M.G. Herron's Blog, page 14

Save Net Neutrality!

Photo taken outside of the Mexicarte Museum. (Aug. 2017, Austin, TX)

Todos son bienvenidos. All are welcome.

Or all should be.

The news coming from Trump’s FCC puppet proposing to end Net Neutrality are not unexpected, but they are still infuriating.

The internet is a great leveler, an innovation machine, an infinite resource, a tool, and a way to stay connected.

It has changed my life, and I firmly believe that it belongs to everyone.

We must demand that open internet access be maintained.

W...

Guest book review of Hyperion, the sci-fi epic

I’ve been on a mission.

A mission read a hundred science fiction classics.

Most recently, I read Hyperion, an Hugo Award-winning 1989 science fiction novel by Dan Simmons. I enjoyed it so much that I also wrote a book review of Hyperion as a guest appearance on the blog of JR Handley, a military science fiction I recently met through a sci-fi fan group.

Here’s a snippet from the beginning of the review. Visit JR’s blog to read the full piece.

Guest Book Review: Hyperion

I’ll say this about H...

3 great sci-fi mystery novels to read

After a full weekend enjoying the company of family and friends, taking care of some errands, and writing a chapter of Translocator 3, I’m winding down for the night by checking out some science fiction mystery novels I haven’t read yet, and thinking back on the ones I’ve enjoyed.

I’ve always loved sci-fi and speculative mystery, everything from Ghostbusters to the TV show Fringe to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to almost everything Isaac Asimov ever wrote. I immediately fell...

Some thoughts on James Patterson’s “BookShots”

I bought a thriller novella in the grocery store checkout line today.

Well, I’d call it a novella. James Patterson and his publisher call them “BookShots.”

Now that I’ve finally had a chance to actually read one of these, I have some thoughts.

To start, I was among those chuckling under their breath when Patterson’s BookShots were first released.

I thought, Why is he renaming novellas? This is just a marketing shtick. Call it what it is.

Well, that’s true. I mean, look at the first line of h...

This is the other secret…

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

– Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

The post This is the other secret… appeared first on M.G. Herron.

Scrivener 3 update incoming! Here’s a peek

I try to keep my insane, nearly fanatical, love of writing tools contained—at least in public and on this blog—but I have to take a moment to share how excited I am about the Scrivener 3 update that’s coming out on November 20th.

According to their blog, it will look a little something like this:

That looks pretty similar to the current version of Scrivener, with some minor aesthetic tweaks. But wait until you see what’s inside.

One particularly awesome feature for all writers, no matter wha...

A chance for more sci-fi stories here

I’m a science fiction writer first, so I’ve been contemplating the best way to get more SF stories onto this blog.

I always post snippets from my upcoming novels, of course, but I don’t produce full length books fast enough to keep those snippets running for long. (The next book in my Translocator series won’t be out until early next year, for example, and that’s good for about 3 snippets, or 3 days worth of blogs.) I have occasionally posted short stories on the blog, but they have historica...

Belly full of cake

Shelly and I did a cake tasting tonight, for the wedding in March. I’m so full of cake! It was delicious. Wonderful flavors like peaches and cream, and blueberry bourbon, and all sorts of chocolatey caramel deliciousness. The caterers we found are very talented.

As for my writing projects, I’m making solid daily progress on Translocator 3. Up to 41k words now, past the halfway mark and into the third act (of four). I’m at the “shut up and type faster” phase, which is a great place to be becau...

First Pages: The Word For World Is Forest

Apropos of nothing, here’s a photo of the really excellent opening page of Ursula K. Leguin’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel, The Word for World Is Forest, which I happen to have on my bookshelf.

I’ve become obsessed with studying the openings of novels I love due to a writing course I just finished, and this one truly stands out in my mind. So I went back to find it an decided you ought to check it out, too.

The reader gets a complete picture of who Captain Davidson is and what he’s al...

Milemarker #200 on this blog

Tonight is noteworthy because this is the 200th blog post that I’ve published here on MGHerron.com!

A little history will help provide perspective.

I registered this domain and launched the website in December 2013, shortly after I settled on a pen name and began to write and publish fiction seriously. That’s almost four years ago now.

Looking back at the early posts, you can tell what my goal was setting out. It was all about writing and getting published. There was still a lot I didn’t kno...