A Far Out Fantastic Site

A Little on Character Development This week I’ve been trying to work character development into my latest short story that I used as an example for last week’s post onworld-building . For me, character is much easier to develop in a profile than working traits of that profile into the story itself. It makes a person ask the question what is more important, the character influencing the story or the story (the events within) influencing the character? (Much like what came first, the vulture or the egg?) What do you think, fellow writers out there? Please feel free to leave your answers in the box at the end. On Joe Hill I’ve been reading Joe Hill’s collection of short stories, 20 th Century Ghosts . I checked it out at the library a couple weeks ago, intending to only read one or two stories; so far I’m on a third. His stories are great, although if you want to read him for his horror fiction you may be a little disappointed with some of the stories, since, as the writer o...

Image Credit: Openclipart.org I was choking on dust all week, especially in bed late at night. So I made sure I spent this Saturday afternoon dusting the flat. And it’s not even half done when you think about it. Being a rat pack, more dust is in the clutter of my house than sand in the Sino-Indian border’s desert. I think I have to scan and put some of those old manuscript copies and notes for past work on flash drive and trash the paper copies. Though there are certain paper copies of my work that I forbid myself to exclude to digital form, since I’m a lover of the printed word and like to read and present words on a tangible medium such as paper. But enough of that. On World-building I told you last time that I would have a post on world-building. Most people probably think of world-building as something only done by fantasy writers who make up imaginary universes. That’s not true. World-building is simply the manner an author describes the environment the story...

Image Credit: curveballsandmedschool.files.wordpress.com I know I said in my last post that I would have a full blog article here. However, I was just nominated this afternoon for the Liebster  Blog Awards by a Cassidy Leslie . Thanks again, Cassidy! Part of the nomination process consists of posting and answering questions from my nominator (Cassidy), and posting the nomination rules along with my own questions for those bloggers I nominate in turn. You’ll find the list of bloggers I nominated below. The purpose of the Liebster Awards is to help fellow bloggers gain greater exposure. I’m glad to help out my fellow blog writers in this way. But if you ever wondered about the guy behind the curtain playing the Wiz, yours truly, you can find out more about him now in my responses to Cassidy’s questions below! For the Bloggers I Nominate : Rules of the Liebster Awards   1) Thank the person who nominated you 2) Answer the questions given by the nomi...

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons Although I’m not superstitious and, like Ben Kenobi in Star Wars , I don’t believe there’s such a thing as luck, you might consider this your unlucky day because I don’t have time to put a lot in this post on this Friday the 13 th . I’ve been very busy with my writing projects and getting ready for upcoming events, one which was yesterday evening at the Crocker Art Museum here in Sacramento . It was called Art Mix: Cirque--a carnivalesque, French style, circus-themed event. Not your average childhood circus. It wasn’t bad. In hopes of being able to promote my book of short stories, The Fool’s Illusion , because it went with the theme of the event, I decided to dig up some of my extra promo bookmarks which I still had to cut out and do so in a hurry because the idea came to me at the last minute. However, I decided not to leave any book marks there because the area where the staff told me I could put them didn’t seem to attract very much traffi...

Photo Credit: NBC It’s only been a little over a week since we lost Leonard Nimoy. His Spock was one of my two favourite Star Trek characters (the other being Capt. Kirk) whose calm and wise personality always inspired me in getting through the problems that everyday life can bring. This was especially the case when I was a teenager going through a big Trekker phase. But as I grew older, I began admiring Nimoy not only for his role in Star Trek , but for his work in film in general: his work as actor, writer and director. For me he was a figure of intellect which is probably what got me through high school and perhaps college as well. Besides Star Trek , he played numerous other roles both in and behind the scenes in movies and television, both in and out of the science fiction genre. He was in the “I, Robot” episode of the original ‘60s Outer Limits series. This episode was, interestingly, based on not Isaac Asimov’s novel/short story collection of the same name but o...