Not About That

I just posted on the Discovery Coffee blog a post that actually really applies here are well. It’s about the importance of meaning in words, the emptiness of common, overused words, and the challenge of change. You can find it here.

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Resumes

I have a stack of resumes on my desk. Without doubt, resumes contain the highest concentration of bad writing and useless words of any piece of text I regularly encounter. Here are some gems:
“As a prospective employee this letter is in reference to why I will make an excellent asset to you and your business.”
“I [...]

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Shoulders of Giants (part 2)

Hello again. Here’s the second installment of a very long, rather rambling sort of blog-post/essay that I started a few days ago. For the first part of this essay, click here. To continue on with this essay (in which I discuss the difference between the ancient and modern novel, mary sues, Twilight, Dickens, publication, genre, [...]

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New Year Round Up 2008

Words of Fiction: 304, 000 words (ish)*
Novels Written: 2 (Snows, Handbook)
Novels Sold: 2 (Tenth Man, Handbook)
Stories Written: 68 (not all original fic, or any good for that matter)
Stories Sold: 1 (Us, and the World)
Emails Sent: 205+
Submissions: 10
Rejections: 8
Sales: 2
Blog Entries: 320+
Most Popular Posts: Disney [...]

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On Slush

As some of you know, I’ve been reading slush for Bewildering Stories for a few years. BWS, I think, is an excellent place. If you haven’t checked them out, you’re way overdue.
BWS was the first place to take a fantasy story of mine (it’s still there, Valeo Valete), and since well before my arrival, [...]

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YA, Past and Present

At dinner a few nights ago I got talking books with my friend Lindsey. He and I agreed that YA books, at least the YA books you could get in Cranbrook in the 80s and 90s, used to be crap.
I remember the kid’s section in the Cranbrook library royally sucking. In amongst the half masticated [...]

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And another thing!

I’m getting huge hits from people searching for “what does benkyo shimasu mean” because I once used the phrase in a post that never explained what it meant.  Sorry to have helped Google mislead you.
Benkyo shimasu means “study”.  Benkyo (“study”) is, I think, a noun in Japanese and has to be with shimasu (“to do”) [...]

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Edits

Just got edits for Tenth Man and am suddenly very, very pleased I’m not deep in a project right now because man there’s a lot of work to do.  Still, it ought to be interesting work.  Not only will I be going through a book I wrote two or more years ago, but I’ll get [...]

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Muscle Bound Meat Heads

Because I’ve seen a few sai with big dents and rusty spots and flapping wrapping, I decided it would be a good idea to read up on caring for sai.  Natually, when one hunts for information like that, one spends a lot of time reading websites put together by people who, let’s face it, are [...]

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