Another first-time convention last weekend at the Wrath of Con, in Panama City, Florida, and let me tell you, a great time was had by all… perhaps too-great a time for some of the guests… Yikes….

We attended as guests, and had a great convention. Rick Albritton did a great job of organizing, especially for a first time convention. There were some great media guests: Jerry Doyle, Richard Hatch, Virginia Hey and Gigi Edgely to name a few. There were also some of us author types, and I was honored to meet David Wellington, a very accomplished writer of Horror and paranormal fiction. We had a great writers workshop panel along with small press publisher and author Bo Savino, and indi published author J. Edward Holmes. I so love doing panels…

Anyway, a good time and great people… What more could one ask?

Well done, Rick!

Okay, I’m not one to argue with the likes of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, but… oh, well, yes I am… So, here we go.

Jeff, buddy, what the hell are you thinking? E-book readers have been tried, and have dropped like flies at a bug-zapper trade show. I’m very sorry but the new Amazon Wireless Reader is doomed to fail… Here are the reasons why:

First: A book is a book… it feels like a book, ‘reads’ like a book, and you can spill your coffee on it, wipe it off and still read it like a book. You an throw it in the bottom of a bag with your car keys, let it get peed on by your cat, highlight it with a pen, write notes in the margin, and still read it like a book. When you invent a reader that you can do all those things with, and will never need batteries, or be subject to screen fade, or be to dim to read in bright sunlight, I might buy it.

Second. There are already quite a few devices out there that you can read a book on, and all of them do much more than just display a book to be read. It is human nature to want more for your money. So even though you might be less satisfied with an e-book reader that is also a phone, computer, pda, wireless hub, and washes your car, because you will want to do all these things instead of read your book, you’re going to buy it anyway… And you will do everything with it except read your book. Also, this more popular item will end up actually costing less than your stand alone e-book reader, because of the number that will sell… doomed…

Third: Cost. It retails for a cool $400.00!! Holy crap! I CAN buy an i-phone for that. So the big draw is that it can hold up to 200 books (but you can still only read one at a time, and my bookshelf holds more) and it’s wireless *checks his bookshelf and all his books for wires* … Ahem… Doomed…

I’m not saying people don’t read on their computers. Hey, I do all the time. Cory Doctorow has had millions of copies of his books downloaded through Creative Commons licensing, which is all good. But the people who really want to ‘read’ a book, will buy a good old paper and ink copy, dog the ears, flip the pages, spill coffee on it, fall asleep and drool on it, and love every word.
Sorry, but nice try Jeff.

If you’re interested, here’s more on the new Amazon Kindle.

Cheers! Read On!

I just did my very first podcast, and what a blast! Gail Z. Martin and I discussed the motivations, archetypes and use and abuse of necromancers in our books. In Gail’s book, The Summoner, her Necromancer is the “Good Guy”, whereas, in Deathmask, Azrael is the ultimate villain. Interestingly, we kind of deconstructed our works, and found that we both had similar ideas. If you’re interested, give it a listen.

The strangest thing about doing the podcast was listening to my own distorted voice (we did it on the phone), and wondering: do I really sound like that?

That and I discovered that my mouth sometimes works faster than my brain… well there’s a surprise!

Cheers!

One thing that always irks me when I visit the big chain bookstores is the dominance on the shelf by the huge name authors, and publishers like Wizards of the Coast. I understand that people like to buy books from their favorite authors, and I am no exception, but how about a little variety. I think it is a waste of shelf space for a bookstore to stock every single title an author has published in the last fifteen, or in some cases fifty, years. There is so much undiscovered talent out there! How about spreading the love a little?

Our one saving grace (as both readers and upcoming writers) is the internet. There are some really great literary search engines, like Google Booksearch, and Bookfinder.com and many others.

A friend of mine did a search for me, and not only came up with my work, but also came up with a great book I had written a promo blurb for. Tales for the Thrifty Barbarian is an anthology some writer friends of mine published with Lulu. You can buy this book online virtually anywhere, but, since they are all new writers, and damn fine ones, you will not find it in Barnes and Noble… Hence my ire.

So get out there off the beaten track, look for new work from new authors. Don’t fall into the rut and just pick up the next novel in the never-ending series by your favorite author. Who knows; you may end up with some new favorites!

As you may have noticed, there has been a minor hiatus in the blog. Well, the reason behind this literary solemnity is a major refit of my home, boat, abode and all of the above, Mr. Mac.

Yes, I live on a boat.

If you don’t know me, or haven’t heard that particular bit of news in a previous blog or e-mail, then you now know that I am certifiably insane.

Well, maybe not, but sometimes I think so.

Take, for instance the last month of my life:

We, my wife and I, had planned our bi-yearly haul out very carefully. We were to haul out around the 10^th of November, and pull both engines (generator and main engine) out of the boat. Sell the generator on consignment. Refurbish the main engine and put it back in the boat, during which time the hull would be cleaned, sanded, painted and ready for two more years in the water. All this was supposed to take about a week and a half, maybe two.

In the end, we spent a horrific month living on the boat while it was high and dry in the boat yard, dust and dirt everywhere, working our day jobs, workers in and out of our home every day, while we spent way too much money buying and installing a brand NEW engine, having sold both of the old ones, and doing a great deal of sanding, grinding, epoxying, faring, resanding and painting, before we were finally put back in the water.

Wheeew…

Anyway, we’re back at our old slip, plugged back into our internet connection, and ready to blog.

So, what do I blog about…

Getting back, though the boat is still much a clutter, our first order of business was to put up our Christmas lights. Somehow, this made me feel better. I am not deeply religious, but something about the hope of Christmas always makes me feel like I can go on a bit longer. Also, it got me thinking, even with all of our trials and tribulations, we have so very much to be thankful for that it makes me embarrassed to sometimes feel sorry for myself.

So, no feeling sorry. We will regroup and hit it hard with the New Year.

2007… sounds like a lucky number to me!

Take a deep breath.

This is something I really need to do more: breathe deep and let the stress exit my body with the exhaled breath. You know, it sounds hokey, but it really works.

You know what else works? Quitting the job that has been killing you for the last 15 years. Ha! Yep, I’m finally changing jobs after fifteen years! Well, maybe the old job hasn’t been killing me that long, but for the last four or five years, it has been changing into something that was beyond my control and way too stressful. When you tell your boss you’re going to move on, and he will have to hire three people to do what you have been doing by yourself, you know you were overworked.

So, how do you celebrate the change? Personally, I’m on vacation trying to get my head straight. My last post basically told the story: too much going on. This week, nothing but sun, sand, snorkeling and good food and drink. Okay, maybe a little writing… Next week may be back to the stress, but right now… deep breaths..

Water temp: about 80 degrees F

Air temp: about 85 degrees F

Rum punch temp: about 34 degrees F

Cheers all!

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…

Well, I think I’m losing my head. If you see it rolling down the gutter, please kick it in the general direction of my body…

Simply too much going on to keep up. Here’s a short synopsis:

This coming week is the last week of my old job (yes, the new one finally came through)

As a consequence I have three huge projects on my desk that simply must be finished by Friday. Of course, if they are not, I can’t really be fired, can I? But I will try, since I do not leave people hanging (just one of my little foibles). Also, my coworkers for 15 years are going to take me out Friday night (Friday the 13^th)… What’s the worst that could happen? Uh… yeah

Saturday I am flying out of the country for a much-needed one week vacation. If you need me, I’ll be on the beach in Grand Cayman. Maybe I’ll even write a blog from there… that’d be fun.

Next Monday back is the first week of my new job (crash course in diabetes research)

That Friday through Sunday is Necronomicon in Tampa (three days of mayhem)

The following weekend is Florida Supercon in Hollywood FL. Long drive, more mayhem.

Two weeks after that we are planning to haul our home (Mr. Mac, our 45 foot sailboat) out of the water for two weeks and virtually rip the guts out of her. No time off work for this, since I’m in a new job, right?

Here’s the good news: The new job is approximately eight blocks from where we live, and only three from where my wife works. What does this mean? It means Chris gets back about two hours per day previously spent behind the wheel of his ’97 Nissan with 225,000 miles on it. (Old rice rockets never die, the upholstery just smells like it.)

So, with any luck at all (hey, it could happen) I’ll be back to better than normal by mid December…

Just in time for the holidays.

Then the new year starts…

Do you ever feel like a gerbil on a wheel?

Rest assured, I’ve been counting my blessings a lot lately, and I think I’m still one or two to the good.

As writers we should always seek inspiration. That is a given.

When a writer becomes isolated to the point that he or she only feeds on his or her own thoughts, I think the creative process suffers. My opinion, once again. Literature is rife with examples to the contrary, of course, but I am speaking of my own experience. I have to get out, experience, play, see, watch, do, to really get my creative juices going.

Or, sometimes, all I have to do is click.

I am utterly convinced that the internet is the greatest boon to a writer since the dictionary. A friend of mine threw a link to me for David Brin’s website. Brin is a consummate author, ruinously intelligent and a fountain of imagination, and his blog is a true joy. He recently did a “Potpourri time” piece where he throws out some interesting facts for everyone to enjoy. One that caught my eye, and my mind was this New York Times piece on vastly different phenomenon that show similar patterns.

Okay, boys and girls, if this doesn’t get your creative juices flowing, check your pulse.

I immediately started thinking about my pseudo-humorous theory in Cheese Runners that the universe is a living thing, and that it doesn’t particularly like us. Well, here’s my evidence… well, really I hope not, but it sounds pretty cool.

So no big moral or hint on this one, except to find inspiration where you can, and enjoy life outside your own little world. You never know what might jump up and bite you on your imagination.