MCM's Blog, page 51

A Note About Cycles

This is an excuse post, wherein I will distract you from a lack of content.

I don't know if other writers have this problem, but I live in a world of cycles.  I wear many hats, so I have many cycles, and while I have tried to map them all out, they're too unpredictable, so I had to give up and put myself at their mercy.

I have a dramatic writing cycle, a comedy cycle, a programming cycle, a plotting cycle, a graphic design cycle, a drawing cycle, a video editing cycle, and sometimes a "shut up ...

Topic Tag: Broken Beyond Repair

Welcome to another fine instalment of Topic Tag Tuesday, wherein I solicit ideas from the Twitterverse and write a 500-word story in less than an hour with the top suggestion.  This is for @mjgolli, who wrote "Telephone Repairman discovers he is the Antichrist."

Harvey's job was a tad ridiculous these days. Here he was, sitting on the woman's floor in his little slipper-covered work boots, chatting on his Bluetooth headset while the woman yammered away on her own cell phone… all for the sake ...

A Minor Book-Making Note

This is for all authors out there who are self-publishing, either online or in print.  It's not advice in the traditional sense, but I think it might be useful.

You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Pretty obvious, but not too many authors really appreciate the subtleties of the concept.  Let's just assume you're a talented writer, and you've written a good story with great characters and real depth… that in itself is nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  All you've done is laid the...

On Formats and Friction

I'm not going to play the blame game, but it's all @shutsumon's fault this post exists.  The question is: what do we need out of an ebook format?

Note: Liza Daly rightly points out that my argument is with the implementations of ePub, and not the standard itself.  I most agree with that sentiment, upon reflection.  Mostly

Let me state up front that I think all the current formats suck beyond words.  We live in a world where a web app can behave just like a really fancy desktop app… where...

Marketing Ideas

I asked the Twitterverse for ideas about how to market my books, and got lots of great answers. Here's what I've figured out:

(note: these all relate to The Vector. Don't ask me why)

Branded surgical masks would be a great idea, especially around flu season.  Just slap a "The Vector" on it and a URL and you're done!Plush microbes are fun.  Cuddle up with a deathly pathogen!Fake protest posters are easy and catch your attention.  "PROTEST THE ALBANIAN BLACK ZONE!" or "MEDICAL PATENTS KILL!" could

Ignorance of Self

This is a short story I wrote about health care in America.  Ha!  No, just kidding.  Sorta.

The order made no sense to the intern, but that was precisely why they hired interns in the first place. The message went out via Twitter: "this is all a WH plot to distract the ppl from SOCIALISM!!! wake up America!" It went out with no fanfare, just another entry in the log.

"Sorry," Devon said, pulling her head in the door and closing it gently behind her. "I had to make sure it was sent on schedule."

Public Service Announcement

Some of you will know what this is.  The rest of you will have to live with the mystery for a while longer…

Topic Tag Tuesday: Arrears

Topic Tag Tuesday returns with an all-new cast!  Okay, that's misleading.  It's always a new cast.  Oh never mind.

Today's topic was suggested by the incomparable @mjgolli, who wrote: "How about 'Death and Taxes'. Or 'Death by Taxes'. Same difference."

And now here, within the hour, is the result:

It was Death at the door, wearing his usual pinstripe suit.

"Oh for the love of Pete," growled Louis in his housecoat. "You soggy pale bastard. I thought we settled up. What do you want now?"

Death's smi

1st Month Postmortem: The Vector

A big part of the charm of doing something crazy is seeing how it fails. Throughout this year, I've done a lot of crazy things, and they've all been leading up to one book: The Vector. This is how I did.

The Plan

I learned a lot from my earlier adult fiction experiments, so I knew that for The Vector, I wasn't going to go to print right away.  First of all, it rarely ends up being worth it… the majority of my sales still end up being via donations and eBook purchases.  So there was very little i

The App Concludes

Way back at the end of July, I discovered this thing called Web Series Writing Month, wherein you… er… write a web series for a month.  Being simple-minded as I am, I decided I had to give it a try.  And thus, The App was born.

What is The App?  Well, I knew it was going to be a scary story, because when I drew the cover, there was blood splatter.  And I knew I wanted to write one chapter a day, and that each chapter would take place on its day in the story as well, so it would have a very intere