Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

A new feature in the blogs will be authors we love. There's no genre catch here, but you'll either be a very prolific author, or a very dead one to end up on here. It's more or less my version of sainthood for the pen and ink set, and to be cannonized you need to perform three miracles (or really awesome books). Oddly enough, the first person I thought of  for this questionable honor was a children's author.

Don't worry, I am not actually about to start spouting poetry, but I really am about to write an entire blog post about a loaf of bread. Trust me, it's actually a pretty cool loaf of bread.

Very early one morning, in the manner of bakers the world over, a lone baker in 79AD put a loaf of bread in an oven. I know, this is hardly earthshattering news. That same baker had probably doing the exact same thing every m...

Although this entry does (tangentially) concern my latest writing project, it isn't a shameless plug. Instead, while the process is fresh in my mind, I'd like to share how the barest seed of an idea became an outline, and is now well on its way to being an actual novel. I am not claiming that I have the best "method", or that this is the only way to do it, I simply thought someone else might find it informative, and hopefully useful.

As a reader, I hate getting "kicked out" of a fun story by stuff that just doesn't make sense. I mean, you read only a sentence or two of a book, and suddenly that world and those characters feel real to you. Escapism? Yes, probably, but it is so much more than that, and it irritates me beyond belief when a writer doesn't bother to check obvious facts. No doubt, at some point I will be guilty of the same sin, so I won't name any names, just point out a fe...

Many years ago, I had a horse with...issues. He was talented, gorgeous, and moody as hell. As an added bonus, he bolted and bucked. Not his fault, I knew he came from a less than ideal past, but not exactly a pleasant, relaxing ride either. I'm not a bad rider, I've trained a number of horses, but I just couldn't get this one fixed. So I turned to my boss, and asked her to help me out. She watched us "canter" in the indoor arena for just a couple of secon...

It really wasn't just an idea that HP Lovecraft invented, the universe really is full of holes. I'm not just talking about the handy black holes that everyone from the Star Trek crew to Disney's Black Hole crew have flown through. Let's face it, those things may be so amazingly dense that not even light can escape them, but they are old news. What's new?

Cold spots. Nope, I'm not kidding. Space, besides being re...

It's time again to look at where nature is stranger than fiction. Any fan of the Percy Jackson series, or honestly of mythology in general, should be aware of the Chimaera, or chimera. No, I don't mean the cartilagenous fish, although those are admittedly quite cool. I mean the mythical beast that according to the Greeks was the child of Typhon and Echidna (again, the monster, not the spiny marsupial). Usually the Chimera is shown with the body and head o...

As any person out there with children knows, the choosing of a name is an important business. Parents are at a disadvantage when compared to authors in this department, as they end up naming their children before they've even arrived in the world, let alone had a chance to reveal their personalities. Still, the names they choose, whether I understand them or not, mean something to them. Perhaps they've chosen a family name in honor of a loved one, or one ...

Yesterday, I got stuck in traffic behind a person whose beat up pickup truck sported a bumper sticker saying "Speak English or Go Home". I have to admit, this instantly annoyed me. I am a huge fan of the English language, obviously. I think it is capable of great beauty, perfect for science and I want to continue speaking it. I wonder, though, how many people who hold this opinion would be able to speak another language if forced. Not willing, able. Let's...

While I was writing a blog post, it occurred to me that mankind has been historically obsessed with the concept of eternal life. I'm not talking about heaven or hell, but actually living a physically eternal life. I love being alive, it certainly beats the alternative, so I can appreciate the appeal, especially on a warm spring day when the world is at its most beautiful. Who would want to give that up?