Yearly Archives: 2017

Novel Writing and Pulp

Hocking sent me a link to a site the other day that might be of interest to a lot of my regular visitors — although as I live in a cave, it may be that you’ve already found it yourself. Anyway, PulpRev had an interesting article on writing a novel, quickly, and it had a lot of salient points, most of which I practice myself.

I’ve poked around the rest of the site some and found it of interest. Certainly I’m in sympathy with a lot of their philosophy, as anyone who’s been reading my posts about my lack of pleasure with padded modern books, or my increasing interest in hardboiled detective and western novels. It’s always nice to find like minded scribes gathering ’round the camp fire, as Adventure fans know.

Western Round-Up

I’ve continued to read outside of my usual genres, despite some great fantasy suggestions.

Last year I tracked down and read all of Merle Constiner’s westerns, all of which I liked and some of which I loved, and I’ll have to put a best-of list together. Here’s a write-up of one, although I’m not entirely sure the essayist appreciated it as much as it deserved.

And lately I’ve been reading a lot of Marvin Albert. Except that sometimes Albert wrote as Nick Quarry, and sometimes he wrote as Al Conroy and sometimes he wrote as Ian MacAlister, and sometimes as Tony Rome and sometimes he wrote as, you guessed it, Marvin Albert. And sometimes stuff he wrote under a pseudonym got reprinted under his Albert name. Anyway, I’ve yet to read something by him I didn’t like, and it’s all different. He had six hardboiled private eye novels (with a spicy flare to them, because the dames are always improbably gorgeous) with twisty plots and lots of good action, written as Nick Quarry. I’ve read two and enjoyed them, a lot. He had four series books about a gambler/gun-slick named Clayburn, written under his Al Conroy alias, and I’ve read two and enjoyed those, a lot, — and it’s a different style from his Quarry books. One of the Clayburn novels was made into a movie back in the day.

It’s All About Meeeeeee!

Nerds On Earth invited me over for an interview the other day. Now’s your chance to learn my secret origin, a few details about the new series I’ve been working on, background info on how I approached writing for Paizo, a thumbnail version of my writing techniques, seven favorite books, and other assorted nerdery! Investigate at your own peril!

Seriously, I had a nice time and I’ve been enjoying poking around their site for the last week or so. You should take a look around. There’s plenty of interesting stuff to see over there.

4th of July in 2017

We had a lovely 4th of July here in our tower by the Sea of Monsters. For several days our small selection of chicken drummettes had been soaking in a solution of buttermilk, garlic, and special sauces and those went in the oven until crisp all over (requiring several turns). From the local farmer’s market we had chilled watermelon, corn on the cob (roasted in the oven), and green tomatoes, which my skilled wife breaded and converted into fried green tomatoes.

Said tomatoes were served with homemade remolade sauce, fashioned with homemade mayo, and a lovely homemade orange sauce to dip the drummetes in. On the side was a tasty little salad with some homegrown peas tossed in, and some delicious bread from Cisse’s Bakery — a bit of a drive for us, but worth the trip. And speaking of drives, our old friend Bruce drove down and supplied dessert. Now my wife’s an amazing cook AND chef AND baker, but we do love a Grand Travers pie, especially the blueberry crumble, and that’s what Bruce brought out of the sack.

Martial Fitness

Every Saturday when my wife and I leave the karate dojo we head across the street to pick up horse grain or chicken feed or other necessities for our little farm. We wait to change until we get home, so I’m still wearing my gi pants and tee-shirt emblazoned with East-West Karate when I head into the store. I always stop, though, to remove my black belt before I leave the car. At first I removed it because I was embarrassed by my low color belt (and I shouldn’t have been) but now I do it because I don’t want to appear to be showing off.

I’m proud to have earned that belt, and the second stripe on it that means I have a second degree black belt, and I’m going to be proud when, a few years from now, I test for my third degree black belt. I recognize that being proud is not necessarily something to advertise in a public space, which is probably why I don’t talk about martial arts much here on the blog. In point of fact, though, martial arts are a huge part of my life. I spend far more time writing here about solitaire gaming, which I’ve only recently managed to get in once a week. Whereas I’m at the dojo at least twice a week working out and almost always three times, something I’ve been doing off and on for fifteen years.

Fantasy Recommendations

Having noticed that I almost NEVER talk about any modern fantasy these days, and further noticing that I have been reading nothing but books that are at least 30 years old and outside the genre I actually write it for most of the last year, I’m opening up the floor.

Regular visitors, you probably have a sense of what I like. Fast paced, imaginative prose. No padding (knowing today’s market I guess I can suffer through some minimal padding, but not much). Strong characters. Actual heroism and not constant nihilism.

What can you suggest? Tell me about it.

Solitaire Gaming

My Kickstarter copy of the second edition of Nemo’s War arrived from Victory Point Games, but I’m not opening it for my birthday. It was a BIT late coming in from the Kickstarter (I originally thought it was going to be a Christmas present last year) but it’s there in a box waiting for its mid July debut in the household.

Anyway, on occasion of that, here’s the secret origin story of how I got involved in this whole crazy solitaire gaming hobby. You’ll note that I’ve since become aware of a whole slew of additional solitaire gaming companies, like White Dog and Hollandspiele and DVG and Decision Games, to mention just a few more. And there’s a great new updated Barbarian Prince download, which I detailed at Black Gate.

You’ll notice that I mention the tactile pleasure of sitting down with a board game. I’ve grown to appreciate that more and more. I spend so much time hunched in front of a computer already. I feel — without any kind of medical study backing me up, mind — that it must be exercising a different part of the ‘ol brain than working with a computer does, and I’m sure learning all the rules and mastering different tactics is good for stretching the gray matter. That, of course, is the side benefit, because the game play is FUN.

But if I keep blathering I’m going to completely lose track of the whole point of re-printing an article because I’ll have spent too much time typing this intro! I must spend a chunk of the day working on the secret sword-and-sorcery product before I get to writing, so I’d best get to it. Here’s what I knew about solitaire gaming back in 2011:

L’Amourapalooza

My wife’s Aunt Judy, fellow bibliophile, gifted me with her entire L’amour collection. Thanks, Judy!!!

You can see it there in stacks and stacks of  its glory. In all my years I’ve read but ONE L’Amour. You folks out there have any suggestions on where I should start?

One Sword for Love

I finished another Gardner Fox historical earlier this week, and it was a cracking good one. Any of you who love a good Harold Lamb swashbuckler would have seen some familiar features, enough that I couldn’t help thinking that Fox must have read some Lamb. That’s fairly likely, actually, given that Lamb was one of the most popular writers in one of the two magazines best known for historical fiction (Adventure and Argosy — Lamb wrote primarily for Adventure).

As a matter of fact, the whole thing read rather like an R-rated version of a Harold Lamb Crusader story. So you get the gritty, tough, man-at-arms, but you also get some far racier moments that happen on-screen. That sword he’s holding, by the way… you don’t get much of that, because our protagonist’s preferred weapon is a spiked ball on the end of a chain with which he’s frighteningly proficient.

You’ll note that there’s a lovely blonde woman on the cover, and you don’t get much of THAT, either, because the romantic lead is a Persian Princess.

Woman of Wonder

We finally slid away to catch Wonder Woman this weekend and it was far better than I expected. Some people talked about rough dialogue and others complained about special effects (I never understand that, really – how do those people get by when they’re seeing old movies, or attending the theatre?). Others said it wasn’t as good as the hype.

I figured I’d end up coming away in agreement with all three, because A.) most science fiction/fantasy shows end up with slavish devotees regardless of a show’s quality, and B.) people wanted to like it. But I found it an enjoyable and exhilarating and sometimes moving summer blockbuster. It achieved everything that the first Captain America managed occasionally to do (or, more fairly, throughout its first half and sporadically thereafter) and did it over the course of its entire run.