I have on my desk the newly issued The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, a tie-in release for the series on Amazon Prime that premiers on Friday. I’m thinking about reading it. I was never much of a fantasy reader until I watched the very first episode of Game of Thrones when it…
Early this year I talked about my 5-year bout of writer’s block when it comes to writing fiction. The last story I sold, “Gemma Barrows Comes To Cooperstown” was back in 2015. Since then, my ability to write stories seemed to have faltered. Yesterday, for no reason in particular, I started to write again. I…
Welcome to my blog series, “Practically Paperless with Obsidian.” For an overview of this series, please see Episode 0: Series Overview. One of my ongoing struggles with information storage is finding what I am looking for quickly. When I first started using email back in 19941 I immediately setup an elaborate folder structure in which to…
For years, I’ve been using a Das mechanical keyboard. I like the feel and sound of mechanical keyboards. But, man, they can get dirty. This is what my keyboard looked like last night after years of pounding, and years of eating over my keyboard while I work: After I took that photo, I proceeded to…
On some mornings, while out on my walk, I see a fellow walking his two dogs. He’s got their leashes in one hand, and in the other, he always has something to read. Sometimes it is a folded magazine, sometimes a newspaper, but occasionally, he has a book open in one hand as he did…
I like cold mornings better than hot ones. There is something depressing about heading out for a 6 am walk in the summer, and emerging into thick, humid air. The air sucks energy. It makes me feel sleepier, and makes a 2-1/2 mile walk seem like a bad idea. Cold mornings, on the other hand,…
For those who don’t follow along on Twitter or my Facebook page, I post a link to “retro post” once-a-day, selecting from one of the thousands of posts I’ve written here on the blog over the last 15+ years. Here are the retro posts for this week. My general rule is not to link to anything I’ve written…
We are in the peak of the fall season here in northern Virginia. Colors are riotous. Leaves are equally abundant in trees on the ground. Temperatures have fallen and the smell of the first burning firewood is in the air, whips of smoke from chimneys curling into the early morning sky around the neighborhood. Here’s…
On the first date I went on with my wife of 13+ years, I was reading The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time edited by Barry N. Malzberg. I’ve always enjoyed time travel stories. I’ve always wanted to write one, but they are difficult to write because the obvious time travel tropes have been…
Kelly saw me sitting in the office on Monday, tears streaming down my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked. I hesitated. I was a little embarrassed and not sure how to respond. Finally, I said, “It’s this book I’m reading.” The book in question was Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson, book four of THE STORMLIGHT…