Happy Halloween!

Tuesday Tips: from Neil Gaiman

Reading: Consider Phlebas

Last week I read CONSIDER PHLEBAS by Iain Banks.

Here is the description from AMAZON:

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. 

Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.

--Great world building.

Roadtrip

DUST: State Zero

Art that Inspires

Now Available: The Witness Paradox

 --The Witness Paradox, On Amazon Now!

Quotes of the Week

Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.
—Kurt Vonnegut

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
—Virginia Woolf

Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale. Inspire them.
—Frank McCourt

Boys think girls are like books, if the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside.
—Marilyn Monroe

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.
—J.D. Salinger

What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.
——F. Scott Fitzgerald

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
—Anton Chekhov

Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.
—Ayn Rand

Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.
—Judy Blume

Reading: RITE OF PASSAGE

This week I read RITE OF PASSAGE by Alexei Panshin.

Here is the description from Amazon:

In 2198, one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, Man lives precariously on a hundred hastily-established colony worlds and in the seven giant Ships that once ferried men to the stars. Mia Havero's Ship is a small closed society. It tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world. Mia Havero's Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world. Published originally in 1968, Alexei Panshin's Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.

--Good stuff. 

Evil Scientist...

Images that Inspire

Quotes of the Week

First requirement of the writer is the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. Second...the wish to do so.
—Joyce Carol Oates

I can fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank page.
—Nora Roberts

Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist.
—Jane Smiley

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Be grateful for every word you can cut.
—William Zinsser

Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.
—Jessamyn West

Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.
—Stephen King

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
—Leo Tolstoy

Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.
—Jeanette Winterson

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.
—John Steinbeck

Book Fair!

On October 28th to 31st I will be included in the GRIM REAPING READS online book fair!

Where RIP means Read in Peace.

Watch this space for additional info on free stuff, prizes and books on deep discount!

--More Info Coming Soon!

Another Story Published

This week lots of good stuff is happening.

My short story THE WINTER ARCHER was published in the Hauntingly Romantic Winter anthology!

The description from Amazon:

Dark. Romantic. Frigidly beautiful. Not all fairy tales are meant for children.

A Hauntingly Romantic Winter is a collection of new, previously unpublished fairy tales. This winter, curl up under the blankets, drink some hot cocoa, and let The Otherworld’s writers immerse you into a brand new world. 

Magic, love, and mystery abound in this adult-themed fairy tale book. Let the freezing cold, the glittering frost, and the howling wind be softened by a layer of dreamlike stories. Inside this collection, you will find warmth and shelter from the outside world, while entering magic lands filled with faeries, cryptic women lurking in forests, magical mirrors, archers and hunters on a quest for glory and more.

Drift into this story collection and be ready to shiver with delight.

--Fairy Tales... Not for kids...

The Witness Paradox

NEW from Tannhauser Press:

     THE WITNESS PARADOX
    A Time Traveler Anthology

Short stories from the minds of:

• Ricardo Garcia
• Al Carroll
• Scott A. Ceier
• Jeffrey C. Jacobs
• Cameron E. A. Smith
• Vincent Scarsella
• TR Dillon
• Terrence E. Zavecz
• Martin Wilsey

--Now available on Amazon!  Dead tree edition coming soon!

The Return of Bale

Signing Books Today

Today I will be signing books and talking with people from 3pm to 5pm.

Come and see me at the Patrick Henry Library at 101 Maple Ave. East, Vienna, VA 22180.

Fun thing to do on a cool Autumn Day!

--Another chance to point and laugh!

Images that Inspire

Quotes of the Week

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
—Isaac B. Singer

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can write anything good.
—William Faulkner

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
―Ernest Hemingway

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.
—Hart Crane

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
—Cyril Connolly

It is impossible to discourage real writers—they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
—Sinclair Lewis

I write to find what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.
—Cheryl Strayed

On Sale!

The SOLSTICE 31 SAGA is now on sale on Audible! This includes all three novels in one audio edition that is over 36 hours long.

Are you planning a big road trip?

Do you spend a lot of time commuting?

Do you just love Audio Books?

You can get this collection for ONE Audible credit of the low price of $21!

Narrated by Andrew Tell!

--Available on Audible and iTunes.

Includes my short story: The Winter Archer

--Coming soon! November 2018...

October is fun...

SCIFI Short: CONSTRUCT

CONSTRUCT from Kevin Margo on Vimeo.

Images that Inspire

Quotes of the Week

Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to those who have none.
—Jules Renard

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
—Stephen King

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.
—Isabel Allende

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.
—Stephen Fry

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may.
—John F. Kennedy

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
—L. Frank Baum

Right now—whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers—figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life.
—Janet Burroway

You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.
—Lin-Manuel Miranda

A story happens when two equally appealing forces, or characters, or ideas try to occupy the same place at the same time.
—Amy Hempel

Writing is not about the voices in your head, but the voices that make the great leap to the page.
—J.H. Glaze

Just keep moving forward and don't give a shit what people think. Do what you have to do for you.
—Johnny Depp