Matthew Alan Thyer's Blog, page 36
April 14, 2015
Kicking Some Other Friends
Hey, my friend Howard Taylor is trying to start a companiongame to go with his Schlock Mercenary comic. It looks very cool. So yeah, go kick my friend here.
April 8, 2015
Mimic
Most pictures are worth about a thousand words. This one seems to be worth at least two. “How do you know this?” you ask. Well, because I just wrote another thousand and change because of it. Thanks again to Chuck Wendig for hosting these little teasers. Now that you’ve completed draft on your next novel let us see what you can do short form.
“As you can see the integrated rover housing can be adapted to a great variety of applications. Spacing of trees in your orchard isn’t ever a pro...
April 7, 2015
Wang That Chord
Myke Cole and I have had our differences. My first impression of him was somewhat negative if not muddled. I had recentlyself-published The Big Red Buckle and shown up to Legendary ConFusion in order to get to know other writersand fansinvolved in the genre. It was morning, before the opening ceremonies, and we met in the restaurant. I’d never heard of him, he’d never heard of me. He offered his business card, I responded in kind. He refused my card because it was “too large.”
I spent the res...
April 6, 2015
I Volunteer to Master the Ceremony
BRB Rates so Low (even on my café’s bulletin board)
I was working out some thoughts on the 2015 Hugo nomination short listwhen it occurred to me, “This year is your year to host the awards ceremony.” In fact, what better year could there be?
I’m a Science Fiction author that nearly no one knows. My books and stories rate so low on pretty much any publication list that their mere mention can be counted on to elicit an underwhelming “What, who?” from anyone unlucky or bored enough to be readin...
Oneironaut
This is flash fiction piece is in response to a Chuck Wendig – Terrible Minds challangy thing. And, boy oh boy, do I love some flash fiction challenge. Dig it? Hate it? Lemme know.
“No, I’m telling you it wasn’t the Somanetics. Not this time. In fact here,” shouted Emerson while holding out a hand sized electronic device, “take a look. Sam, beyond the recording they didn’t register anything.”
The street café wasn’t the quietest place to share a cup of Koff. Traffic honked, rattled...
April 2, 2015
Reminders
This morning I started another post. One of those moments where I was just damn frustrated. The way some of you behave drivesme bonkers. So I read, I wrote, and packed, thenwrote some more. About 1,000 words into this rant I had to put it down. I was reminded that my opinions just don’t matter.
Game the Hugo’s, make stupid comparisons in public, write dumb laws; if tomorrow I died all of youwould just carry on. Nothing would change. Absolutely nothing. I should feel lucky if, for that one br...
March 24, 2015
Speaker for the Dogs
“Dad, what does Bender say?” he asks me, fully expecting an answer.
I want to break into the chorus of “What Does the Fox Say,” but the coffee cup is already at my lips and I simply struggle to swallow. A-bear asks of me the impossible, fully expecting I’ll have the capacity to deliver. The possibility that I might not have the answer to this or anyquestion never enters his mind.I am practiced at this, I can make up the difference.
My first boy, who is nearly 18 and soon on his way to colleg...
March 23, 2015
March 18, 2015
Kick My Friends
Excellent!
Last year I attended and/or was a guest at a number of really excellent genre conventions. I learned several lessons. Made some good contacts. Enjoyed lively discussions. I even played Cards Against Humanity in front of a crowd and danced to the John Scalzi’s mesmerizing master mixes. But the one thing that I got out of all this convention attendance that I hold most dear was a handful of new friends.
This year my convention attendance will drop dramatically. I can’t afford plane t...
March 13, 2015
Question of the Day
Yeah so this is now bugging me. A plotting decision for which I can see no real justification. In the movie Big Hero 6the charters Hiro and Tadashi Hamada live with their aunt Cass. The backstory is that when Hiro was four their parents died. No real explanation beyond they’re dead is provided. Their aunt takes the boys in and loves them, sure enough, but I keep wondering “Why?” Why even include this in the early scenes of the movie at all?
Seems like an unnecessary complication in the devel...
