November marks the return of my Brother Orion and his dog’s slow march across the northern night skies. I go out late in the evenings and greet him, ask him to tell me tales of where he traveled and what he’s seen while away. Often he invites me to journey with him and we travel to places humans will not know of until after the sun grows cold.
It is a raw, rainy, autumn day as I pen this. I should write “…as I type this.” and the gray in my hair forbids it. My professional (ie, paid) writing career started with a typewriter, my non-professional with pencil and pen in spiral-bound notebooks (still have them). For a brief period I composed on a remote terminal over a 300baud modem via phone line to my university’s mainframe.
Young people scratch their heads and frown with confusion when I use such words: “Typewriter?” “Remote what?” “300baud?” “What’s a modem?” “What’s a mainframe?” “What’s a phone line?”
I also know my long time editor, Jen “The Editress” Day, will see the colon in the above and wince. I’ve yet to master the proper use of the dash (em and otherwise), the colon, and semi-colon. I understand their use and purpose, and Jen tells me she can tell when I’m crafting because I type so quickly punctuation goes out the window (swiftly accompanied by spelling). Fortunately, after ~20years, she knows the rhythms I invoke with language and punctuation and manages to make me look good.
I recommend her to any who need a top level editor. (PS any errors and tyops you find here are on me, not her)
“A Twelfth of Carrabis” is getting good feedback from readers. Thankee! It means a lot.
Last item before we get down to it; I’m thinking of redoing my website based on some conferences and classes I took this month. Any suggestions? What would you change if it was your website?
November-December 2024 Announcements
Our 29 Nov 2024 RoundTable 360° session is “Who Goes There? – If a camel is a horse designed by committee, is an elephant a tuba designed by AI?” AI is the newest tech available to creatives. Historically, new tech – from cuneiform writing to word processing, from cave drawings to PhotoShop – has created distance between the creator and their creation, and each added distance requires creatives to develop techniques to shorten the distance so their creation isn’t hidden in technology’s shadow.
Is AI assisted any different from Patterson’s or Roberts’ staff putting their novels together and the named author adding the finishing touches? Or the painter, sculptor, or luthier who’s students and assistants do the basic work so the master can bring the work to life? Let’s face it, AI is coming and resistance is futile. The question is, do you want to become one of the hive or the queen?
The Use of AI in the Arts is the Friday, 29 Nov 2024 RoundTable 360º’s discussion topic. Have you used AI in your creative work? Are you worried about copyright and the associated legal ramifications of using AI? We’ll be joined by AI and US Law expert Todd Sullivan. Come share your thoughts and experiences. 8:30amHawaiinT, 10:30amPT, 1:30pmET, 6:30pmLondonTime, 19h30 CEST Sign up here.- Last month I mentioned Brother Author and forensics expert Greg Hickey’s
5 Facts Writers Should Know About Guns
Greg offers a forensics related Q&A and it’s a dream for authors wanting to add realism to their work and others wanting to know what they can get away with when their neighbors piss them off.
Just checking if you’re still reading, folks.
Greg’s recent Q&A dealt with the meaning of “Locked and Loaded.” You can reach Greg with your questions at his Readers Club. - Prepare to be disturbed…
A private investigator hunts for his client’s missing stepdaughter in a dieselpunk Los Angeles while keeping secrets of his own…
A middle-aged recluse has a phobia about teenage girls…
In a medieval England, what do the women get up to when all men and boys fall asleep every full moon? A young boy and his alchemist master try to find out…
Will Charlotte Bronte be tempted by the devil…?
All this and more as dark, quirky fantasy and wonderfully disturbing
horror mix seamlessly in the MoonSleep and Other Stories collection of short stories from British author, Liz Tuckwell. - “Hank Galloway dreams of working for NASA, but his struggles with a misdiagnosed mental illness threaten to derail both his professional and personal goals.
Hank doesn’t realize how serious his disorder is until he’s hospitalized following a mental breakdown near his California college. Medical experts try to give him answers but can’t provide him with the peace or relief he desperately craves. Despite their assurances, his mental health keeps deteriorating.”
Brother Author and psychiatric physician’s assistant Daniel Oliver‘s story of a man’s struggles with mental illness and hospitalizations received high marks from the New York Review of Books. - I did well publishing-wise this November: Empty Sky and The Inheritors were released as audiobooks (and you can get free copies of any one of my audiobooks by joining my blog or upgrading your membership).
Two science fiction pieces, “My Wife’s An Alien” and “Winter Winds,” appear in Rabbit Hole 7: Not From Here.
BizCatalyst 360° published “WOUNDED HEALERS: HOME RUNS,” a chapter excerpt from my The Book of The Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception), and many thanks to them for doing so.
And last but not least, the book itself, The Book of the Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception), is available for preorder until Friday, 29 Nov 2024, and then at discount in both print and Kindle until 15 Dec 2024.
That’s it for November.
Enjoy!