My love affair with chocolate has undergone many twists and upgrades. When I was nine, I got a 25-cent allowance every week. I could spend this at the five-and-dime store (that’s how old I am), selecting from a dizzying array of sweets for 3 cents apiece. When they went up to 4 cents, I was appalled. When they hit a nickel, I decided I couldn’t afford chocolate anymore.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: September 2016
Today marks launch day for the audiobook of my science fiction novel, Neptune Crossing! Narrated by the Grammy-winning Stefan Rudnicki! I feel as if I’ve just discovered a planet. Or maybe traveled to one. It’s been a long journey—and I often … Continue reading
Recently, I received this letter from a fan with whom I’d been corresponding. It spoke deeply to me, and rather than answer it alone, I asked some of my writer friends to join in a series of round table blogs … Continue reading
By Brenda W. Clough Museums are a writer’s friends. Never pass one up! Background research is forever. There is nothing like actually seeing a helmet or a cup. And unless you are independently wealthy you are probably not traveling to … Continue reading
V is for vanity publishing. Once upon a time, it was easy to spot the vanity publishers (also known as vanity presses or subsidized publishers.) They were the ones who advertised in magazines, promising to turn an author’s brilliant prose … Continue reading
I am not a visual artist. I appreciate the hell out of the form, but – as I’ve often said – I can’t even draw a straight line if you gave me a ruler and four tries. But after my attempt to pick up a non-keyboard, non-wording hobby ended in disaster (for the record, knitting is not restful for the wrists), I decided what the hell…
Continue reading(This is the thirty-fifth installment of Dice Tales, an ongoing series of posts about RPGs as storytelling.) *** As we leave behind the macro levels of game planning and zoom in on the smaller-scale preparation, the ratio of effort to … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough I heard once of a woman who, when she was in high school, was asked to the junior prom by a teenaged Bill Gates. She turned him down. Every now and then she thinks about that, … Continue reading
In my Book View Cafe blog post of May 28, Thor, Bear dog, and I went “forest bathing,” a trendy new term for an age-old practice of simply being in the forest and soaking in the “is-ness.” So this summer … Continue reading
There are many lists of “gotta read” books on the Internet. At least some of them start from the idea of the “formative” books of one’s life, the ones that changed the way you saw the world, that changed the … Continue reading