Writer, Blogger
My two-month sabbatical from writing allowed me to tackle my huge TBR pile. Many of these books are from one my favorite authors, whom I only discovered recently; CJ Cherry. I noticed one constant among her books, at least the ones I have: DAW published them all. Unless you’re colorblind, it’s pretty obvious with those highlighter-yellow spines and bright red author surnames emblazoned on them. I…
Wow, time sure is a flying flat circle or whatever. I didn't intend to wait more than two months to post another blog. It's been a rough time, a bubbling mix of depression and overwork has left me exhausted. I’ve got nothing else to write about at the moment, so let’s take a quick look at my life the last couple of months. Is this an excuse for me to complain? No, but also yes. Birthday Blues and…
Soapboxes aren’t made for standing on. Soap, I believe, is the intended use case. They require but cheap timber and nails. Putting this kind of weight on one, well, that’s a recipe for disaster. I learned that last year, after railing about how I quit YouTube and moved to Peertube because I was so morally superior to everyone else. Then my PC died, and that high-minded righteousness died with it.…
I’ve never been tossed in the garbage, but I imagine rejection is a close approximation. I’ve also never been stuffed into one of those thin dollar store bags and left on the side of the road, but an automated email doing the deed after a six month wait feels like a more accurate description. They could have at least used one of those those fancy scented bags. Last November, I finished a short…
This probably isn’t what a “closet full of skeletons” means. For one thing, my closet hides a singular skeleton. For another, does a dead PC I forgot about count as a skeleton? It’s not spooky, it’s not scary, and it’s not about to start playing its ribs like a xylophone anytime soon. Still, it is strange to hold on to a broken device, say you’re going to fix it, yet never do. Most people want to…
The last couple of months have been difficult. The world is going to hell, sure, but I’m talking about me here. I’ve been struggling with a particularly bad bout of depression since the middle of February, and it got worse as the weeks went on. I finally hit the floor in early March, and stayed there for another week or so. Eventually I was able to pick myself up, and I figured to get over the…
I’d forgotten how much I love writing fiction. I also forgot how much I can hate it, too. The last time I wrote was nine years ago. It was a short story I shelved for some reason and never went back to it. I remember loving the process; coming up with the characters, sitting at my computer for hours bashing a first draft out, and working at it until I had something presentable. Or at least, that…
The consumer economy dictates that there must always be more. More video games, more places to sell them, more sales to encourage more purchases. A result of this—one that interests us today—is that its harder than ever to find games you might like, and even harder to find the time to play them all. All of us have fallen to the trap of buying games during a Steam Sale that we know we’re never…
edited May 18, 2026 I'm not sure what to make of CJ Cherryh yet. Gate of Ivrel seamlessly blends science fiction and fantasy with fascinating characters in an interesting world in less than 200 pages. Heavy Time is a slog, plagued by repetitive passages, dull characters, and dialog that can charitably be described as atrocious. Having dozens of books to her name, I didn’t know where to go with…
My “to be read” list is ridiculous. It’s stretching about a mile long (that’s 72 celsiuses for the rest of you) and… wait, this feels familiar… Did I write all this already? Oh, I wrote about a bunch of movies that have been on my watch list forever , and now its time to do the same for books. Gosh, I’m so clever. I’m hoping that by blogging about them I’ll rekindle some interest in these books…