought he heard snickering.

"'ello?" came a thin voice.

"Hello, yes," said Oscar, clearing his throat.  "I'm looking for misters Boots and Heehaw, please."

"Thas'...

Minimum Purchase

Here we have a totally random story based around a phrase I will not share, but you can guess at.  Written before "The Yellow Towel", even!

The waitress brought pie, but Marcy brought trouble.

She slid into his booth without permission, head bowed low, loose jacket swallowing her whole.  The old man sipped his coffee and put down the cup.  It rattled into place.

"You drinkin'?" he asked.

Marcy glanced up at him.

"S-sorry?" she asked.

"They don't like it if you don't order."

"Oh," she said, flashing ...

Topic Tag: The Ever-living Crap

Today's Topic Tag is a mix of three suggestions that were easier to mix than you'd think.  Prepare yourselves for RIGHTNESS!

The tape on the hockey stick needed to be changed, but Joey didn't seem to care.  He and Scott kept up their prowling — which, to the outside observer, looked a lot like prancing daintily — through the darkened city streets, on the lookout for danger.

Two blocks past Tim Horton's, they stopped dead in their tracks.  Ahead of them, lumbering like a mutant penguin/walrus...

Typhoon: Collector's Edition

Has it only been a week?  Wow.  Time sure flies when you're not sleeping much and praying for death.  Wait, what was I talking about?

I remember now.  Today I'm announcing Typhoon: Collector's Edition.  It's going to be something special.  An attempt to lock in place some of the craziness we all went through last week.

The text in this version won't be heavily edited or reworked. The revised text will come later (Free-E-Day anyone?), but this has a different purpose.  A snapshot of an event.

Ins...