Matthew Alan Thyer's Blog, page 60

The Conversation We Never Have

Here’s my life. My lovely and patient wife wakes up at the crack of dawn, usually the semi-predictable perturbations of our toddler, and the two of us claw our way to the kitchen where we split coffee duty (yes, Tess I know you make it most of the time lately). There are discussions held around the table while we try and stuff food into our child’s mouth. Then we break, I usually go sit with Aral on the potty (it is toilet training time) and she’ll go take a bath and get ready for the day.

By...

Attention

I’m sitting at a table in the North Boulder Recreation Center, my iPad opened up before me, with a pair of reasonably priced headphones plugged into my ears. Bon Iver is playing “Holocene” for me via my favorite streaming service and that unique blend of steel strings flat picked over a haunting melody keeps interrupting the thought process I’m trying to have. I’m trying to reconstruct some thoughts I had about what I was going to write, but my mind keeps running along with the music.

Multita...

Yo-ho, Yo-Ho, A Grinder’s Life for Me

Other things getting done

I’ve been reading a lot of opinions lately concerning the self-publishing and big-ink publishing businesses. There is a lot of focus on who is making money, how much money they might be making, and whether or not they are taking money from other parts of the print world. But much of this focus tends towards the extremes — the head and the feet — of these publishing segments.

I’m doing my best right now to aim for the middle, center-of-mass, of the markets I am beginnin...

Holy Poo Sticks!

Oh Poop!

So the last time I attended a scifi convention was in the early 90′s. I went with a bunch of friends, coming down from the little mountain town where I attended college, and we carpooled in a VW bus that blew a spark plug out of the block somewhere on the backside of Kenosha Pass (IIRC). Ostensibly I went there to play games, and I had a great time.

But I just signed up for my first Convention in more than twenty years. I’m going to attend Legendary ConFusion in Detroit. There are a co...

Grant for People

This morning I was spending some time sorting through my RSS reader and came across a post from John Scalzi about a grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation. Thanks to the efforts of my ever loving wife I’m not currently in this situation, but I’ve certainly been there before.

Its difficult to have a voice when your worried about making it through another clear night under the unforgiving stars and you are not sure where you next meal might be coming from. Even living paycheck to paych...

Its Official: The Big Red Buckle is Launched

Sometime this morning — before coffee, but after walking the dog — my first book became an item you can buy on Amazon. That is right, folks! It is official. I am an author. The published kind.

I know its going to take some time to build up an audience. But with a couple of sales under my belt and a narrowly defined search, guess what, The Big Red Buckle is number eighty-one in sports fiction. Now I’m hoping to see some stars and comments before the week is out.

Number 81 in Kindle Store > Kindl...

The Big Red Buckle

The Big Red Buckle

Good news! The amazingly talented Jeffrey Wittysent me the final cover work for The Big Red Buckle this morning. Marco,poised on a cliff edge, waiting for the right wind to launch his paraglider, graces the jacket of the book in high contrast.

The novelette will be available shortly on Amazonas an ebook for your Kindle as well as in printed form (glossy,12.852 x 19.837 cm (5.06″ x 7.81″)) before the end of the year.

I’m looking into a way to use the first month of sales profit...

JOULUPUKKI

Yule Goat

You may have missed it, but I have been working on turning this simple blog into a full fledge author site. Things are getting moved around. I’ve even been known to review my posts before hitting that blue “Publish” button on the right.With the pending release of my first book, a growing list of SciFi and comic conventions I’m figuring out how to attend, and an ample helping of optimism I’m trying to put my best foot forward.

I just finished a short story entitled Joulupukki(pronounce...

Crux

Be a winner, get a free Crux

Many moons ago, my ever loving wife, introduced me to a really interesting dude by the name of Ramez Naam. Or Mez if you will. She worked on a piece of non-fiction, futurist writing for him, but now he’s writing some very good science fiction you might want to check out.

If you have not read his novels yet its worth your time. I just finished his first Nexus and really enjoyed it. I’m reposting here because his publisher has a give away right now. All you need to do...

Trail Aesthetic

What’s the hurry?

I’m going to start this post by affirming how much I enjoy racing. I’ve been competing since middle school, and there has not been a race that, at least in part, I did not enjoy for the simple competitive rush that each one provides. I like going. I like going fast.

But I came to trail running from a different direction. And, as I have gotten older and subsequently slower, the excitement of racing has become such a minor concern compared to that part which I really love. The p...