Year: 2025

As always, a lot of material in the newsletter is kind of timely and may not be relevant two or so weeks later when I post it there. And there’s some stuff coming soon that will only be for subscribers. Sooooooo… y’know.

Okay, I remember having a really clever idea that I could use to start this newsletter off with, but I didn’t write it down. Not like I don’t ramble on enough as is…

I’ve blathered on a few times here about social media (so hey, what’s one more, right?) but I saw an interesting take on the “Bluesky is awful/ an echo chamber/ doomed” articles that keep cropping up every couple of weeks. Why do we keep seeing these when… well, they don’t really hold up?

It ties back to another question that’s come up many, many times—even just in the past week—which is why anyone would still be on Twitter? A ridiculous number of accounts are just bots. The algorithm has a nightmarishly right-wing slant, and it’s nigh-impossible at this point to see half the stuff you’re there to see or to get any sort of real engagement. Anything posted there is automatically fed into Musk’s MechaHitler AI, which will also cheerfully post (fake) nude photos of people (and, unless I’m mistaken, only of women). Oh, and did anyone mention there’s a MechaHitler AI that regularly vomits out racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ xenophobic garbage when it’s not pretending to be your horny anime girlfriend? Seems like a great place to be spending time and promoting your company/ celebrity brand, right?

So again… why are so many folks staying there?

Journalist Kat Tenbarge pointed out that a lot of mainstream media folks are using Bluesky as sort of a whipping boy, projecting all their anger and frustration about Twitter (and I’d add, probably Facebook/ Instagram, too) onto that platform. That’s why we keep seeing all these articles about how awful Bluesky is… a lot of them from pundits and outlets with a minimal Bluesky presence at best. They duck in, say they hate it, and don’t come back for two months. Because if Bluesky’s awful too, then there’s no real point in leaving Twitter, is there? It’s easier to justify staying here if there is just as bad, right?

As I’ve said once or thrice before, I get it. Switching platforms is a serious pain and, yeah, a bit scary. Having to start over, having to learn the quirks of a new system, learning new behaviors (or just letting go of old ones). But at some point we all need to admit things went bad at this party a while ago and we’re all standing around wishing somebody would leave first and give everyone else an excuse to follow them out.

So hey… maybe you could be that somebody for a lot of your friends and family.

Anyway… let me give you some assorted book and writing news.

Last time I mentioned finishing off one final rewrite of TOS and sending it to my agent. Well, he took it out into the publishing world and, well, there was immediate interest. A lot of interest. So… the next few weeks are going to be very interesting. Hopefully more on that after SDCC (which we’ll talk about soon).

You can still preorder Dread Coast: SoCal Horror Tales. It’s the charity anthology I’ve mentioned before where the proceeds go to help with recovery from the LA Wildfires from earlier this year . It’s got a story from me called “Flesh Trade” which, up until now, has only been available in my audiobook-only collection Dead Men Can’t Complain. And I think we’re doing some SoCal signings in August- September, too.

The ARCs (advance reader copies) of God’s Junk Drawer have (mostly) made their way out into the world. And I’ve got to see some very nice responses to them, which is always kind of a relief. Some people who were supposed to get them have not and… I’m working on that. Preorders are also up for this, if I haven’t mentioned that in the past three newsletters.

The folks at Blackstone also got some nice God’s Junk Drawer bookmarks made up, so I’ll be handing those out at SDCC and so will the folks at the Blackstone booth (#1134). You’ll also probably find them stuck in a lot of books all through the con. Some of them might even be mine…

And hey– San Diego Comic Con is next week! Between covid and publishing schedules, it’s been a few years since I’ve had a semi-busy con. I have panels, signings, even some business meetings. Plus, y’know a few things I want to see and some folks I’m hoping to say hi to. If you’d like to say hi…

Thursday 2:15 until 4:15 I’ll be at the Writers Coffeehouse (room Marina D at the Marriott–next door from the convention center)

Then from 5:00 until 6:00 I’ll be signing up in the Sails Pavilion (AA09)

Friday 11:00 until 11:30-ish I’ll be at the Blackstone Booth (#1134) unofficially signing books. Just a casual, not-really-on-the-schedule thing if you want to stop by, say hi, get a personalized copy of The Broken Room or Combat Monsters or bring something of your own. There maaaaay be some other things there as well…

Then from 4:30 until 5:30 I’m signing again up in the Sails Pavilion (AA09)

And from 6:00 until 7:00 I’m doing a panel on Writing Military Fiction & Alternative History (room 32AB)

I’ll probably make up a nice little graphic with all this later tonight and send that out as a quick bonus post early next week. Past that… you might see me wandering the floor. If you spot a masked man at a publisher’s booth or toy display who looks like me… well, it might be me. Halfway decent chance, really.

In other news…

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
Murderbot was just fantastic, beginning to end. Great adaptation, great production, absolutely phenomenal cast. I’ve got one episode left in Ironheart. It started slow, but it’s really grown on me. And oddly enough, my beloved and I decided to watch the Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie from a few years back and it was… kind of wonderful. A fun mix of goofiness and nostalgia that also had things to say about Hollywood and fame and friendship.

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Finally finished up the Godzilla/ Godzilla Raids Again book that I think I mentioned before. It’s the original novelization of the first two movies (from the 50s) translated into English. It’s corny, but also kind of fascinating. Which makes it a lot like Superman: Miracle Monday by Elliot S Maggin.It’s a tie-in novel I had it as a kid and my beloved found me a reprint for my birthday a few weeks back. It’s an interesting artifact of the time, and also as an attempt to combine the Christopher Reeve movie Superman with the 60’s-70s Superman of the comics. I think I enjoyed it more now than I did as a kid, but in a very different way? Almost a nonfiction, research way. Finally, I got to read an early copy of Strange Animals by Jarod K. Anderson (he of the Cryptonaturalist podcast) and it was absolutely fantastic. Alas, you won’t get to read it until early next year… but you really want to read it, trust me.

Cool New Toys
A thin month for toys, caught between my birthday and SDCC. Hasbro’s Indiana Jones line did build-an-artifact sets rather than build-a-figure, and I somehow ended up with a lot of the pieces for the Ark of the Covenant. Then I found the other two on eBay and… well. Also had two My Hero Academia figures I’d preordered show up (Bakugo and Todoroki) and I’m going to try hard not to annoy folks at the Jada Toys booth at SDCC asking what characters are on the horizon. Finally, there’s a company that turns out nice military figures, but the person behind it has… let’s politely say a rather loudly aggressive, confrontational, pro-military personality (with all the baggage you can imagine comes along with that) so I don’t do much business with them. But I discovered their figures have a lot of the same jointing/ sockets as Operation: Monster Force figures. So when I found a stripped-down figure on line, I grabbed it and added some bits from Monster Force, GI Joe, and that Indiana Jones line, and made myself a Desert Vamp.

Okay, I’m blathering a bit. That’s good for now. Hopefully more news next month and maybe I’ll see some of you at SDCC.

Hey, here’s that fancy schedule graphic I promised you!

Also… remember the Dread Coast: SoCal Horror Tales charity anthology I’ve mentioned once or thrice in the newsletter? It’s got my never-before-seen-in-print story, “Flesh Trade,” and they’re going to have early copies at Comic Con! You can get it a month early! Grab a copy at No Bad Books, booth Q-04 in the small press area (along the back wall)! I’ll probably stop by there at some point Friday afternoon to scribble in whatever stock they have, or feel free to bring that copy you grabbed to any of the signings in that fancy graphic up above and get one personalized. A few other authors I’ll be signing with are in it, too– you could get multiple signatures!

Hope to see some of you in a few days!

Okay, kind of a quick post because things have gotten a bit unexpectedly busy (see, you should really be subscribed to the newsletter) and I’m trying to get set for San Diego Comic Con next week and also for a guest who’s crashing with us for SDCC

There’s a sort of natural progression I think a lot of us go through as writers. At first, we tend to get praise more than criticism. From parents, friends, schoolteachers, and other folks who want to encourage us and make us happy.

Then at some point we realize (well, a lot of us realize) that the blind praise isn’t getting us anywhere. We need real feedback and criticism if we’re going to improve. So we demand it, that we and our writing be taken seriously and we get a response past “oh, wow, this was soooo good!”

And then, just as quick, a lot of us switch to “whoooooaaaa, hang on with the feedback and criticism there, buddy! You sure you know what you’re talking about?”

Yeah, us. That was me, too.

It’s only natural. Stories are the thoughts and ideas and dreams we pulled out of our heads. If you’ll pardon a bit of melodrama, we gave birth to them and gave them to the world. So it’s not surprising that criticism of our stories feels like criticism of us. And as such… we’re probably going to have one of two reactions.

One is sort of a deflation. We’ll agree completely because, yeah, what was I thinking telling myself I could write good stories? This needs so much work. It’s awful. I probably shouldn’t try again. Ever.

The other, of course, is that this criticism is wrong. This person is wrong. They completely missed what I was trying to do. They didn’t get the reference. They don’t understand the genre. They’re nitpicking. They’re too young and they don’t understand how things work! They’re old and they don’t understand how we do things now! It’s their fault, not mine. Because my story is perfect. It has to be! Do you know how much time I spent on it?!

Learning to take criticism is a lot like finishing stuff. It’s going to take a bit of the fun away from this, but it’s something I really have to learn how to do. Our stories will almost always need work. It can be depressing and frustrating, absolutely. but it’s also a chance to learn what I do well and what I need to work on. I can learn and improve…

Or I can insist everyone else is wrong. And learn nothing.

And hey, as I mentioned above San Diego Comic Con is next week! Between covid and publishing schedules, it’s been a few years since I’ve had a semi-busy con. I have panels, signings, even some business meetings. Plus, y’know a few things I want to see and some folks I’m hoping to say hi to. If you’d like to say hi…

Thursday 2:15 until 4:15 I’ll be at the Writers Coffeehouse (room Marina D at the Marriott–next door from the convention center). There’ll be about half a dozen pro writers there answering all your questions about writing, publishing, and all that odd stuff that falls in between. Bring us your questions! Absorb our experience!

Then from 5:00 until 6:00 I’ll be signing up in the Sails Pavilion (AA09)

Friday 11:00 until 11:30-ish I’ll be at the Blackstone Booth (#1134) unofficially signing books. Just a casual, not-really-on-the-schedule thing if you want to stop by, say hi, get a personalized copy of The Broken Room or Combat Monsters or bring something of your own. There maaaaay be some other things there as well…

Then from 4:30 until 5:30 I’m signing again up in the Sails Pavilion (AA09)

And from 6:00 until 7:00 I’m doing a panel on Writing Military Fiction & Alternative History (room 32AB) loosely based on/ inspired by the Combat Monsters anthology.

I’m trying to make up a nice little graphic with all this info on it. I’ll post it here when it’s done, so you can tuck it into your digital wallet and have it handy. If you want it. Past that… you might see me wandering the floor. If you spot a masked man at a publisher’s booth or toy display who looks like me… well, it might be me. Halfway decent chance, really.

Next week… well, next week is SDCC, like I just said.

But the week after that… let’s talk about squeezing more in.

Until then, go write.

And maybe I’ll see you at Comic Con.

Okay, so last time I talked about using said. Just plain, basic said. It’s the workhorse that makes all those other dialogue tags special and not just static on the page.

This time I kind of wanted to go the other way and talk about not using said.

In fact, let’s talk about using nothing at all.

One thing about dialogue is it’s almost always between two people. A binary system, if you will. Ninety-something percent of the time, it just goes between me and you and back to me and back to you.

Think of it like playing pickleball. Too hip? Okay, think of it like playing tennis. Except we’re just lobbing the ball back and forth and back and forth. And the ball (our dialogue) can only ever be between two players, right? Even if there’s four people on the court, right now it’s only going between me and you and me and you.

Now because of this back and forth aspect of dialogue, there’s a lot of times I can skip tags altogether. If I know it’s me then you then me then you, well, you know who speaks next, right? And who speaks after that? And then the next logical person is…? Honestly if it’s just the two of us and I speak first, there’s only one other person who can be speaking.

Tell you what. Here’s a little peek at the first chapter of God’s Junk Drawer…

———————–
Kyle moved toward the front of the bus. “Why’d you even sign up for this if you’re dumping him?”

Olivia let out a long sigh. Let her shoulders slump. “It was a surprise. He signed us both up without telling me. And I’m not dumping him.”

“Yeah?”

“No.” She finally stood up. Slung her coat into her armpit. “Dumping implies we’re in a relationship.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“He thinks you are.”

“Having sex a couple times a week isn’t a relationship. It’s just having a workout buddy you see naked sometimes.”

“So it’s not working out anymore, I guess?”
—————————

Barely any dialogue tags there at all. But it’s still pretty easy to follow, right? Back and forth, back and forth. When you got to the end, was there any confusion who got in the last word?

Even if I’ve got a bit with more than two characters in it, it’s pretty much always me to you to me to you. If someone else chimes in (or, to keep our metaphor, I knock the ball to someone else)? Then it’s me to you to me to her to me to her. Back and forth. Back and forth. Always a binary.

Sticking with our tennis metaphor just a bit longer, here’s an easy rule of thumb. If I’m sending the ball back to the same character who just sent it to me, I probably don’t need to identify them. I can skip the dialogue tag. But if someone new hits the ball, I should say who they are.

Here– let me give you one more bit from that same chapter of God’s Junk Drawer…

—————————
Olivia adjusted the backpack’s strap on her shoulder. “We should probably get going.”

Logan jerked his head at the far side of the parking lot. “I think I might hit the bathroom.”

“Better be quick,” she told him, “or we’ll have to leave you here.”

“We’re not in a rush.” Kyle shook his head. “So fucking dumb.”

Logan shot him a look. “Seriously, stop saying dumb.”

“Whatever. You both know we don’t need to be there exactly at sunset. It’s not like the universe is going anywhere.”

Olivia shrugged. “Maybe the part he wants to show us is.”
—————————

Three people talking, but when you hit that line starting with “Whatever” were you confused?

Now I’m not going to lie. This is a bit tougher to pull off. I’ve got to have a good ear for dialogue and my characters need to have a strong voice. I also need to have a good sense of timing—how long can I keep that ball in the air before I need to address who just hit it? We’ve all had that moment, right? We’re reading a long stretch of dialogue with minimal or no tags, and then there’s suddenly that jarring moment of “Wait… he’s saying this?!?” And then we work backwards up the page trying to figure out where the rhythm broke and we lost track of who was saying what.

And I won’t lie. It’s not unusual for me to get a note or two from editors or copy editors as they go through a manuscript, just checking if we need to clarify who’s speaking at a given point. It’s worth pointing out, though, that one time when they were asking for this clarification it was because they’d deleted a line of dialogue… and now the rhythm was broken. It was back and forth and back and back and forth and back. Of course it seemed confusing now.

We don’t need that many tags. Again, this isn’t true 100% of the time. Not much is when you’re writing. There’ll be times when people are arguing—maybe lots of people—and shouting over each other and I want to use more dialogue tags. Just to be safe. But these are going to be the exceptions.

So trust your tennis game. Or writing game. And see how often you don’t need to use dialogue tags.

Next time, I’d like to talk to you a bit about, well, how to deal with things. One specific thing.

Until then, go write,