Web Log
It’s a Dangerous Business, Walking out Your Front Door
Traveling for pleasure is the most indulgent of luxuries, requiring expendable time, money and a desire to intrude the familiarity of one’s self into the foreignness of new lands and cultures. No one wants to admit to being tourists yet Western Society has only two modes of travel. Are you in town for business, or [...]
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Gone Adventuring!
I’m off to hike the Inca Trail in the Peru. So I’ll be dodging yeti (if they have those in the Andes) and away from the blog/internet until the 20th or there abouts.
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Media Roundup
So during the winter of my blogging discontent, I did find the time to make a few appearances on podcasts and sit for a video interview. Thought I’d put them all in one place for the curious. Let’s go newest to oldest.
Just a few days ago, I recorded a podcast with Functional Nerds, during [...]
First Draft & Food Poisoning
You have your whole life to write your first novel; for your second, you have a year.
Or so they say. Yesterday I wrote “THE END” on the last line of Spellbound’s first draft. To celebrate, The Girl took me out to dinner, where I promptly managed to contract a classic case of food poisoning, from [...]
News Post: Book 2, Second Prints, Newspaper Reviews!
BLAKE’S INBOX: Yo, man, WTH?
BLAKE: (gazes off into distance with vaguely uncomfortable expression, listens to INTERIOR MONOLOG saying “Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.”)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Helllllooooo?
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Do you have any idea how [...]
How Doctors Speak
“Blake,” you say to me, as you are often apt to do these days, “I can’t understand a single effen thing my doctor says.”
I can sympathize.
“And it gets worse when two of you guys are talking to each other. Hard enough to understand one white coat but then another of you walks in the room. [...]
Writer on the Verge: Saladin Ahmed
One of the pleasures of a literary convention is a chance to discover new talent. At last autumn’s World Fantasy Convention, I had the good luck to be seated next to Saladin Ahmed (web LJ FB) at a writerly dinner. We struck up a conversation and, as writers always do, belly ached about our respective [...]
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Spellwright’s Lost Invocation
This crosspost appeared originally at The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf.
N.B. If you’re in the bay area, consider joining me at Kepler’s Books and Magazines in Menlo Park, at 7:15PM for an introduction by Dr. Abraham Verghese, a reading and signing of the of the book, a afterward a few pints at the BBC, a pub across [...]
News Post: A French Translation of Spellwright
Nota Bene: This Friday, March 19th 7:15pm I will read and sign Spellwright at my hometown bookstore: Kepler’s Books & Magazines. If you’re in the area, please come say hi and/or join me for a pint afterward.
Between high school and college, I spent a summer in Moroccan Atlas Mountains, splitting my time between two host [...]
Guest Post: Mytusmage on Language & Magic
The following was originally a comment on my last post by Mythusmage. Who guards a corner of the internets known as Mythusmage Opines. I’ve annotated with remarks distinguished by brackets () CAPITALS and a pirate voice. I’m not going to spellcheck it, because pirates don’t fucking spellcheck. Arrrr.
(I BE BLOGGING BOUT YON MG READING WITH [...]