So I was driving along in my car, enjoying the sunshine, listening to streaming radio. I thought to myself, “You know, I’d really like to hear ‘Tubular Bells.'”
And within five seconds the current song ended and “Tubular Bells” began playing.
Continue readingToday’s #WIPjoy topic is “songs on your MCs’ playlists,” which is frankly too big to answer effectively on social media (sorry, Twitter), so we’re doing it here on the blog.
I have a bonus to this post, too. First I have my own playlists for primary characters, and then I have a guest DJ Kayla, who beta-read Shard & Shield last week and told me then she had made character playlists, which of course meant I had to ask her to chime in on today’s #WIPjoy topic.
I had the opportunity recently to visit New York City and attend Paramour, the new Cirque du Soleil Broadway musical at the Lyric Theater. The show closed shortly after, and I had a number of people ask me to share my thoughts on this unusual fusion of circus and theater. We like circus, and we like theater, but would they work as well together like some sort of fusion cuisine? Continue reading
Okay, okay, I know this is the third time I’ve mentioned Star Wars in the last two months. But it’s been kinda everywhere, y’know? And I just wanted to do a round-up of some of my favorite cultural references, from music to electric cars to party food.
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So, I won NaNoWriMo this year. But I cheated.
Okay, “cheating” may be something of an overstatement. I did not write my 50,000 words in a single project, but I did complete or make significant progress on several different projects, and that qualifies me as a “NaNo Rebel” in the NaNoWriMo community, but still a winner.
Projects included:
1) A fun little disaster tale which will be appearing in the upcoming C is for Chimera anthology (look for release details in January).
I’m pretty proud of this one, because while it isn’t the fastest story I’ve ever written, it is definitely the fastest I’ve ever produced on demand, from editor email to finished product in about a week.
2) A short story I’m intending to submit for another anthology this month. I won’t say too much on this one, because it’s not done yet and the deadline’s coming up scarily fast, and it’s a genre that’s a bit of a stretch for me. But I did get about 12,000 words written so far, so I’m certainly giving it the old college try.
3) A novel — again playing with folklore and mythology, but not Japanese or the Fae this time.
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Route 66 was the first transcontinental highway, opened in 1926. Depending on the year and route you chose to travel, it was somewhere between 2,200 and 2,500 miles to run from Chicago to Los Angeles. It became (in)famous during the migrations from the Dustbowl, when over 200,000 left their failing farms and headed west looking for other work. (Most returned within a few months; some found farm or highway or other work, but generally California wasn’t hospitable to the refugees.)
The coming of the interstate did unkind things to the road towns, many of which depended on serving travelers (shippers, migrants, tourists) for their livelihoods. Route 66 was finally de-certified in 1985, and the road was thought dead.
It wasn’t. Continue reading
Last time I talked about the weird appearances of Little Drummer Boy figurines in Nativity scenes and the fascinating historical research I got to do for So To Honor Him. Today I’m going to talk about the obligatory soundtrack for the book: “The Carol of the Drum” or “The Little Drummer Boy,” depending on when it was recorded and by whom.
I’m not even going to try to list here all the myriad covers of this song, or even just the better ones. I’ll simply point out some really stand-out recordings and explain why I think they deserve a mention. I know I’m leaving out a lot of favorites; feel free to comment below with a plug for your choice!
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Collected Edition cover. Art by Don Rosa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m listening to a comic book soundtrack, and I’m nowhere close to ashamed.
Tuomas Holopainen — you might know him as the founder of symphonic metal wizards Nightwish — has released an album “inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.” And it’s pretty darn good. Continue reading
キタキツネ (北狐 kita kitsune), a Vulpes vulpes schrencki native to Hokkaido (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At times, life is strangely kind. This time, it was both kind and strange. Foxes became a hot internet meme, and in an… unexpected way.
What’s it like being a writer, you ask? Well, there’s several different aspects to it all, of course. Here’s a quick glimpse into a writer’s head. Watch your step….
