Month: April 2015

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Respecting the Streak

“A player on a streak has to respect the streak. You know why? Because they don’t happen very often. If you believe you’re playing well because your getting laid or because you’re not getting laid or because you’re wearing women’s underwear, then you are!”

–Crash Davis, Bull Durham

Sorry for the lack of content, folks, but at least the reason isn’t bad! It is, though, the usual one: I am concentrating on the book. PRINC3SSES IN SPAC3 (not the actual title) is really cooking along now, and like Crash says in the movie, I have to respect the streak. The book is almost done — another couple weeks oughta do it — and the momentum is real. This past weekend I took four days off from work and cranked out nearly 8000 words in the book’s big action set-piece.

I’m not doing a hiatus or anything, but content will be sparse ’round here until this draft is DONE and I can let out a sigh of relief. Thanks for hanging in, and we’ll catch you on the flip side!

Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!

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A few things

Just a couple of items about progress and whatnot!

1. I’m nearing the final stretch of PRINCESSES III.

Stay on target! Stay on target! PRINCESSES III should be done soon!

I’m not sure how my writing pace will keep up, because I have a couple of complex set pieces to write still, and Big Set Pieces always challenge me. Lots of stop-and-start, some doodling of the setting, back-and-forth, writing-and-deleting, and that sort of thing goes on before I eventually get it right. And then, inevitably, when I work through the manuscript later in the year, I’ll think the whole thing stinks anyway. But I really hope to get this draft done by May 15. (May 11 would be better, because that’s the 6-month anniversary of the STARDANCER release!)

2. My daughter (henceforth referred here, as in other places, as The Daughter) has been reading STARDANCER, and she has opinions on the direction of the series. Which she texts me. At length.

The Daughter has opinions on the direction of PRINCESSES IN SPACE II. #AmWriting

Her opinion has received some backing from other readers! Well, I like teen romance more than she does, apparently, but still, the point is well taken, and without getting too spoilery for my own books, for the most part she needn’t worry. The romance is a part of the overall story, but at no point will it take over and become the main focus. I will offer this much: there is a bit of teen love angst in STARDANCER II: MORE STARS, MORE DANCING (not the actual title), but not a whole lot. It is, though, front-loaded in the book’s first few chapters before other things start happening. I do hope and plan to avoid the trap of allowing love and romance to counteract a character’s agency, because it really does suck when that happens. But more on that this November!

3. I’ve decided that on May 12, I will reveal the Actual Title of PRINCESSES IN SPACE II: TARIANA AND MARGETH’S BOGUS JOURNEY (not the actual title). Stay tuned!

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That is NOT a pie!

Headline on Mashable.com:

Getting hit in the face with a pie will always be funny

But then they show this video of a kid playing a game called “Pie Face” with his grandfather. It’s a game of chance where, if you lose, a dollop of whipped cream about two inches in diameter gets plopped onto your nose.

That is about as much getting hit in the face with a pie as those post-game baseball celebrations where the “pie” is a towel shmeared with shaving cream.

This is a pie. Get it right, America!

Thank you.

In other news, it’s entirely possible that I have issues, and all the writing I’ve been doing is getting to my brain….

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“Wanna go to Joe’s?” “Ummm…I’m not sure I can get in there.”

A video about a bar called Joe’s Knight Hawk, in Waverly, IA:


This bar is located on a streetcorner very near the campus of Wartburg College. I spent a few nights there while attending that very school. I remember being there and trying to scramble out of the way of a fight that had just broken out; I remember the fine art of sneaking in when I was underage. You had to be 19 to get in, but if you timed it well, you could get in by just glomming onto a large group of people entering. They couldn’t card ’em all, right? I remember playing a few performances with the jazz band in that bar, during which as an underage kid I learned the usefulness of the phrase, “I’m with the band.” And I remember celebrating my roommate’s 19th birthday — or maybe it was his 20th? — and at one point realizing that the girl I was sitting next to was kinda cute. That observation served me well, as six years and some change later I’d marry her.

Long live Joe’s! (I wonder if they ever stopped serving wings with the tips still on? Always bugged me, as a right proper Buffalonian.)

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Star Wars Episode VII.V: The Force Stretches And Turns On The Coffee Machine

I haven’t said anything about the new trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens yet, so a few thoughts.

:: First, here’s the trailer, just in case you somehow missed it.


:: A Star Destroyer and an X-Wing fighter, both wrecked on the desert planet which we’re being told is not Tatooine. OK.

:: Voiceover from Luke Skywalker. Interesting. I wonder who he’s talking to.

:: Vader’s melted helmet, distorted to the point of looking skull-like. Again, interesting.

:: Lots of quick visuals. X-Wings in a combat configuration, but on a planet surface. Lots of new-ish stormtroopers standing beneath a flag we haven’t seen before. Quick glimpses of the red lightsaber in action.

:: My favorite shot in this trailer? What looks like a TIE fighter just hovering above a landing bay, blasting everything in sight.

:: “Chewie, we’re home.” Oh yeah, babe. That helps a lot.

I’ve seen some commentary to the effect that “This trailer makes us feel like we’re eight years old again!” I don’t know about that, and even so, I’m not sure being transported back to that age is really possible. I think it’s that expectation that partially caused people to elevate their desires to levels no film could match, not the least of which would be the three Prequel Trilogy movies. Besides, I don’t want to be transported back to when I was eight.

And, as usual, any new bit of Star Wars news seems to bring out all the folks who want to sharpen their anti-Lucas axe at every opportunity. I almost dread new Star Wars stuff for that very reason.

But anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing this in December. It feels a bit odd, really, having new Star Wars on the way for which I have virtually no investment in terms of the characters or idea of what the story is doing. This is almost virgin territory for me!

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A Casting Coincidence

I don’t tend to spend a lot of time — at all — thinking about what real-life actors might play the roles in the inevitable movies which will be made from my books. First of all, I don’t want to get locked down in my head to a single look or voice, and second, well…that’s the writer’s equivalent of the kid with the bat stepping up to home plate on an empty neighborhood field and saying to himself, “It’s the bottom of the ninth. Game seven of the World Series. Timmy steps up….”


But like all rules, I don’t follow this one specifically, and there are two roles in the Forgotten Stars books that I have mentally filled with specific actors. One is the stern, business-like, and highly competent Lieutenant Penda Rasharri, who serves as an unplanned mentor to Princess Tariana Osono, giving the Princess her first lessons in what it is to be a Stardancer. I’m not sure why, but the actor I’ve always had in my mind as playing Rasharri is Taraji P. Henson.

But here’s something weird: via SamuraiFrog’s blog, I literally just learned — after loving Henson’s work on Person of Interest for the first three seasons — that the ‘P’ in her name stands for Penda.
(And who is the other character for whom I’ve had a specific face in mind? Hmmmm…any guesses. folks who have read Stardancer?)

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