in the news.

keeping safe from cylon network hacks.

Apparently, the Kremlin is putting typewriters back into service for internal documents to prevent the security issues that come with easily disseminated digital materials. No networked computers on the Galactica, and all that.

I’m a known fan of analog technology, but this is not the way to keep your communications from being sent out over the Internetworks. I can type a page on the trusty manual…and then scan it with my iPhone’s camera and send it out via email in just a few seconds. You just can’t stuff that particular genie back into the bottle.

writing.

bad blogger. no gluten-free non-dairy bakery treat.

Hey, look at that! It’s already August.

If I haven’t been blogging or otherwise working the free ice cream machine much, it’s because I’ve been knee-deep in edits. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the process: you turn in your manuscript, and then your editor sends it back to you with, like, a thousand million comments and suggestions and requests, and then you go through the whole thing and change things around before sending it back AND THEN REPEATING THAT PROCESS MANY TIMES.

Alas, it is done (for now), and I’ve officially turned in the second novel in the Terms of Enlistment series. Now I get to finish my novella and then repeat the whole process for the third novel in the Series That Doesn’t Have A Name Yet. (My editor wanted to know if I had a title in mind, and I jokingly suggested “The Hunger Space Trilogy”.)

Now that I’m not on a super-tight deadline for a little while, I can get back to doing regular Interwebs business more frequently–you know, like writing blog posts or ANSWERING EMAILS. If you’ve sent me anything in the last month or so and haven’t received an expected reply yet, feel free to send it again because I most likely overlooked your email.

And now we do what we always do when a novel is finished. We fill up our pens, restock the fridge with Sweetened Caffeine Matrix, and do it all over again. Because being a writer is just like having homework every day!

parenting.

an educational tale of woe.

On Friday, a certain little daughter-heir here at Castle Frostbite was dragging her feet at breakfast. She failed to heed multiple warnings to finish eating and get dressed lest the carriage to Splash Camp leave without her in it.

And lo, the time to depart came, and the daughter-heir was not yet in her garments and prepared for the day. So the carriage left without her. And there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the cries of distress could be heard all the way in French Canadia.

Guess who was dressed and ready to go to Splash Camp almost an hour early this morning?

shameless self-promotion. writing.

in which i bloviate about self-publishing.

Bloomsbury UK has a Writer’s Digest-like Interwebs site called Writers & Artists. A few weeks ago, they asked me for an interview about my Great! Self-Publishing! Success!, and I agreed to share my experiences in return for a first-class ticket to the UK and a box of Aero Mint bars with all the chocolate removed.

Anyway, you can read the interview here. I share the genesis of the Little Space Kablooie Novel and give some Tips Of Dubious Value regarding self-publishing. Go read, leave a comment or two, and remind them that THEY OWE ME SOME GODDAMN AERO BARS.

movies. writing.

back from nerd prom.

Readercon was great, but I racked up a serious sleep deficit while partying and going out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my friends. I’m not complaining, though–it was a lot of fun, and I’d been looking forward to it all year.

On Saturday, I managed to run over to the mall with my friend and fellow VPXII grad Chang to see Pacific Rim, a.k.a. Monsters Vs. Battlemechs. It was jolly good fun (I mean, it’s kind of hard to fuck up ROBOTS PUNCHING HUGE MONSTERS IN THE FACE), and much more deep and poignant in spots than you’d expect from a monster/disaster flick. I will say that the most terrifying and emotionally gripping giant monster movie of all time wasn’t Pacific Rim–it was Mako Mori’s flashback in the middle of Pacific Rim.

Now I’m knee-deep in developmental edits. 47North will re-release the first book when the second one comes out (in January 2014, as far as I know), and I added a fair bit of material to flesh out the world a little more and give Andrew a bit more to juggle at the end of the book. For those of you who have read the book, I can tell you that the second-to-last chapter (Chapter 23) has had a substantial rewrite, for example.

Next week I have to get to work on the edits for book #2 (Lines of Departure). The few people who have read both manuscripts are uniformly of the opinion that Lines of Departure is a substantially better novel than Terms of Enlistment*, so if you liked the first one, you should be quite pleased with the second one.

*Not that Terms of Enlistment sucked or anything. But I didn’t have to spend half the novel on boot camp and world-building, so there was more elbow room for Stuff Blowing Up.

 

 

Uncategorized

social week: it’s like shark week, only with more bourbon.

I turned in some on-schedule edits on Saturday, so I rewarded myself by drinking Cuba Libres and playing the truly excellent The Last Of Us  on the PS3 for the rest of the weekend.

This week will be the highlight of the year, socially speaking (at least for this work-from-home hermit). That’s because it’s Readercon week. I get to head down to Burlington for the annual Mingling Of The SF/F Writers, where I’ll get to meet friends again and make new ones, all while talking about SF/F and the writing business in general. This will be my third year there in a row. It’s the convention where I did my first public reading, and I consider it my home con, so to speak.

When I get back from Readercon, there will be a new round of edits waiting for me, and I’ll have to jump back into the mountain of writing work that has piled up for me, but this week is for HAPPY NERDY SOCIAL TIMES. (If you’re going to be at Readercon, stop by and say hello!)

 

gadgetry.

carputer.

I used a dedicated Magellan car GPS in the Grand Caravan (a.k.a. Frostbite One) for years, until I got a new iPhone and found that it made a better GPS than the dedicated unit. That worked pretty well for a while, until I upgraded my iPad mini to a 3G/LTE version and figured that a 7.9″ screen would make an even better GPS.

And boy howdy, does it ever.

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Let me tell you that an iPad mini with a cellular data connection makes a ridiculously useful car computer. I use the iOttie dashboard mount, which is rock-solid. Most of the time, the iPad is in GPS mode via the MotionX GPS app. (Safety disclaimer: I only use the screen for navigation purposes and to switch music while I’m driving, not to browse the Intertubes or do Facebook updates at 65MPH on I-89.)

Other things I can do in the car now: stream Pandora to the car stereo, listen to my iTunes music or audiobooks, use the iPad as a dash cam via the rear-facing camera, look up stuff online (only while standing still,  see above disclaimer), and basically do everything else I usually do on the iPhone, albeit on a much bigger and easier-to-use screen.

The iOttie mount is not only extremely sturdy, but also easy to operate. Getting the iPad in and out can be done with one hand because the little arms that secure it are spring-loaded and actuated when the back of the iPad is pushed into the mount. I hook up the iPad to the USB charger in the 12V socket because the GPS location services are really battery-hungry, and because it’s nice to arrive at your destination with the device fully charged.

It’s not as elegant as a built-in vehicle GPS/entertainment screen in the dash, but I highly doubt that any car manufacturer offers a factory solution that has more capabilities. And this carputer is detachable and goes from car to backpack in about three seconds.

This future: I like living in it.

books. friends. shameless self-promotion. writing.

meanwhile, over at kat’s place.

My friend Katrina does a recurring blog feature called Prime Writing, and the latest installment features some dorky dude who wrote a novel about spaceships and stuff:

http://www.katrinaarcher.com/journal/2013/06/24/prime-writing-marko-kloos/

You may want to check it out. Said dorky dude talks a bit about his novel and how it came about.

castle frostbite. weather.

my kingdom for a backup generator.

Spring has totally sprung, y’all.

Yesterday, the thermometer at Castle Frostbite recorded 88 degrees. Unfortunately, we lost power in the short but intense thunderstorm front that moved through the area in the evening, so it was also 88 degrees under the roof where the grown-ups sleep. We were in the middle of cooking dinner when the power went out, but the salmon cooked with the residual heat from the stove, so at least we didn’t ruin a $20 slab of good Alaska salmon.

Did you know that it’s kind of hard to fall asleep when it’s close to 90 degrees and you can’t run a fan or air conditioning because the electrons are leaking out of a broken line somewhere up the road? And did you further know that when the power comes back on at 2:30am, after you had finally fallen asleep, it’s even harder to go back to sleep?

So yeah, we’re dragging a bit today. I’m at the auxiliary office, a.k.a. the coffee shop, doing my writing for the day after dropping the kids off at Splash Camp. When I get home, I think I’ll check the acoustic integrity of the mattress for an hour or so.