School is Coming

This evening, we attended the middle school orientation for my daughters. Reanna is going to have most of the same teachers as Audrey did last year. School is coming. I’ve already emptied out the bank account buying backpacks and notebooks. Weird how it feels like I just took down the… Continue reading

Top Ten Lists

I found a number of top ten science fiction novel lists. I have to confess that I haven’t read very many of them, but I have the best hit ratio on Rob Grant’s list. Michael Moorcock’s list has a lot of material I own but is still in the in-box…. Continue reading

Another Look at the Direction of SF

The Crotchety Old Fan has posted a response to my blog entry from a few days ago regarding the future of SF. (That is a great blog name, by the way.) He has some good discussion, including an on-topic excerpt from the introduction of an anthology edited by Lester del… Continue reading

Fantasy – Magic is for Free, Right?

In yesterday’s post, we got into some discussion on the differences between science fiction and fantasy. Fantasy is “easier to write” because you don’t have to worry about the laws of physics, right? Wrong. First of all, fiction is fiction, and it’s never easy. It takes a lot of work…. Continue reading

Freshman vs Sophomore

When I work on long fiction, I use a spreadsheet I got from David Gerrold to track my progress. last year I fixed a few problems with a couple of the algorithms, then David modified it some more. It works great now. Because I track my progress, I can compare… Continue reading

Dangerous Visions

One thing I remember from attending the 2006 Nebula Award banquet was a comment from Harlan Ellison, who was the Grand Master for that year. The comment was in the form of a challenge to writers not to play it safe. For those not in the know, Harlan Ellison edited… Continue reading

Best of Issue

“Thrice Around the Earth and then Home, James” has been named best story of issue for the April 2008 issue of The Martian Wave by reader vote. See a list of my fellow winners here. www.ricknovy.com

Back to the Slog

That’s right, back to the slog. It’s monday again, and work felt like a monday. On the brighter side, I managed to pump over 1000 words into my novel-in-progress, Rigel Kentaurus. It still feels like a slog (both the job and the novel but I’m referring to the novel here)…. Continue reading

Rains

We had a nice soaking this afternoon, dumping a good inch of rain on our yard. This followed after another downpour thursday evening. As it turns out, I was grilling, trying to finish the hamburgers before the wind picked up. I didn’t make it. Even before I flipped the first… Continue reading

Time for Writing

I spent the better part of the day today on conference calls for work with our customer in Detroit. This after working a 60 hour week. I got out of the calls already exhausted for the day. Later, I was looking at Eric James Stone’s blog. On the blog, he… Continue reading