Five hours.

In five hours, both NaNoW­riMo and the Max­i­mum Geek Ulti­mate Writ­ing Chal­lenge begin. I’m going to a NaNoW­riMo kick­off party tonight here in Den­ver, and I’ll start writ­ing at the stroke of mid­night. Bet­ter yet, since I’ll likely still be writ­ing at 2am when the clocks fall back, I get an extra hour. Not to sleep as most peo­ple use this odd autumn bounty, but an extra hour to write.

And I’m gonna need it.

Right now, I’m writ­ing this in my friendly neigh­bor­hood Chipo­tle, where I plan to do a lot of writ­ing over the next year. It’s either a hor­ri­ble or oddly aus­pi­cious night to do this, as the place is likely well above the legal occu­pancy limit because of their annual “dress as a bur­rito and get a free bur­rito pro­mo­tion.” Nearly every one of the hun­dred peo­ple in here have at least some alu­minum foil wrapped around some­thing. Some, like the ones who just have a lit­tle crimped over an ear, aren’t really try­ing, but the cashier is being pretty gen­er­ous. The point is that if I can write in this din, with the end of the line con­stantly bump­ing past my table — the only one in the place with access to an AC out­let — then I can write any­where, anywhen.

And I’m gonna need that too.

On the sur­face, what I’m about to do — rather, what I’m about to start, this is a marathon, not a sprint — isn’t all that unusual as pro­fes­sional grade writ­ing goes. Stephen King does two thou­sand words a day, every day, when in the com­po­si­tion phase, and there’s a lot of writ­ers who work even faster than he does. But the dif­fer­ence is that I’m not tak­ing a leave of absence to do this. I’m not get­ting paid to do this. I don’t even have a spouse who can sup­port me for a year while I chase my dream.

In the next year, I’m going to tran­si­tion into a new job. I’m going to file bank­ruptcy, some­thing I know very lit­tle about and that scares the heck out of most peo­ple. I’m going to move out of my par­ents house into a place of my own. I may end up buy­ing a new car or buy­ing and learn­ing how to ride a motor­cy­cle. Despite what my friends seem to think, I’m going to main­tain an active social life, though I prob­a­bly won’t date more than I do now, which is to say I won’t date at all. I’m going to keep blog­ging and tweet­ing. I’m going to have a full life.

And I’m going to write some­where between a half and three quar­ters of a mil­lion words of fiction.

And now, as I sit in this cacoph­o­nous Chipo­tle, that’s start­ing to sound… real. That’s start­ing to sound daunt­ing. The enor­mity of my task looms before me and I feel small.

Tonight, I get to do that.

Because in five hours, every­thing changes. In five hours, I start writ­ing. And I don’t stop until I get to the end of book seven. I don’t give up. I don’t despair. I don’t get to run to any­one to take this bur­den from me. This is my dream. This is why I’m here on this planet and this is what I’ve spent the last twenty years run­ning from.

In five hours, the run­ning stops. And the writ­ing begins.

So the plan, such as it was, was to pod­cast the orig­i­nal ver­sion of Between Heaven and Hell as three 20-​week sea­sons while I write the new and Uni­fi­ca­tion Chron­i­cles series (of which the first three books com­prise the same events as Between Heaven and Hell). I fig­ured this would help get my name out there and start build­ing a fan base so that when/​if I started pod­cast­ing the new books, there would already be a siz­able audi­ence. Even if I decided to go the tra­di­tional route and query the (nigh unsaleable) seven book series to agents/​editors, a pod­cast audi­ence would show that there was at least a mar­ket for this story.

Then today I was lis­ten­ing to one of the pan­els from Drag­onCon ’09 (via the Dead Robots Soci­ety, my new favorite pod­cast I don’t host) and Mike Stack­pole had a sug­ges­tion that stopped me in my tracks. He said that you should def­i­nitely not pod­cast old work you just have lying around, that it’s vital if you’re build­ing a fan base that you show them what you’re capa­ble of as a writer today, not years ago.

Between Heaven and Hell was orig­i­nally writ­ten in 1996, and in just reread­ing the first chap­ter, I can tell how much I’ve changed as a writer in the last 13 years. When I wrote that book, I’d only actu­ally writ­ten five real short sto­ries before that, and only one of those based on my own char­ac­ters and not fan­fic. I’d had decades of sto­ry­telling expe­ri­ence through oral sto­ry­telling and later run­ning role play­ing games, but my actual writ­ing expe­ri­ence was thin. And frankly, you can tell. I know so much more about the craft now than I knew then, have learned so much about writ­ing in the screen­play and two nov­els I’ve writ­ten since, along with what I learned from writ­ing that first novel that you can only learn by writ­ing a first novel, that it really does read like it’s from a dif­fer­ent author than the stuff I write today. In a very real sense, it is.

Which means that Stack­pole has a point. It might not be a good idea to pod­cast a 13-​year-​old book as a way of get­ting peo­ple famil­iar with me and my style. And yet, it would be good prac­tice in pod­cast­ing fic­tion, and I know peo­ple enjoy the story, how­ever awk­wardly I told it. And it would seem that one of the unique things peo­ple like about pod­cast fic­tion is being able to see a work develop over time as new ver­sions of the same story come out (see Sigler, Scott and Hutchins, J.C.). Pros and cons to both sides.

Pros to pod­cast­ing Between Heaven and Hell while I write Uni­fi­ca­tion Chronicles

1. Estab­lishes a fol­low­ing who want to read more of my work
2. Gives me expe­ri­ence in pod­cast­ing fiction
3. Gives peo­ple a “before” to which to com­pare the “after” I’m writ­ing now
4. Refreshes my mem­ory to the major plot points and char­ac­ter moments for writ­ing the new books

Cons to pod­cast­ing Between Heaven and Hell while I write Uni­fi­ca­tion Chronicles

1. Not a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of my cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties as a writer; peo­ple might not come back to see the new stuff
2. Will take a lot of time and effort I may not have while try­ing to write 2,000 words a day
3. Could blind me to new pos­si­bil­i­ties with the reworked plot and char­ac­ters; might slav­ishly stick to the orig­i­nal plot too closely

I hon­estly can’t decide at this point. While I mull this over, let me know what you think.

If you’re read­ing my stuff, you’re prob­a­bly no stranger to SF pod­cast­ing. But one of the giants of the pod­cast­ing field and a man after my own cliffhang­ery heart is hav­ing a big day today. J.C. Hutchins is cel­e­brat­ing the print release of his novel 7^th Son: Descent today. If you like mod­ern day tech­nothrillers, as I do, you’ll love this book. I don’t want to give too much away, but it involves a bril­liant psy­cho killer, human cloning and gov­ern­ment conspiracies.

But here’s the thing. The pub­lisher hasn’t picked up the sec­ond and third books of the tril­ogy, so 7^th Son: Descent needs to launch in a big way. You can show your sup­port by pick­ing it up at your local book­store, or snag it on Ama­zon. Either way, get it while it’s hot!

NaNoW­riMo is right around the cor­ner, and I’m champ­ing at the bit to get started. But while NaNoW­riMo is a chal­lenge, I’m tak­ing it a lit­tle bit far­ther than that. 50,000 words in 30 days is great, but in the spirit of kick­ing it up a notch, I’m going to do 500,000 words in 300 days. NaNoW­riMo times ten.

Here’s the plan. For NaNoW­riMo, I’m start­ing with Rev­e­la­tion, the first book in the Between Heaven and Hell Tril­ogy. This book intro­duces Daniel Cho and drops him into a web of intrigue, decep­tion and ancient secret soci­eties that make the Illu­mi­nati and Masons look like the 4-​H Club. I plan to write this novel through to the end, rather than stop­ping when I hit 50k or the end of Novem­ber. At a pace of 2,000 words a day, I expect the first draft to take me about 6 weeks, fin­ish­ing about a week or two before Christ­mas. And the day after I fin­ish it, I’m start­ing on Cru­sade, then Jihad to round out the story of Daniel Cho. Then we jump for­ward a cen­tury or two to the Uni­fi­ca­tion Chron­i­cles Tril­ogy: Mis­taken Iden­tity, the story of our dis­as­trous first con­tact with an alien species, The Neme­sis War, the galaxy-​wide strug­gle we get pulled into, and then a break to write Sins of the Moth­ers, a spin-​off novel of one human lead­ing the oppressed half of the alien race we fought in Mis­taken Iden­tity in rev­o­lu­tion after the Neme­sis War is over, before finally wrap­ping up the seven vol­ume saga (what am I, Tolkien?) with Uni­fi­ca­tion. If every­thing goes accord­ing to plan, I’ll fin­ish Uni­fi­ca­tion just before Drag­onCon 2010 on Labor Day Week­end, and I will make my trip to Drag­onCon a cel­e­bra­tion wor­thy of some­one who just fin­ished writ­ing seven nov­els in less than a year.

And because I can, while this manic man­u­script marathon of may­hem is going on I’m also going to record and release four pod­cast nov­els (Do Over and the three books of the orig­i­nal Between Heaven and Hell), file bank­ruptcy, set­tle into a new job, move into a new apart­ment and try to lose 50 pounds. My only regret is that I can’t get mar­ried, have a kid and get divorced in the same time span just to round out the list of Most Stress­ful Things A Human Can Go Through. Maybe I’ll get hit by light­ning instead.

Why am I doing this to myself? Good ques­tion. Clearly, because I’m stark rav­ing mad. Or maybe I’ve just decided that with my high school grad­u­a­tion twenty years ago this past sum­mer that in two decades of coast­ing by on as lit­tle effort pos­si­ble, I’m tired of half-​assing my life. I’ve never really pushed myself to my lim­its, even in Basic Train­ing. As far back as I can remem­ber, I’ve done as lit­tle as I could to get by. Clint East­wood once said, “A man’s got to know his lim­i­ta­tions,” and I don’t know mine. I’ve never really come close. I feel like my whole life I’ve been dri­ving a vin­tage Porsche 911 (my writ­ing abil­ity) around the block to the gro­cery store and back. I want to know what I can really do once I get out on to the high­way and really open this baby up.

Twenty years ago, I was liv­ing with my par­ents, work­ing a McJob, and dream­ing of being a famous writer. And now, twenty years later, I’m liv­ing with my par­ents, work­ing in IT tech sup­port and still dream­ing of being a famous writer. I’ve achieved more than I had any right to expect, don’t get me wrong. I’m deeply thank­ful for every one of my fans, and in a lot of ways, I’m return­ing to Daniel Cho and the world he cre­ated for you. But I’m also doing it because while I’ve kinda sorta set out what I intended to do, I haven’t done it really. What I really want is to be a speaker at Drag­onCon, for peo­ple to fill a room to hear me talk about writ­ing. I want, when I’m old, for peo­ple to look back on the giants of spec­u­la­tive fic­tion and name out Hein­lein, Asi­mov, Kirvin.

Can I get there? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s the point. I still don’t really know, because I still haven’t really been tested. I’ve taken the quick and easy path (the Dark Side, if you recall) ever since ele­men­tary school.

That ends right now.

Start­ing Novem­ber 1^st, I’m going to get up every morn­ing at 6 am sharp, regard­less of how late I dragged myself to bed the night before. I’m going to wake myself up with a shower and think about the novel I’m work­ing on. Then I’m going to sit my ass at my desk and write until 8 am. I’m going to do this every day, seven days a week, no days off and no vaca­tions. If the muse is with me, I’ll get my 2,000 words for that day in that 90 minute ses­sion. If I don’t, I’ll write on my lunch hour or after work, but I’m not allowed to go to bed until I have my 2,000 words. Fol­low­ing the advice of Anne Lam­ott, Stephen King and Mur Laf­ferty, I do not care how good the words are. If I’m “blocked” and the muse just isn’t show­ing up, then I’ll get 2,000 words of gib­ber­ish or some­thing later in the book or any­thing I can think of. The words don’t have to be usable, they just have to be there. I think most of them will be good. But I’m not going to sweat those that aren’t. That’s what rewrit­ing is for, after DragonCon.

And that, dear read­ers, is the dif­fer­ence. That even though I’m going to have all this other stuff going on in my life, even though I have so many non-​writing things to accom­plish, writ­ing is going to by my num­ber one pri­or­ity, com­ing before all else. Writ­ing is the most impor­tant thing in my life. It has to be, or the next twenty years will be just like the last twenty, and I won’t have that.

Every­one I’ve told about this plan thinks I’m nuts. I don’t think that’s true. Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day, James Rollins does about 1,500. The quota itself isn’t all that much more than the 1,667 words a day every NaNoW­riMo par­tic­i­pant shoots for. It’s only when I phrase it as “writ­ing seven nov­els in a row” that it sounds crazy. But if I pull it off, if I suc­ceed, I will have finally Accom­plished Some­thing that no one can take away from me. Is it the end of the road? Hell no. As men­tioned above, there’s rewrites, find­ing a pub­lisher, agent, pro­mo­tion, etc. and that’s if I go the tra­di­tional pub­lish­ing route. I could also go self-​promotion podcast/​CreateSpace/​Amazon route, self pub­lish­ing in tra­di­tion of Walt Whit­man and Henry David Thoreau. (Walden was orig­i­nally a pod­cast. Look it up.) But those are wor­ries for another time. First, I have to write. I have to get these sto­ries out of my soul, so I can make room for new ones.

And I’m tak­ing you, dear read­ers, along for the ride.

• @del­rayser Hey, that’s an improve­ment. The Fal­cons used to only play irrationally-​numbered quar­ters. in reply to del­rayser #
• @crimsonsky76 One of the rea­sons I’m torn about whether to pub­lish tra­di­tion­ally or not. I’ll address that next year. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @jchutchins: Writ­ing tip: Go for speci­ficity, if pos­si­ble. Avoid vagaries such as “a lot” or “big.” How much? How large? #
• @jen­ny­beanses I don’t believe that scones rock. At best, scones polka. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @NotZura That’s prob­a­bly prefer­able to angry mut­ton­chops. in reply to NotZura #
• @scottsigler Look at this way. Any expo­sure to Pauly Shore will def­i­nitely help your hor­ror writ­ing. in reply to scottsigler #
• RT @extralife: Daisy chewed off one of Man At Arms arms. Now he is called Man At Arm. #
• @jchutchins comma comma comma comma comma chameleon… in reply to jchutchins #
• @NotZura I’m rea­son­ably cer­tain that’s more than I ever needed to know about mut­ton­chops. Other than where you get the sheep. in reply to NotZura #
• @NotZura Said the Irish­man who can only grow a goa­tee, not even side­burns. in reply to NotZura #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Well, you know what they say: Who goes to Vegas, stays in Vegas. in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Can you kick it into the big Sparta pit? in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @suzzzanna Go get your­self some Hot Wings of Right­eous­ness. in reply to suzzzanna #
• RT @Ali_Davis: @suzzzanna To steal from Ben Franklin, boobs are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. #
• @jeanet­temarsh Thanks for the RT! It’s going to be a chal­lenge to keep writ­ing about writ­ing once NaNoW­riMo starts, but I’ll keep at it! in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Nofrendo MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN! in reply to Nofrendo #
• @tib­bar­erew Dude, it’s Mon­day. You’re doing well that the servers aren’t actu­ally on fire or haunted. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @tib­bar­erew With haunted fire! Ghost SysAd­min! in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Wel­come back to the inter­nets in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @litchick77 Because they give you shiny money in reply to litchick77 #
• @PhilRossi Does your insur­ance cover that? in reply to PhilRossi #
• @Red­PenOf­Doom Now’s the per­fect time to go to meet­ings and look REALLY INTERESTED in reply to Red­PenOf­Doom #
• @tib­bar­erew But they’re great for tar­get prac­tice. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @Philip­pa­Jane WiFi mag­icks not work­ing? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scot­bot­mosh /​waves in reply to scot­bot­mosh #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Gen­er­ally in those cases I just threaten to shoot it. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Philip­pa­Jane <singing>Send in, the clooooooones…</singing> in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scot­bot­mosh I’m think­ing Google Wave would be awe­some for pod­cast­ing. Need to get @tib­bar­erew an invite. in reply to scot­bot­mosh #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Well then it’s a shame it’s an away game tonight. in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @scalzi Yeah, that was me. It’s taken me all morn­ing to clear out the pr0n. in reply to scalzi #
• @tib­bar­erew That is the worst Pink Floyd cover EVER. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• Brain red lin­ing in neu­tral again. For­tu­nately, I have Rock Band for my iPhone. #
• RT @delrayser: Geek worlds are col­lid­ing!! RT @EWAusielloFiles: GLEE exclu­sive: Joss Whe­don to direct an episode!! http://bit.ly/4nquci #
• RT @BadAstronomer: Some of you mis­un­der­stood me. By “iron my pants” I meant infuse them with fer­rite. It helps me find north. #
• RT @robkroese: They should call me “Bal­loon Boy.” I wasn’t in that bal­loon just as much as that dumb kid wasn’t. #
• Psst. Next week’s col­umn on my Manic Man­u­script Marathon of May­hem. http://bit.ly/oe8Lv #
• @Philip­pa­Jane I feel for you. For­tu­nately I won’t have to deal with edit­ing until after Drag­onCon. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @brettq: Any good rec­om­men­da­tions for a Hackint0sh solu­tion? Some­thing 10 – 12″ with lit­tle to no setup. #
• @dgawlik324 JavaScript isn’t so bad, but actual Java IS TEH DEBIL in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @NotZura Wow, your facial hair is almost the exact inverse of mine. in reply to NotZura #
• Norv Turner was so mad he almost had a facial expres­sion. #watchouthes­pitsvenom #gob­ron­cos #
• RT @rstevens: All You Need Is Lar­vae #iflen­non­wasliterallyabee­tle #
• @mws­me­dia Put a ripe banana in your very favorite ear. in reply to mws­me­dia #
• @mws­me­dia Per­son­ally, I wouldn’t count Win­dows 3.0 and Win­dows Me, so that leaves 7. in reply to mws­me­dia #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Let me know if that leads to less feed­back con­fu­sion. I often get con­flict­ing sug­ges­tions from my cri­tique group. #
• RT @cindyscott54: RT @Teddy_Salad: Lat­est bank fee is for pay­ing off credit card on time every month | http://bit.ly/xoaDh #
• RT @brian_tong: SNUGGIE for FREE! For reals! DO IT and look like a col­ored Jedi! http://suzzly.com/snuggiepromo.html /​/​Over street clothes? #
• @angiek42 You know if you just trepan one of them the oth­ers will shut up. in reply to angiek42 #
• @Whit­leyStrieber I think we have a bad rep. We’re the rural Arkansas of the galaxy. in reply to Whit­leyStrieber #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra Dang, that’s a good one. Ter­mi­na­tor is faster but Robo­cop is bet­ter armored… in reply to ban­tam­spec­tra #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra It think it ulti­mately comes down to which can think/​react faster: the T800’s CPU or Robocop’s human brain in reply to ban­tam­spec­tra #
• @scalzi G-​string cheese: Dis­gust­ing. #
• @Pock­et­God­dess This is why I refuse to have a credit card. I’ll stick with debit, thanks. #
• @eBooksBN Any way to import my eReader/​Fictionwise libraries to use with the eBooksBN ver­sion of eReader? #
• RT @NotZura: Cap­tion from Jony Ive video. http://twitpic.com/m9wqo #
• RT @delrayser: Isn’t Palin jump­ing the gun? I thought authors went on Oprah AFTER their books were found to be full of fab­ri­ca­tions. #
• RT @Veronica: South Amer­ica + Africa = T. Rex http://bit.ly/nSdAT /​/​Actu­ally looks more like a Carno­tau­rus, but still pretty cool #
• @jkendrick Yeah, the Nook may finally make me buy an epa­per device. Just need a way to import my eReader/​Fictionwise libraries/​wishlists in reply to jkendrick #
• @crimsonsky76 That’s make or break for me. If it inte­grates fully with eReader/​Fictionwise, or I can xfer from them to BN.com, I’m there. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @eBooksBN Great! How do I access my Fictionwise/​eReader libraries from the nook and other BN reader apps? in reply to eBooksBN #
• @CRA1G WHAT? in reply to CRA1G #
• @NotZura No, that hap­pens to me too. It’s even worse when they know my name, and I still don’t have a clue to theirs. “That’s funny, you!” in reply to NotZura #
• The Shaw­shank Bar Mitz­vah #failed­movieconcepts #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra You should really check out today’s strip at http://xkcd.com regard­ing today’s #fan­fight #
• @rstevens I think that’s actu­ally Rule 35. #
• Char­lotte the spi­der was a ter­ror­ist, spread­ing swine flu. #
• @brandg I want a pub­lisher that under­stands that sales for all 3 books rise after the 3^rd of a tril­ogy. Don’t pull the plug after book 2. in reply to brandg #
• @brandg The pub­lisher needs 2 under­stand that many SF read­ers wait for the last book in a tril­ogy before buy­ing all 3 & adjust expec­ta­tions in reply to brandg #
• @brandg Not say­ing the pub­lisher should expect 3 best sell­ers on the 3^rd if the first 2 com­pletely flopped, but too many bail after 2^nd now in reply to brandg #
• @brandg Given that I’m in favor of the author fin­ish­ing all three books prior to the deal, I could live with that. in reply to brandg #
• Too easy to coun­ter­mar­ket Verizon’s new Google phone by wav­ing your hand & say­ing “This isn’t the Droid you’re look­ing for.” #
• @ange­la­james I kind of like the way the nook han­dles shar­ing. Of course I’m more of a Cory Doc­torow CC kind of author myself. in reply to ange­la­james #
• Superman’s Blan­ket #NameY­ourNextBand #
• RT @ginatrapani: I want to write a new TV musi­cal called Squee about work-​at-​homers who burst into song alone in front of their com­put­ers. #
• @crimsonsky76 Nah, it’s just that kid again. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @NotZura @crimsonsky76 The hor­ri­ble truth being, of course, that Mir­a­cle Whip is will­ing to tone it down. in reply to NotZura #
• @leo­la­porte The other prob­lem being that silos attract rats. in reply to leo­la­porte #
• @Philip­pa­Jane So that’s basi­cally a large weasel sun­ning itself on a rock, right? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @crimsonsky76 Booo! I want BN.com to Fictionwise/​eReader inte­gra­tion! in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 Well, I won’t be buy­ing a #nook then. Until I can import my eReader.com library, no thanks. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @jkOn­TheRun As long as I can’t import my 100s of books from eReader.com/Fictionwise to BN.com, #nook is a no-​purchase for me. in reply to jkOn­TheRun #
• @eBooksBN Please con­sider allow­ing import of Fictionwise/eReader.com libraries/​wishlists to BN.com. I have too many books to switch now. in reply to eBooksBN #
• @crimsonsky76 I don’t know why, but I read “Heineken can” as “Hein­lein cake”. Twice. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @amber_benson: Looks like 1 insur­ance com­pany is try­ing to com­bat anorexic body image issues in young women http://tinyurl.com/ykka5t3 #
• @crimsonsky76 Robert A. Hein­lein: Funeral at noon, BBQ at 2. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• Try­ing to decide. Brave the cold and snow for Chipo­tle for lunch, or be good and nuke the frozen entrée I brought? #
• @jkendrick I men­tioned the snow, right? I know y’all don’t get much where you live, but in Den­ver, it’s for­mi­da­ble. in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @iUberGeek: Win­dows 7 has been in pub­lic beta test with 8 mil­lion peo­ple for a year. Snow Leop­ard? The beta is now. #
• @jkendrick The one time I remem­ber it snow­ing it Hous­ton as a kid, I used all the snow in the back yard to make a snow­man. He was 3in tall. in reply to jkendrick #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries Of course, this being Den­ver, we have snow now and it was 80F (27C) 48 hours ago. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries @jkendrick What we con­sider a “dust­ing” in Den­ver shut down the city in Hous­ton. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• And yet, dur­ing the first snow­fall of the sea­son, I develop an irra­tional crav­ing for ice cream. #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries What’s your moose count? in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @robkroese: I’d get one of those eBook read­ers, but I’d be afraid that if I turned it upside down and shook it, it would erase the book. #
• @Philip­pa­Jane That is a ter­ri­fy­ing thought. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries That’s one of the rea­sons I love lis­ten­ing to @DRSpodcast. 2 hosts are Texan, the other Cana­dian. Great jabs both ways. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• @jkendrick Actu­ally, tech­nol­ogy does fre­quently ter­rify me. My gad­get addic­tion is just to get in good with Skynet. in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @rstevens: Always bet on pur­ple. #Wes­leySnipesInGalac­tus­The­Movie #
• @paula­pound­stone You’re being chased by a 20 foot dust bunny? in reply to paula­pound­stone #
• Tech­ni­cally, a series of stills is stream­ing video, just at a very, very low frame rate. #
• @Garten­berg Twit­ter is well on its way to becom­ing the Offi­cial Global Hive Mind. in reply to Garten­berg #
• @crimsonsky76 I’m wait­ing until Macs don’t have displays/​ports. Just trust that Apple knows what you need to get done. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @Nofrendo: The only cure is more cow­bell. RT @Turn­er­Jack­son i got a 103 fever #
• @robkroese Given that Snow Leop­ard has issues with “sta­ble”, yeah, we Win­dows users will take “sta­ble” as a sell­ing point for Win­dows 7. in reply to robkroese #
• Last time I got a flu shot, in 06, I had an ana­phy­lac­tic reac­tion that damn near killed me. So I’m tak­ing my chances. #aintafraid­ofnoswine #
• RT @TheWalnutRoom: There should be a rib­bon for Swine Flu sur­vivors & aware­ness!! maybe like a brown and white ver­ti­cally striped one? #
• @NotZura I’m not aller­gic to eggs and had suc­cess­ful flu shots before, so I don’t know what did it. Don’t want it again, tho. in reply to NotZura #
• @Philip­pa­Jane If I was going any­where in the coun­try­side I’d be tak­ing shot­guns. #urban­boyand­proudofit in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @joekeg I might con­sider get­ting a shot to pre­vent BLEEDING EYES DEATH FLU, but swine flu, hey, I like bacon… in reply to joekeg #
• @NotZura Haven’t we pre­vi­ously unleashed hor­ri­ble things by doing stuff like that? #humansn­ev­er­friggin­learn in reply to NotZura #
• @joekeg It’s like George Car­lin say­ing no kids in his neigh­bor­hood got polio when he was a kid because they all swam in the East River. in reply to joekeg #
• Sci­en­tist: Okay, I’ve got this great idea for cur­ing athlete’s foot by cross­ing influenza and ebola. Sane peo­ple: OMG NO GET AWAY FROM THAT #
• @Daph­neUn It’s under all the gor­ram snow. in reply to Daph­neUn #
• @jeanet­temarsh @jen­ny­beanses zom­bie erot­ica… shud­der… the pos­si­bil­i­ties of parts going into other parts… in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• RT @paulapoundstone: I was work­ing really hard today, and then it hit me – why is a cow the logo for Elmer’s glue? #
• RT @micheleboyd: Saw a man­hole cover, drew a chalk arrow point­ing to it and the words ‘Ninja Tur­tles Recruit­ing; Drop resumes here’ #
• @Cynical_​Woman BRAINBLEACH BRAINBLEACH in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• RT @wilw: Hal­loween super­stores are the her­mit crabs of the retail world. #
• @ange­la­james Depends on whether or not I actu­ally started at the begin­ning. A lot of writ­ers start way before the begin­ning, but not me. in reply to ange­la­james #
• @Philip­pa­Jane We’re not all ass­hats, but we do have a higher con­cen­tra­tion than the global aver­age. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @jeanettemarsh: RT @sci­fir­ules Air force Drone gain sen­tience, goes on ram­page #scifi http://bit.ly/GjWg2 #
• @jen­ny­beanses I’m shoot­ing for 2000 words a day for 10 months to write 7 books in a row. 2k is a hearty word­count. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @jeanet­temarsh Just real­ized you kiwis are 19 hours ahead of us in Den­ver, but it’s only a 12 hour flight, and then my brain broke. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @robkroese We’re num­ber one? (ain’t say­ing which camp) #
• @robkroese How about every­one is free to believe or not in what­ever they want? Hang in there and don’t sweat the wingnuts on either side. in reply to robkroese #
• @jeanet­temarsh Near as I can tell, y’all are five hours behind us, but tomor­row. Ow. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Cynical_​Woman @jeanet­temarsh Helen, when you say “heart­warm­ing”, is there an oven involved? We’re talk­ing zom­bies here. in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• @Philip­pa­Jane The edit­ing would go a lot faster if @teemon­ster would just start with the assump­tion that you’re right. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @kimidreams I got kicked out for feel­ing it at the gym once. Once. in reply to kimidreams #
• RT @jane_l: biggest threat to author’s liveli­hood? Not piracy. Dwin­dling read­er­ship. Reduced lit­er­acy. Com­pet­ing forms of enter­tai­ment. #
• @Philip­pa­Jane The head or other points in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scalzi I’m like that with star­ring arti­cles in Google Reader. I don’t actu­ally have to read all of them, do I? in reply to scalzi #
• RT @lilithsaintcrow: Broke 50K. It’s an actual BOOK now. My God…I love this part. #
• @nutzareus I did six years in the Pen­ta­gon. Does that count as haz­ardous enough? in reply to nutzareus #
• @dceiver Even the dead one? in reply to dceiver #
• @MikeStack­pole I like the let­ter­ing around the edges too, but sub­tlety has never been the forte of the Glenn Beck crowd. in reply to MikeStack­pole #
• @CRA1G No, sav­ing shows off a DVR clearly makes you a com­mie ter­ror­ist pirate. in reply to CRA1G #
• @jchutchins You can help me enhance my bliss by reas­sur­ing me that writ­ing 7 nov­els in 10 months isn’t really an insane com­mit­ment. in reply to jchutchins #
• @mighty­mur Believe me I know the feel­ing. in reply to mighty­mur #
• @jkendrick Colour me intrigued (it’s like a pale fuch­sia) in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @TheKJA: Anti-​science pro­test­ers now claim Grav­ity is a gov­ern­ment con­spir­acy designed to pre­vent com­mon peo­ple from fly­ing. #
• @jchutchins It’s one of those things I just have to do. 2 trilo­gies and a spin off. By Drag­onCon. Doable w/​2k words EVERY DAY. in reply to jchutchins #
• @Ras­plundjr All 7 books tell one ginor­mous story, though there is a 100 year gap between 1^st and 2^nd trilo­gies in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @Ras­plundjr And yes, just doing half a mil­lion words of rough draft. in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @Ras­plundjr Edits are for after I sober up after Drag­onCon in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @TeeMon­ster You know what’s good for an upset stom­ach? Chipo­tle. in reply to TeeMon­ster #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Yes, SyFy orig­i­nal movies are quite stun­ning in their own way. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Use “i.e.” when pro­vid­ing a spe­cific clar­i­fy­ing exam­ple, and use “e.g.” when ref­er­enc­ing noted actor E.G. Mar­shall. #
• @jchutchins Just remem­ber that you’re the big shot to those of us just get­ting into this. in reply to jchutchins #
• RT @Ali_Davis: Para­le­gal Activ­ity #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: “Spider-​Man” is the name for the wall-​crawling super-​hero; “Spi­der­man” is the name for my proc­tol­o­gist. #
• @gina­tra­pani Not cheesy at all. I’m try­ing to con­vince myself of that as I set out to write more than I ever have: 7 nov­els in 10 months. in reply to gina­tra­pani #
• @rstevens Here’s a pan­creas, a hoagie and a squid. in reply to rstevens #
• RT @Ali_Davis: When a Stranger Calls, Apol­o­gizes, and Hangs Up #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• (In case y’all hadn’t noticed, @Ali_​Davis is killing it today) #
• @Cynical_​Woman Karma FTW in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• Sup­port #NaNoW­riMo, add a #twib­bon to your avatar now! — http://bit.ly/3DdbZo #
• @tib­bar­erew I’m gonna go with solar flares. Which you put behind you when your sun gets a blowout at night. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Refer to him as “Pres­i­dent Obama” when he first appears in an arti­cle, “Soul Brother Num­ber 1″ in sub­se­quent men­tions. in reply to FakeAP­Style­book #
• @Nobilis I under­stand it’s not an either/​or propo­si­tion with ebooks vs print, but that said, I can’t remem­ber the last time I read paper. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jen­ny­beanses Virii have no con­sid­er­a­tion for people’s sched­ules! I’m try­ing to ditch this stu­pid sore throat before Mile­HiCon this week­end. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @Ali_​Davis I would say that depends on con­text. In some fetish cir­cles, cobrand­ing can be very excit­ing. #
• @Nobilis Two years ago? I still don’t own an eInk device, but I’ve been read­ing ebooks exclu­sively since 1997. First on PDAs, then phones. in reply to Nobilis #
• @Nobilis That’s as asi­nine as when I used to fore­tell the death of print. The real­ity is always in the mid­dle. in reply to Nobilis #
• @Nobilis There will always be extrem­ists on both ends, though. He’s on the “new­fan­gled tech will never catch on side”, I’m on the other. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jeanet­temarsh It’s going to be hard to ask ques­tions at the writ­ing pan­els using only mime. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Nobilis Some­one on the inter­net is argu­ing to fit their own pre­con­ceived agenda? I’m shocked and appalled. Or not. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jeanet­temarsh Really, I’m just try­ing to avoid the white makeup and striped shirt. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @jeanet­temarsh Oh, so you’ve seen Amer­i­cans’ reac­tion to mime. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: If you start a sen­tence with an action, place the actor imme­di­ately after or you will anger Chris­t­ian Bale. #
• GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE! #thati­sall #
• @feli­ci­a­day So much for watch­ing Hulu, then. There are lots of other places to get that “value” on the inter­net. in reply to feli­ci­a­day #
• @Nofrendo What tipped me off was when he started rav­ing about “THIS FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL VATICAN” in reply to Nofrendo #
• @Philip­pa­Jane That’s unusual atten­tion to detail for zom­bies. #thingsIn­ev­er­thoughtId­say in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @Ali_Davis: The Taunt­ing #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• @jchutchins That hap­pens to me sev­eral times a day. Too many things to all try to do at once. in reply to jchutchins #
• @McCain­Blo­gette Peo­ple just aren’t used to, on either side, some­one who hon­estly speaks her mind. It’s refresh­ing. in reply to McCain­Blo­gette #
• @litchick77 Can’t imag­ine why. (also can’t believe you didn’t see @tibbarerew’s pro­posal com­ing) in reply to litchick77 #
• It’s the kind of after­noon for Terri Clark radio on @Pandora. SheDaisy, Car­rie Under­wood Jo Dee Mesina, etc. Ah, the women of coun­try music #
• @Bsti­Natosi The band or the state of mind? in reply to Bsti­Natosi #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Don’t get used to it, word is Fox is ready­ing the axe in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scalzi Noth­ing wrong with that, I’d take Mummy 2 over Schindler any day. in reply to scalzi #
• @Garten­berg Hmm, Apple’s snarky anti-​Win7 ads won’t play ON THEIR OWN FRICKIN IPHONE. #apple­fail in reply to Garten­berg #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The noun “Wang Chung” should be cap­i­tal­ized, but not the verb. #
• RT @QuipsAndTips: If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. — Stephen King #
• @aslap­inthe­face But a dead bat­tery is surely bet­ter than other dead things in your engine com­part­ment (rac­coon, hooker, Regis Philbin) in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @jkendrick Saw that in Mobile Tech Manor. King’s On Writ­ing is also my favorite book on the craft. He knows his stuff. in reply to jkendrick #
• @scottsigler What about stuff that looks like magic, but has a SF expla­na­tion? Immor­tals in my books heal via nan­otech, but don’t know that. in reply to scottsigler #
• @aslap­inthe­face Depends on the neigh­bor­hood the eggs are from. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: “Y’all” means “you all” and is accept­able if you are Texan. “Ya’ll” means “you will” and who the hell ever says that? #
• RT @NotZura: Teacher just said “Boy this is get­ting harder.” Took all I had not to say “Thats what she said!” #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Pithy declar­a­tive state­ments made by David Caruso should be fol­lowed imme­di­ately by “yyyYYYEAH!!!!!” #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The cor­rect spelling is ‘Mr. T.’ Peo­ple who type out ‘Mis­ter’ are fools to be pitied. #
• @litchick77 Yup, you’re mar­ry­ing a geek. You can dress him up, but he’s still a geek. in reply to litchick77 #
• @mws­me­dia The Watusi? in reply to mws­me­dia #
• RT @rstevens: I’mma let Uni­cron fin­ish, but Galac­tus was the best planet eater of all time. #
• @Garten­berg Yeah, CBS doesn’t seem to get that clips aren’t really incen­tive to watch the full shows on TV, they’re just annoy­ing. in reply to Garten­berg #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The phrase “the pen is” should be avoided for the ben­e­fit of lazy, eas­ily shocked read­ers. #
• RT @dictionarycom: #Scrab­ble Word of the Day — geck: to deride; to scorn; to mock. http://bit.ly/qS6kh #
• RT @Gartenberg: You want me to pay u Hulu? np. Pls give every sea­son of all shows. Full eps and watch it eas­ily on TV & phone. Deal? #hulu #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Omt ndlss vwls. #
• @crimsonsky76 I love fly­ing, hate airports/​airlines in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Red­PenOf­Doom I remem­ber watch­ing the Star Wars Hol­i­day Spe­cial live. Some­times, at night, I can still hear the scream­ing… in reply to Red­PenOf­Doom #
• @Nofrendo You really must stop smok­ing. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @aslap­inthe­face I’m sneaky like that? in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• RT @jeanettemarsh: RT @Jere­myC­Shipp I have found that skele­tons hate organ music. #
• .@mari­aschnei­der A semi­colon is just a colon with a fang, so maybe it is a vam­pire. #
• @scottsigler “Is it safe?” in reply to scottsigler #
• RT @sethharwood: Yes, things are chang­ing in pub­lish­ing, but one fact remains: you must make your book good. Wait until it is. Revise. #
• @CRA1G Or fins in reply to CRA1G #
• Maybe This Will Make You Feel A Lit­tle Bit Bet­ter http://bit.ly/OFXux #
• @robkroese If they’re going to make you wear a bib at the den­tists, they should start it off with lob­ster and melted but­ter. in reply to robkroese #
• @aslap­inthe­face That reminds me. Gotta take those bill­boards down, totally defeats the pur­pose. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @pwheeler_​agent Oy veh, it’s bog­gling how deeply peo­ple don’t under­stand ebooks. in reply to pwheeler_​agent #
• @WriteR­Cas­tle Per­son­ally, I think you should dress up as that guy from “Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place.” Y’know, Ryan Reynolds. in reply to WriteR­Cas­tle #
• @aslap­inthe­face I’ve been all about the snark since before snark was cool. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @Ali_​Davis Free­bas­ing NyQuil. in reply to Ali_​Davis #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries Looks angu­lar and ugly to me. Screen on the Droid is nice, though. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @scottsigler: Turns out a kid­ney punch is not a refresh­ingly cool bev­er­age. #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries It doesn’t need to look like a “pol­ished river stone” but if I’m going to pocket some­thing, I don’t want it goug­ing me. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Use ‘Scotch’ to refer to the adhe­sive tape or the drink, ‘Scot­tish’ to refer to Starfleet engi­neer Mont­gomery Scott. #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Was he on your lawn? in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @sunilse­bas­t­ian That depends entirely on how much Scotch you’ve had to drink. in reply to sunilse­bas­t­ian #
• @mike­mad­den And thus with every broad­cast day Fox News makes itself more and more a joke. in reply to mike­mad­den #
• @suzzzanna When you start jam­ming to hotel lobby music they look like they want to forcibly remove you, but are afraid of get­ting bit. in reply to suzzzanna #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Given that we freely “bor­row” from all over the world, I’m curi­ous. What do you con­sider dis­tinctly Amer­i­can food? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Colleen­Lind­say Just think work thoughts until the inter­nets come back. in reply to Colleen­Lind­say #
• @lilith­saint­crow Ran­dall Munroe is at the very least one of the lesser geek gods. in reply to lilith­saint­crow #
• @jchutchins Again? in reply to jchutchins #
• @Ali_​Davis I’ll believe a poor bystander. in reply to Ali_​Davis #
• Am briefly caught up to real­time on the Twit­ter. Now to get dis­tracted by some­thing else as time keeps on slip­pin slip­pin into the future. #
• I’ll just come out and say it. Twitter’s tem­po­rally asyn­chro­nous con­ver­sa­tion makes more sense to me than Google Wave. #
• @scalzi @wilw And then I threw up. in reply to scalzi #
• @jeanet­temarsh Stop it, kiwi! in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• Reluc­tantly, think I’m going to pass on Mile­HiCon this week­end and instead hide under a blan­ket with some NyQuil. Must be healthy for NaNo. #
• @jeanet­temarsh See, that’s dou­bly con­fus­ing since we seem to have skipped autumn and gone straight to win­ter in Den­ver. Only one sea­son off. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• For­tu­nately recent exper­i­ments with Boxee and Win­dows Media Cen­ter on my net­book mean I don’t have to leave bed­room unless snacks run out. #
• @Colleen­Lind­say Aren’t Star­bucks required by law in NYC to be less than 10 blocks apart? in reply to Colleen­Lind­say #
• @crimsonsky76 Keep talk­ing, Don. You keep remind­ing me why I don’t need an Xbox/​Timesink. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @jeanet­temarsh Well, of course. You’re just about guar­an­teed to spill your drink. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @jeanet­temarsh I know the feel­ing. Den­ver weather’s always chang­ing cause we’ve got big rocks on 1 side, clear shot 2 Atlantic on the other. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @crimsonsky76 Get her a con­troller. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 You’ve been mar­ried to her for two decades. Surely you can fig­ure out how to bring out her inner zom­bie fighter. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber Third per­son lim­ited. Lim­ited gives you some of the inti­macy of 1^st per­son, but the story’s too big for only one POV char­ac­ter. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber That’s a trick­ier ques­tion. I know it’s straight sci­ence fic­tion, but it will seem more hor­ror or UF w/​out back­story in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• I know the super strong, fast immor­tals in my book are nanotech-​enhanced, but the reader won’t. Does that mat­ter? #
• @Ste­fer­s­the­Great 1^st per­son is the hard­est of the com­mon POVs to write well. Odd that so many new­bies grav­i­tate to it. in reply to Ste­fer­s­the­Great #
• @Nofrendo What­ever you’re smok­ing to think Yo Gabba Gabba is the best show ever. Stop it. Think of the chil­dren. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @Ste­fer­s­the­Great You are wise. 1^st per­son con­veys an eas­ier tie btwn reader and nar­ra­tor, but is so hard to keep authen­tic. in reply to Ste­fer­s­the­Great #
• @rstevens No, but it is a late stage muta­tion. in reply to rstevens #
• @crimsonsky76 As I’m sure you well know, Latin women can be very… per­sua­sive. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber It’s 3^rd per­son where you’re only privy to one character’s thoughts per scene. Must have scene break to see dif­fer­ent POV. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber Con­trast to 3^rd Objec­tive, where you see no thoughts (screen­play) and 3^rd Omni­scient, where you can see anyone’s. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber No prob­lem. I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently think­ing about POV, so it’s all fresh for me. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber Yeah, it’s like a screen­play. The nar­ra­tor is just a cam­era show­ing what peo­ple say and do, but there’s no inner mono­logue. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber 3^rd Objec­tive is com­par­a­tively rare. 3^rd lim­ited is the “nor­mal” POV for Amer­i­can read­ers, but 3^rd Omni is pop­u­lar in EU NZ AU in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @crimsonsky76 That was emphatic. If it mat­ters that much, what should I do about it? in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber Not sure, never read them. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Nofrendo I pre­fer Faux. As good as Phở, but no calo­ries. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @del­rayser (try­ing to avoid ask­ing the obvi­ous ques­tion) in reply to del­rayser #
• @Tere­saKopec Yes, the jan­i­tor can sing, but all who hear him are instantly dri­ven mad. in reply to Tere­saKopec #
• @crimsonsky76 We find out what the angels and demons really were and why they were immor­tal in book 5 of the series when we meet their maker in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 So I do answer it even­tu­ally. We just don’t learn why the first 3 are really SF, not hor­ror or UF, until later. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 You might want to wait until I’m done with the new ver­sions. I’m (re)writing both trilo­gies and a spin off by Labor Day 2010. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 I plan to be done with the rough draft of BHH Rev­e­la­tion before xmas if you’d like to read it and give me some feed­back. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 I’m rewrit­ing and expand­ing BHH into 3 nov­els: Rev­e­la­tion, Cru­sade and Jihad. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 UC tril­ogy fol­lows with Mis­taken Iden­tity, The Neme­sis War and Uni­fi­ca­tion. Sins of the Moth­ers is a spin off between 5 & 6. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 high praise indeed! in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @hadoualex I think I found a way in Rev­e­la­tion to hint at the tech­no­log­i­cal nature of the immor­tals with­out being too obvi­ous. in reply to hadoualex #
• @hadoualex slower than I’d hoped. Still try­ing to find the right mix of loca­tion and equip­ment in reply to hadoualex #
• @dgawlik324 Hey, she was in Cas­tle this week… in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @dgawlik324 Just say, “And then Buffy staked Edward. The end!” in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @Bsti­Natosi Ah, the Sarah Palin story… in reply to Bsti­Natosi #
• After sleep­ing off my cold all day yes­ter­day, try­ing to sal­vage some of Mile­HiCon today. #
• No ser­vice at all in most #Mile­HiCon panel rooms. #ATTFAIL I need my inter­nets, and I’m too cheap to pay the Hyatt Recency $10 for wifi. #
• RT @rstevens: Busi­ness is where real­ity pins down imag­i­na­tion and they start mak­ing out. #
• RT @robkroese: The more I hear peo­ple talk about agents and pub­lish­ers, the hap­pier I am that I self-​published. http://mercuryfalls.net #
• RT @scalzi: Just so you know: Cats don’t like it when you poke them in the mouth mid-​yawn. Doesn’t mean it’s not funny, though. #

• @del­rayser Hey, that’s an improve­ment. The Fal­cons used to only play irrationally-​numbered quar­ters. in reply to del­rayser #
• @crimsonsky76 One of the rea­sons I’m torn about whether to pub­lish tra­di­tion­ally or not. I’ll address that next year. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @jchutchins: Writ­ing tip: Go for speci­ficity, if pos­si­ble. Avoid vagaries such as “a lot” or “big.” How much? How large? #
• @jen­ny­beanses I don’t believe that scones rock. At best, scones polka. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @NotZura That’s prob­a­bly prefer­able to angry mut­ton­chops. in reply to NotZura #
• @scottsigler Look at this way. Any expo­sure to Pauly Shore will def­i­nitely help your hor­ror writ­ing. in reply to scottsigler #
• RT @extralife: Daisy chewed off one of Man At Arms arms. Now he is called Man At Arm. #
• @jchutchins comma comma comma comma comma chameleon… in reply to jchutchins #
• @NotZura I’m rea­son­ably cer­tain that’s more than I ever needed to know about mut­ton­chops. Other than where you get the sheep. in reply to NotZura #
• @NotZura Said the Irish­man who can only grow a goa­tee, not even side­burns. in reply to NotZura #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Well, you know what they say: Who goes to Vegas, stays in Vegas. in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Can you kick it into the big Sparta pit? in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @suzzzanna Go get your­self some Hot Wings of Right­eous­ness. in reply to suzzzanna #
• RT @Ali_Davis: @suzzzanna To steal from Ben Franklin, boobs are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. #
• @jeanet­temarsh Thanks for the RT! It’s going to be a chal­lenge to keep writ­ing about writ­ing once NaNoW­riMo starts, but I’ll keep at it! in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Nofrendo MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN! in reply to Nofrendo #
• @tib­bar­erew Dude, it’s Mon­day. You’re doing well that the servers aren’t actu­ally on fire or haunted. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @tib­bar­erew With haunted fire! Ghost SysAd­min! in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Wel­come back to the inter­nets in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @litchick77 Because they give you shiny money in reply to litchick77 #
• @PhilRossi Does your insur­ance cover that? in reply to PhilRossi #
• @Red­PenOf­Doom Now’s the per­fect time to go to meet­ings and look REALLY INTERESTED in reply to Red­PenOf­Doom #
• @tib­bar­erew But they’re great for tar­get prac­tice. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• @Philip­pa­Jane WiFi mag­icks not work­ing? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scot­bot­mosh /​waves in reply to scot­bot­mosh #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Gen­er­ally in those cases I just threaten to shoot it. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Philip­pa­Jane <singing>Send in, the clooooooones…</singing> in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scot­bot­mosh I’m think­ing Google Wave would be awe­some for pod­cast­ing. Need to get @tib­bar­erew an invite. in reply to scot­bot­mosh #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Well then it’s a shame it’s an away game tonight. in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @scalzi Yeah, that was me. It’s taken me all morn­ing to clear out the pr0n. in reply to scalzi #
• @tib­bar­erew That is the worst Pink Floyd cover EVER. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• Brain red lin­ing in neu­tral again. For­tu­nately, I have Rock Band for my iPhone. #
• RT @delrayser: Geek worlds are col­lid­ing!! RT @EWAusielloFiles: GLEE exclu­sive: Joss Whe­don to direct an episode!! http://bit.ly/4nquci #
• RT @BadAstronomer: Some of you mis­un­der­stood me. By “iron my pants” I meant infuse them with fer­rite. It helps me find north. #
• RT @robkroese: They should call me “Bal­loon Boy.” I wasn’t in that bal­loon just as much as that dumb kid wasn’t. #
• Psst. Next week’s col­umn on my Manic Man­u­script Marathon of May­hem. http://bit.ly/oe8Lv #
• @Philip­pa­Jane I feel for you. For­tu­nately I won’t have to deal with edit­ing until after Drag­onCon. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @brettq: Any good rec­om­men­da­tions for a Hackint0sh solu­tion? Some­thing 10 – 12″ with lit­tle to no setup. #
• @dgawlik324 JavaScript isn’t so bad, but actual Java IS TEH DEBIL in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @NotZura Wow, your facial hair is almost the exact inverse of mine. in reply to NotZura #
• Norv Turner was so mad he almost had a facial expres­sion. #watchouthes­pitsvenom #gob­ron­cos #
• RT @rstevens: All You Need Is Lar­vae #iflen­non­wasliterallyabee­tle #
• @mws­me­dia Put a ripe banana in your very favorite ear. in reply to mws­me­dia #
• @mws­me­dia Per­son­ally, I wouldn’t count Win­dows 3.0 and Win­dows Me, so that leaves 7. in reply to mws­me­dia #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Let me know if that leads to less feed­back con­fu­sion. I often get con­flict­ing sug­ges­tions from my cri­tique group. #
• RT @cindyscott54: RT @Teddy_Salad: Lat­est bank fee is for pay­ing off credit card on time every month | http://bit.ly/xoaDh #
• RT @brian_tong: SNUGGIE for FREE! For reals! DO IT and look like a col­ored Jedi! http://suzzly.com/snuggiepromo.html /​/​Over street clothes? #
• @angiek42 You know if you just trepan one of them the oth­ers will shut up. in reply to angiek42 #
• @Whit­leyStrieber I think we have a bad rep. We’re the rural Arkansas of the galaxy. in reply to Whit­leyStrieber #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra Dang, that’s a good one. Ter­mi­na­tor is faster but Robo­cop is bet­ter armored… in reply to ban­tam­spec­tra #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra It think it ulti­mately comes down to which can think/​react faster: the T800’s CPU or Robocop’s human brain in reply to ban­tam­spec­tra #
• @scalzi G-​string cheese: Dis­gust­ing. #
• @Pock­et­God­dess This is why I refuse to have a credit card. I’ll stick with debit, thanks. #
• @eBooksBN Any way to import my eReader/​Fictionwise libraries to use with the eBooksBN ver­sion of eReader? #
• RT @NotZura: Cap­tion from Jony Ive video. http://twitpic.com/m9wqo #
• RT @delrayser: Isn’t Palin jump­ing the gun? I thought authors went on Oprah AFTER their books were found to be full of fab­ri­ca­tions. #
• RT @Veronica: South Amer­ica + Africa = T. Rex http://bit.ly/nSdAT /​/​Actu­ally looks more like a Carno­tau­rus, but still pretty cool #
• @jkendrick Yeah, the Nook may finally make me buy an epa­per device. Just need a way to import my eReader/​Fictionwise libraries/​wishlists in reply to jkendrick #
• @crimsonsky76 That’s make or break for me. If it inte­grates fully with eReader/​Fictionwise, or I can xfer from them to BN.com, I’m there. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @eBooksBN Great! How do I access my Fictionwise/​eReader libraries from the nook and other BN reader apps? in reply to eBooksBN #
• @CRA1G WHAT? in reply to CRA1G #
• @NotZura No, that hap­pens to me too. It’s even worse when they know my name, and I still don’t have a clue to theirs. “That’s funny, you!” in reply to NotZura #
• The Shaw­shank Bar Mitz­vah #failed­movieconcepts #
• @ban­tam­spec­tra You should really check out today’s strip at http://xkcd.com regard­ing today’s #fan­fight #
• @rstevens I think that’s actu­ally Rule 35. #
• Char­lotte the spi­der was a ter­ror­ist, spread­ing swine flu. #
• @brandg I want a pub­lisher that under­stands that sales for all 3 books rise after the 3^rd of a tril­ogy. Don’t pull the plug after book 2. in reply to brandg #
• @brandg The pub­lisher needs 2 under­stand that many SF read­ers wait for the last book in a tril­ogy before buy­ing all 3 & adjust expec­ta­tions in reply to brandg #
• @brandg Not say­ing the pub­lisher should expect 3 best sell­ers on the 3^rd if the first 2 com­pletely flopped, but too many bail after 2^nd now in reply to brandg #
• @brandg Given that I’m in favor of the author fin­ish­ing all three books prior to the deal, I could live with that. in reply to brandg #
• Too easy to coun­ter­mar­ket Verizon’s new Google phone by wav­ing your hand & say­ing “This isn’t the Droid you’re look­ing for.” #
• @ange­la­james I kind of like the way the nook han­dles shar­ing. Of course I’m more of a Cory Doc­torow CC kind of author myself. in reply to ange­la­james #
• Superman’s Blan­ket #NameY­ourNextBand #
• RT @ginatrapani: I want to write a new TV musi­cal called Squee about work-​at-​homers who burst into song alone in front of their com­put­ers. #
• @crimsonsky76 Nah, it’s just that kid again. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @NotZura @crimsonsky76 The hor­ri­ble truth being, of course, that Mir­a­cle Whip is will­ing to tone it down. in reply to NotZura #
• @leo­la­porte The other prob­lem being that silos attract rats. in reply to leo­la­porte #
• @Philip­pa­Jane So that’s basi­cally a large weasel sun­ning itself on a rock, right? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @crimsonsky76 Booo! I want BN.com to Fictionwise/​eReader inte­gra­tion! in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 Well, I won’t be buy­ing a #nook then. Until I can import my eReader.com library, no thanks. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @jkOn­TheRun As long as I can’t import my 100s of books from eReader.com/Fictionwise to BN.com, #nook is a no-​purchase for me. in reply to jkOn­TheRun #
• @eBooksBN Please con­sider allow­ing import of Fictionwise/eReader.com libraries/​wishlists to BN.com. I have too many books to switch now. in reply to eBooksBN #
• @crimsonsky76 I don’t know why, but I read “Heineken can” as “Hein­lein cake”. Twice. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @amber_benson: Looks like 1 insur­ance com­pany is try­ing to com­bat anorexic body image issues in young women http://tinyurl.com/ykka5t3 #
• @crimsonsky76 Robert A. Hein­lein: Funeral at noon, BBQ at 2. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• Try­ing to decide. Brave the cold and snow for Chipo­tle for lunch, or be good and nuke the frozen entrée I brought? #
• @jkendrick I men­tioned the snow, right? I know y’all don’t get much where you live, but in Den­ver, it’s for­mi­da­ble. in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @iUberGeek: Win­dows 7 has been in pub­lic beta test with 8 mil­lion peo­ple for a year. Snow Leop­ard? The beta is now. #
• @jkendrick The one time I remem­ber it snow­ing it Hous­ton as a kid, I used all the snow in the back yard to make a snow­man. He was 3in tall. in reply to jkendrick #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries Of course, this being Den­ver, we have snow now and it was 80F (27C) 48 hours ago. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries @jkendrick What we con­sider a “dust­ing” in Den­ver shut down the city in Hous­ton. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• And yet, dur­ing the first snow­fall of the sea­son, I develop an irra­tional crav­ing for ice cream. #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries What’s your moose count? in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @robkroese: I’d get one of those eBook read­ers, but I’d be afraid that if I turned it upside down and shook it, it would erase the book. #
• @Philip­pa­Jane That is a ter­ri­fy­ing thought. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries That’s one of the rea­sons I love lis­ten­ing to @DRSpodcast. 2 hosts are Texan, the other Cana­dian. Great jabs both ways. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• @jkendrick Actu­ally, tech­nol­ogy does fre­quently ter­rify me. My gad­get addic­tion is just to get in good with Skynet. in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @rstevens: Always bet on pur­ple. #Wes­leySnipesInGalac­tus­The­Movie #
• @paula­pound­stone You’re being chased by a 20 foot dust bunny? in reply to paula­pound­stone #
• Tech­ni­cally, a series of stills is stream­ing video, just at a very, very low frame rate. #
• @Garten­berg Twit­ter is well on its way to becom­ing the Offi­cial Global Hive Mind. in reply to Garten­berg #
• @crimsonsky76 I’m wait­ing until Macs don’t have displays/​ports. Just trust that Apple knows what you need to get done. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• RT @Nofrendo: The only cure is more cow­bell. RT @Turn­er­Jack­son i got a 103 fever #
• @robkroese Given that Snow Leop­ard has issues with “sta­ble”, yeah, we Win­dows users will take “sta­ble” as a sell­ing point for Win­dows 7. in reply to robkroese #
• Last time I got a flu shot, in 06, I had an ana­phy­lac­tic reac­tion that damn near killed me. So I’m tak­ing my chances. #aintafraid­ofnoswine #
• RT @TheWalnutRoom: There should be a rib­bon for Swine Flu sur­vivors & aware­ness!! maybe like a brown and white ver­ti­cally striped one? #
• @NotZura I’m not aller­gic to eggs and had suc­cess­ful flu shots before, so I don’t know what did it. Don’t want it again, tho. in reply to NotZura #
• @Philip­pa­Jane If I was going any­where in the coun­try­side I’d be tak­ing shot­guns. #urban­boyand­proudofit in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @joekeg I might con­sider get­ting a shot to pre­vent BLEEDING EYES DEATH FLU, but swine flu, hey, I like bacon… in reply to joekeg #
• @NotZura Haven’t we pre­vi­ously unleashed hor­ri­ble things by doing stuff like that? #humansn­ev­er­friggin­learn in reply to NotZura #
• @joekeg It’s like George Car­lin say­ing no kids in his neigh­bor­hood got polio when he was a kid because they all swam in the East River. in reply to joekeg #
• Sci­en­tist: Okay, I’ve got this great idea for cur­ing athlete’s foot by cross­ing influenza and ebola. Sane peo­ple: OMG NO GET AWAY FROM THAT #
• @Daph­neUn It’s under all the gor­ram snow. in reply to Daph­neUn #
• @jeanet­temarsh @jen­ny­beanses zom­bie erot­ica… shud­der… the pos­si­bil­i­ties of parts going into other parts… in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• RT @paulapoundstone: I was work­ing really hard today, and then it hit me – why is a cow the logo for Elmer’s glue? #
• RT @micheleboyd: Saw a man­hole cover, drew a chalk arrow point­ing to it and the words ‘Ninja Tur­tles Recruit­ing; Drop resumes here’ #
• @Cynical_​Woman BRAINBLEACH BRAINBLEACH in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• RT @wilw: Hal­loween super­stores are the her­mit crabs of the retail world. #
• @ange­la­james Depends on whether or not I actu­ally started at the begin­ning. A lot of writ­ers start way before the begin­ning, but not me. in reply to ange­la­james #
• @Philip­pa­Jane We’re not all ass­hats, but we do have a higher con­cen­tra­tion than the global aver­age. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @jeanettemarsh: RT @sci­fir­ules Air force Drone gain sen­tience, goes on ram­page #scifi http://bit.ly/GjWg2 #
• @jen­ny­beanses I’m shoot­ing for 2000 words a day for 10 months to write 7 books in a row. 2k is a hearty word­count. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @jeanet­temarsh Just real­ized you kiwis are 19 hours ahead of us in Den­ver, but it’s only a 12 hour flight, and then my brain broke. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @robkroese We’re num­ber one? (ain’t say­ing which camp) #
• @robkroese How about every­one is free to believe or not in what­ever they want? Hang in there and don’t sweat the wingnuts on either side. in reply to robkroese #
• @jeanet­temarsh Near as I can tell, y’all are five hours behind us, but tomor­row. Ow. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Cynical_​Woman @jeanet­temarsh Helen, when you say “heart­warm­ing”, is there an oven involved? We’re talk­ing zom­bies here. in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• @Philip­pa­Jane The edit­ing would go a lot faster if @teemon­ster would just start with the assump­tion that you’re right. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @kimidreams I got kicked out for feel­ing it at the gym once. Once. in reply to kimidreams #
• RT @jane_l: biggest threat to author’s liveli­hood? Not piracy. Dwin­dling read­er­ship. Reduced lit­er­acy. Com­pet­ing forms of enter­tai­ment. #
• @Philip­pa­Jane The head or other points in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scalzi I’m like that with star­ring arti­cles in Google Reader. I don’t actu­ally have to read all of them, do I? in reply to scalzi #
• RT @lilithsaintcrow: Broke 50K. It’s an actual BOOK now. My God…I love this part. #
• @nutzareus I did six years in the Pen­ta­gon. Does that count as haz­ardous enough? in reply to nutzareus #
• @dceiver Even the dead one? in reply to dceiver #
• @MikeStack­pole I like the let­ter­ing around the edges too, but sub­tlety has never been the forte of the Glenn Beck crowd. in reply to MikeStack­pole #
• @CRA1G No, sav­ing shows off a DVR clearly makes you a com­mie ter­ror­ist pirate. in reply to CRA1G #
• @jchutchins You can help me enhance my bliss by reas­sur­ing me that writ­ing 7 nov­els in 10 months isn’t really an insane com­mit­ment. in reply to jchutchins #
• @mighty­mur Believe me I know the feel­ing. in reply to mighty­mur #
• @jkendrick Colour me intrigued (it’s like a pale fuch­sia) in reply to jkendrick #
• RT @TheKJA: Anti-​science pro­test­ers now claim Grav­ity is a gov­ern­ment con­spir­acy designed to pre­vent com­mon peo­ple from fly­ing. #
• @jchutchins It’s one of those things I just have to do. 2 trilo­gies and a spin off. By Drag­onCon. Doable w/​2k words EVERY DAY. in reply to jchutchins #
• @Ras­plundjr All 7 books tell one ginor­mous story, though there is a 100 year gap between 1^st and 2^nd trilo­gies in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @Ras­plundjr And yes, just doing half a mil­lion words of rough draft. in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @Ras­plundjr Edits are for after I sober up after Drag­onCon in reply to Ras­plundjr #
• @TeeMon­ster You know what’s good for an upset stom­ach? Chipo­tle. in reply to TeeMon­ster #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Yes, SyFy orig­i­nal movies are quite stun­ning in their own way. in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Use “i.e.” when pro­vid­ing a spe­cific clar­i­fy­ing exam­ple, and use “e.g.” when ref­er­enc­ing noted actor E.G. Mar­shall. #
• @jchutchins Just remem­ber that you’re the big shot to those of us just get­ting into this. in reply to jchutchins #
• RT @Ali_Davis: Para­le­gal Activ­ity #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: “Spider-​Man” is the name for the wall-​crawling super-​hero; “Spi­der­man” is the name for my proc­tol­o­gist. #
• @gina­tra­pani Not cheesy at all. I’m try­ing to con­vince myself of that as I set out to write more than I ever have: 7 nov­els in 10 months. in reply to gina­tra­pani #
• @rstevens Here’s a pan­creas, a hoagie and a squid. in reply to rstevens #
• RT @Ali_Davis: When a Stranger Calls, Apol­o­gizes, and Hangs Up #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• (In case y’all hadn’t noticed, @Ali_​Davis is killing it today) #
• @Cynical_​Woman Karma FTW in reply to Cynical_​Woman #
• Sup­port #NaNoW­riMo, add a #twib­bon to your avatar now! — http://bit.ly/3DdbZo #
• @tib­bar­erew I’m gonna go with solar flares. Which you put behind you when your sun gets a blowout at night. in reply to tib­bar­erew #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Refer to him as “Pres­i­dent Obama” when he first appears in an arti­cle, “Soul Brother Num­ber 1″ in sub­se­quent men­tions. in reply to FakeAP­Style­book #
• @Nobilis I under­stand it’s not an either/​or propo­si­tion with ebooks vs print, but that said, I can’t remem­ber the last time I read paper. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jen­ny­beanses Virii have no con­sid­er­a­tion for people’s sched­ules! I’m try­ing to ditch this stu­pid sore throat before Mile­HiCon this week­end. in reply to jen­ny­beanses #
• @Ali_​Davis I would say that depends on con­text. In some fetish cir­cles, cobrand­ing can be very excit­ing. #
• @Nobilis Two years ago? I still don’t own an eInk device, but I’ve been read­ing ebooks exclu­sively since 1997. First on PDAs, then phones. in reply to Nobilis #
• @Nobilis That’s as asi­nine as when I used to fore­tell the death of print. The real­ity is always in the mid­dle. in reply to Nobilis #
• @Nobilis There will always be extrem­ists on both ends, though. He’s on the “new­fan­gled tech will never catch on side”, I’m on the other. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jeanet­temarsh It’s going to be hard to ask ques­tions at the writ­ing pan­els using only mime. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @Nobilis Some­one on the inter­net is argu­ing to fit their own pre­con­ceived agenda? I’m shocked and appalled. Or not. in reply to Nobilis #
• @jeanet­temarsh Really, I’m just try­ing to avoid the white makeup and striped shirt. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @jeanet­temarsh Oh, so you’ve seen Amer­i­cans’ reac­tion to mime. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: If you start a sen­tence with an action, place the actor imme­di­ately after or you will anger Chris­t­ian Bale. #
• GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE! #thati­sall #
• @feli­ci­a­day So much for watch­ing Hulu, then. There are lots of other places to get that “value” on the inter­net. in reply to feli­ci­a­day #
• @Nofrendo What tipped me off was when he started rav­ing about “THIS FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL VATICAN” in reply to Nofrendo #
• @Philip­pa­Jane That’s unusual atten­tion to detail for zom­bies. #thingsIn­ev­er­thoughtId­say in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• RT @Ali_Davis: The Taunt­ing #dullesthor­rormovie­sever #
• @jchutchins That hap­pens to me sev­eral times a day. Too many things to all try to do at once. in reply to jchutchins #
• @McCain­Blo­gette Peo­ple just aren’t used to, on either side, some­one who hon­estly speaks her mind. It’s refresh­ing. in reply to McCain­Blo­gette #
• @litchick77 Can’t imag­ine why. (also can’t believe you didn’t see @tibbarerew’s pro­posal com­ing) in reply to litchick77 #
• It’s the kind of after­noon for Terri Clark radio on @Pandora. SheDaisy, Car­rie Under­wood Jo Dee Mesina, etc. Ah, the women of coun­try music #
• @Bsti­Natosi The band or the state of mind? in reply to Bsti­Natosi #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Don’t get used to it, word is Fox is ready­ing the axe in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @scalzi Noth­ing wrong with that, I’d take Mummy 2 over Schindler any day. in reply to scalzi #
• @Garten­berg Hmm, Apple’s snarky anti-​Win7 ads won’t play ON THEIR OWN FRICKIN IPHONE. #apple­fail in reply to Garten­berg #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The noun “Wang Chung” should be cap­i­tal­ized, but not the verb. #
• RT @QuipsAndTips: If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. — Stephen King #
• @aslap­inthe­face But a dead bat­tery is surely bet­ter than other dead things in your engine com­part­ment (rac­coon, hooker, Regis Philbin) in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @jkendrick Saw that in Mobile Tech Manor. King’s On Writ­ing is also my favorite book on the craft. He knows his stuff. in reply to jkendrick #
• @scottsigler What about stuff that looks like magic, but has a SF expla­na­tion? Immor­tals in my books heal via nan­otech, but don’t know that. in reply to scottsigler #
• @aslap­inthe­face Depends on the neigh­bor­hood the eggs are from. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: “Y’all” means “you all” and is accept­able if you are Texan. “Ya’ll” means “you will” and who the hell ever says that? #
• RT @NotZura: Teacher just said “Boy this is get­ting harder.” Took all I had not to say “Thats what she said!” #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Pithy declar­a­tive state­ments made by David Caruso should be fol­lowed imme­di­ately by “yyyYYYEAH!!!!!” #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The cor­rect spelling is ‘Mr. T.’ Peo­ple who type out ‘Mis­ter’ are fools to be pitied. #
• @litchick77 Yup, you’re mar­ry­ing a geek. You can dress him up, but he’s still a geek. in reply to litchick77 #
• @mws­me­dia The Watusi? in reply to mws­me­dia #
• RT @rstevens: I’mma let Uni­cron fin­ish, but Galac­tus was the best planet eater of all time. #
• @Garten­berg Yeah, CBS doesn’t seem to get that clips aren’t really incen­tive to watch the full shows on TV, they’re just annoy­ing. in reply to Garten­berg #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: The phrase “the pen is” should be avoided for the ben­e­fit of lazy, eas­ily shocked read­ers. #
• RT @dictionarycom: #Scrab­ble Word of the Day — geck: to deride; to scorn; to mock. http://bit.ly/qS6kh #
• RT @Gartenberg: You want me to pay u Hulu? np. Pls give every sea­son of all shows. Full eps and watch it eas­ily on TV & phone. Deal? #hulu #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Omt ndlss vwls. #
• @crimsonsky76 I love fly­ing, hate airports/​airlines in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Red­PenOf­Doom I remem­ber watch­ing the Star Wars Hol­i­day Spe­cial live. Some­times, at night, I can still hear the scream­ing… in reply to Red­PenOf­Doom #
• @Nofrendo You really must stop smok­ing. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @aslap­inthe­face I’m sneaky like that? in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• RT @jeanettemarsh: RT @Jere­myC­Shipp I have found that skele­tons hate organ music. #
• .@mari­aschnei­der A semi­colon is just a colon with a fang, so maybe it is a vam­pire. #
• @scottsigler “Is it safe?” in reply to scottsigler #
• RT @sethharwood: Yes, things are chang­ing in pub­lish­ing, but one fact remains: you must make your book good. Wait until it is. Revise. #
• @CRA1G Or fins in reply to CRA1G #
• Maybe This Will Make You Feel A Lit­tle Bit Bet­ter http://bit.ly/OFXux #
• @robkroese If they’re going to make you wear a bib at the den­tists, they should start it off with lob­ster and melted but­ter. in reply to robkroese #
• @aslap­inthe­face That reminds me. Gotta take those bill­boards down, totally defeats the pur­pose. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @pwheeler_​agent Oy veh, it’s bog­gling how deeply peo­ple don’t under­stand ebooks. in reply to pwheeler_​agent #
• @WriteR­Cas­tle Per­son­ally, I think you should dress up as that guy from “Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place.” Y’know, Ryan Reynolds. in reply to WriteR­Cas­tle #
• @aslap­inthe­face I’ve been all about the snark since before snark was cool. in reply to aslap­inthe­face #
• @Ali_​Davis Free­bas­ing NyQuil. in reply to Ali_​Davis #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries Looks angu­lar and ugly to me. Screen on the Droid is nice, though. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @scottsigler: Turns out a kid­ney punch is not a refresh­ingly cool bev­er­age. #
• @Dar­ren­Humphries It doesn’t need to look like a “pol­ished river stone” but if I’m going to pocket some­thing, I don’t want it goug­ing me. in reply to Dar­ren­Humphries #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Use ‘Scotch’ to refer to the adhe­sive tape or the drink, ‘Scot­tish’ to refer to Starfleet engi­neer Mont­gomery Scott. #
• @Red­head­Writ­ing Was he on your lawn? in reply to Red­head­Writ­ing #
• @sunilse­bas­t­ian That depends entirely on how much Scotch you’ve had to drink. in reply to sunilse­bas­t­ian #
• @mike­mad­den And thus with every broad­cast day Fox News makes itself more and more a joke. in reply to mike­mad­den #
• @suzzzanna When you start jam­ming to hotel lobby music they look like they want to forcibly remove you, but are afraid of get­ting bit. in reply to suzzzanna #
• @Philip­pa­Jane Given that we freely “bor­row” from all over the world, I’m curi­ous. What do you con­sider dis­tinctly Amer­i­can food? in reply to Philip­pa­Jane #
• @Colleen­Lind­say Just think work thoughts until the inter­nets come back. in reply to Colleen­Lind­say #
• @lilith­saint­crow Ran­dall Munroe is at the very least one of the lesser geek gods. in reply to lilith­saint­crow #
• @jchutchins Again? in reply to jchutchins #
• @Ali_​Davis I’ll believe a poor bystander. in reply to Ali_​Davis #
• Am briefly caught up to real­time on the Twit­ter. Now to get dis­tracted by some­thing else as time keeps on slip­pin slip­pin into the future. #
• I’ll just come out and say it. Twitter’s tem­po­rally asyn­chro­nous con­ver­sa­tion makes more sense to me than Google Wave. #
• @scalzi @wilw And then I threw up. in reply to scalzi #
• @jeanet­temarsh Stop it, kiwi! in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• Reluc­tantly, think I’m going to pass on Mile­HiCon this week­end and instead hide under a blan­ket with some NyQuil. Must be healthy for NaNo. #
• @jeanet­temarsh See, that’s dou­bly con­fus­ing since we seem to have skipped autumn and gone straight to win­ter in Den­ver. Only one sea­son off. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• For­tu­nately recent exper­i­ments with Boxee and Win­dows Media Cen­ter on my net­book mean I don’t have to leave bed­room unless snacks run out. #
• @Colleen­Lind­say Aren’t Star­bucks required by law in NYC to be less than 10 blocks apart? in reply to Colleen­Lind­say #
• @crimsonsky76 Keep talk­ing, Don. You keep remind­ing me why I don’t need an Xbox/​Timesink. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @jeanet­temarsh Well, of course. You’re just about guar­an­teed to spill your drink. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @jeanet­temarsh I know the feel­ing. Den­ver weather’s always chang­ing cause we’ve got big rocks on 1 side, clear shot 2 Atlantic on the other. in reply to jeanet­temarsh #
• @crimsonsky76 Get her a con­troller. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 You’ve been mar­ried to her for two decades. Surely you can fig­ure out how to bring out her inner zom­bie fighter. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber Third per­son lim­ited. Lim­ited gives you some of the inti­macy of 1^st per­son, but the story’s too big for only one POV char­ac­ter. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber That’s a trick­ier ques­tion. I know it’s straight sci­ence fic­tion, but it will seem more hor­ror or UF w/​out back­story in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• I know the super strong, fast immor­tals in my book are nanotech-​enhanced, but the reader won’t. Does that mat­ter? #
• @Ste­fer­s­the­Great 1^st per­son is the hard­est of the com­mon POVs to write well. Odd that so many new­bies grav­i­tate to it. in reply to Ste­fer­s­the­Great #
• @Nofrendo What­ever you’re smok­ing to think Yo Gabba Gabba is the best show ever. Stop it. Think of the chil­dren. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @Ste­fer­s­the­Great You are wise. 1^st per­son con­veys an eas­ier tie btwn reader and nar­ra­tor, but is so hard to keep authen­tic. in reply to Ste­fer­s­the­Great #
• @rstevens No, but it is a late stage muta­tion. in reply to rstevens #
• @crimsonsky76 As I’m sure you well know, Latin women can be very… per­sua­sive. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber It’s 3^rd per­son where you’re only privy to one character’s thoughts per scene. Must have scene break to see dif­fer­ent POV. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber Con­trast to 3^rd Objec­tive, where you see no thoughts (screen­play) and 3^rd Omni­scient, where you can see anyone’s. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber No prob­lem. I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently think­ing about POV, so it’s all fresh for me. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber Yeah, it’s like a screen­play. The nar­ra­tor is just a cam­era show­ing what peo­ple say and do, but there’s no inner mono­logue. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Blaque­Saber 3^rd Objec­tive is com­par­a­tively rare. 3^rd lim­ited is the “nor­mal” POV for Amer­i­can read­ers, but 3^rd Omni is pop­u­lar in EU NZ AU in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @crimsonsky76 That was emphatic. If it mat­ters that much, what should I do about it? in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @Blaque­Saber Not sure, never read them. in reply to Blaque­Saber #
• @Nofrendo I pre­fer Faux. As good as Phở, but no calo­ries. in reply to Nofrendo #
• @del­rayser (try­ing to avoid ask­ing the obvi­ous ques­tion) in reply to del­rayser #
• @Tere­saKopec Yes, the jan­i­tor can sing, but all who hear him are instantly dri­ven mad. in reply to Tere­saKopec #
• @crimsonsky76 We find out what the angels and demons really were and why they were immor­tal in book 5 of the series when we meet their maker in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 So I do answer it even­tu­ally. We just don’t learn why the first 3 are really SF, not hor­ror or UF, until later. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 You might want to wait until I’m done with the new ver­sions. I’m (re)writing both trilo­gies and a spin off by Labor Day 2010. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 I plan to be done with the rough draft of BHH Rev­e­la­tion before xmas if you’d like to read it and give me some feed­back. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 I’m rewrit­ing and expand­ing BHH into 3 nov­els: Rev­e­la­tion, Cru­sade and Jihad. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 UC tril­ogy fol­lows with Mis­taken Iden­tity, The Neme­sis War and Uni­fi­ca­tion. Sins of the Moth­ers is a spin off between 5 & 6. in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @crimsonsky76 high praise indeed! in reply to crimsonsky76 #
• @hadoualex I think I found a way in Rev­e­la­tion to hint at the tech­no­log­i­cal nature of the immor­tals with­out being too obvi­ous. in reply to hadoualex #
• @hadoualex slower than I’d hoped. Still try­ing to find the right mix of loca­tion and equip­ment in reply to hadoualex #
• @dgawlik324 Hey, she was in Cas­tle this week… in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @dgawlik324 Just say, “And then Buffy staked Edward. The end!” in reply to dgawlik324 #
• @Bsti­Natosi Ah, the Sarah Palin story… in reply to Bsti­Natosi #
• After sleep­ing off my cold all day yes­ter­day, try­ing to sal­vage some of Mile­HiCon today. #
• No ser­vice at all in most #Mile­HiCon panel rooms. #ATTFAIL I need my inter­nets, and I’m too cheap to pay the Hyatt Recency $10 for wifi. #
• RT @rstevens: Busi­ness is where real­ity pins down imag­i­na­tion and they start mak­ing out. #
• RT @robkroese: The more I hear peo­ple talk about agents and pub­lish­ers, the hap­pier I am that I self-​published. http://mercuryfalls.net #
• RT @scalzi: Just so you know: Cats don’t like it when you poke them in the mouth mid-​yawn. Doesn’t mean it’s not funny, though. #

So we know that your open­ing line, or at least your open­ing para­graph, will define the tone and style of your story. We know that the open­ing line needs to be snappy and pow­er­ful to win over casual browsers at a book store. But what does that all actu­ally mean?

Let’s look at how to craft an open­ing line and see both what works and what doesn’t. To begin, we’ll look at the open­ing line from my first novel, Between Heaven and Hell.

It was a bright and sunny day in Wash­ing­ton DC, and Daniel Cho found him­self at the scene of an accident.

What’s wrong with this? So many things. (In my defense, it was 13 years ago, I was young and I needed the money.) First off, it’s a weather report.

Do not start the story with weather. It’s a rookie mis­take, and it makes you look like a rube. Any men­tion at all of the weather in the open­ing line pegs you as just one notch beyond “It was a dark and stormy night.” or “The night was humid.” Set­ting is impor­tant, sure, and there are lots of ways to estab­lish that in a para­graph or two, but it’s pretty low pri­or­ity for your open­ing line. Open­ing lines need to do four things:

1. Estab­lish character.
2. Estab­lish con­flict, or if you pre­fer, dra­matic ten­sion (no, you don’t have to start with a fight scene just because peo­ple say conflict).
3. Set the nar­ra­tive tone or voice for the story.
4. Broadly estab­lish the set­ting or genre of the story.

Tech­ni­cally, the line above meets all four of those cri­te­ria, but it does so in a very clumsy way, throw­ing the set­ting in your face and push­ing the con­flict back to almost an after­thought. What kind of acci­dent? Did some­body spill peanuts in aisle nine, or did a jet­liner crash into the Capi­tol dome (remem­ber folks, Tom Clancy did it long before al Qaida took a crack at it)? The stuff that should be direct is vague and the stuff that should be vague is direct. Def­i­nite room for improvement.

Here’s the first line from a rewrite I attempted in 2007.

Daniel had just stepped out of the 7-​Eleven when he heard the crash, his pis­ta­chio ice cream already melt­ing in the heat.

Bet­ter, but not per­fect. We’ve got an extra detail, the ice cream melt­ing in the heat, that tells us some­thing about where Daniel is with­out men­tion­ing the weather directly. But we still have an indi­rect tense (“had just” are unnec­es­sary words and warn­ing signs about your writ­ing) that removes Daniel and his per­cep­tions from the action. The tone is thus still ten­ta­tive. We also don’t know much about the crash, although that is more spe­cific than “acci­dent.” We’re still not sure how much we should care.

Daniel Cho stepped out of the 7-​Eleven and heard the unmis­tak­able col­li­sion of steel on steel.

This is sim­ple, direct and yet man­ages to tell us sev­eral use­ful things. We know our character’s name, where he is (broadly, we know he’s in a mod­ern urban set­ting where one might find a 7-​Eleven; this isn’t medieval fan­tasy or outer space) and that to him, the sound of steel col­lid­ing with steel is unmis­tak­able, giv­ing us a hint at his back­ground or pro­fes­sion (as it turns out, and as we’ll see in the next few para­graphs, Daniel is a para­medic in Wash­ing­ton DC). This line is the short­est of the three, and yet it’s the most pow­er­ful. It’s pow­er­ful in large part because it’s sim­ple, because it doesn’t beat around the bush and gets right to the action. We know there’s vio­lence afoot, and we know that Daniel is going to react to it. We’re hooked and ready to see what hap­pens next.

Con­sider two open­ing lines, both con­vey­ing the same idea.

As plans go, it was right up there with the Mag­inot Line.

and

The plan sucked.

Which one is better?

The first line is fun­nier and more styl­ish. It also has a way of grab­bing atten­tion. On the other hand, it relies on a cer­tain famil­iar­ity with Euro­pean his­tory. If you don’t know what the Mag­inot Line was, and why it was so spec­tac­u­larly inef­fec­tive, the joke falls flat.

The sec­ond ver­sion, in a tone I like to refer to as “The Hem­ing­way,” is direct, down­beat and to the point. It also has a stark sim­plic­ity and frank­ness that cap­ture the futil­ity of the plan.

The answer as to which is bet­ter depends on the tone for your entire story. Is it bit­ing and sar­cas­tic (option 1) or dark and hard-​boiled (option 2)? Or some­thing else entirely, mean­ing both of these lines would be ill-​suited to the task?

I’ve been think­ing a lot about open­ing lines recently, since that’s again some­thing I can tin­ker with for Sins of the Moth­ers before actu­ally start­ing NaNoW­riMo in Novem­ber. In many ways, your open­ing line defines the tone of the novel for your reader and sets up expec­ta­tions for the nar­ra­tive. In a lot of ways, both of the options above wouldn’t actu­ally work for me, as I’ve set­tled on writ­ing this book in third per­son and both of those sound like first per­son nar­ra­tive lines to me.

My default style for third per­son view­point is a tone I think of as “The Asi­mov,” a com­pletely invis­i­ble nar­ra­tor that remains neu­tral and just tells the story with­out edi­to­ri­al­iz­ing or embell­ish­ment. I tend to avoid more vis­i­ble nar­ra­tors because unless they’re done really, really well – talk­ing Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash here, where the enter­tain­ment of the nar­ra­tion com­pen­sated for the holes in the plot – I find them to be more dis­tract­ing than use­ful. Remem­ber that story is king, and punchy nar­ra­tion or even Aaron Sorkin-​class dia­logue won’t turn a bad story into a good one. Nar­ra­tion can dis­tract from minor plot issues, but if the story doesn’t work then ban­ter­ing with the reader isn’t going to help. Per­son­ally, I’d rather fix any struc­ture prob­lems and then get out of the way, let­ting the story tell itself.

Which, of course, brings me back to the open­ing line. How impor­tant is it, really? There are tales float­ing around on the inter­webs telling authors that your first line will make or break the novel, that all agents or edi­tors comb­ing through the slush pile are going to care about is the open­ing line, or the first para­graph at most. If you don’t hook them imme­di­ately, you’re doomed.

I’m not so sure I believe this. I think open­ing lines are impor­tant, but they’re only vital for true slush, unre­quested sub­mis­sion of your whole man­u­script. With no sup­port­ing mate­r­ial, the first line bet­ter be good or no one is going to read any farther.

But that’s not the way pub­lish­ing works any­more. In most cases, the agent or edi­tor isn’t even going to see the first page of your man­u­script until after you’ve sent them a well-​crafted query let­ter and they’ve been intrigued enough to ask for sam­ple chap­ters (or the com­pleted man­u­script). So in this case, they already know they’re inter­ested based on the query, and aren’t going to change their mind just because the first line didn’t reach out and grab them by the throat. If 21^st cen­tury writ­ers put as much effort into their query let­ter as they do into their first para­graph, they’d prob­a­bly get much bet­ter results.

So that’s pub­lish­ing. What about read­ers? Don’t you have to grab the reader once the book is on the shelf?

Again, I’m not so sure. Per­son­ally, and I know I’m atyp­i­cal here, I don’t buy books from shelves any­more. I buy ebooks exclu­sively, mostly from eReader.com, though I’ve shopped Short­Cov­ers and the Ama­zon Kin­dle store, since I can read both of those on my iPhone as well. In all cases, the first line is a minor fac­tor in the buy­ing deci­sion process if it’s even avail­able for con­sid­er­a­tion at all. In a lot of cases, I don’t get to see the first line of the book until after I pur­chase it, and by that point I’m invested and deter­mined to read as far into the book as I can so that I get my money’s worth. (I actu­ally am as cheap as they guy in the McDonald’s com­mer­i­cal with the jack­ham­mer.) So again, in ebooks you’re much bet­ter off pol­ish­ing your pro­mo­tional mate­r­ial, the sum­mary posted on the web site with your book, than in mak­ing sure the first line grabs the reader.

But while ebooks are the next hot thing – finally, only a dozen years after I got into them – I know a lot of peo­ple still don’t read elec­tron­i­cally. So for the folks that still do haunt the brick and mor­tar book­stores, surely open­ing lines are still vital for them, right?

Maybe. At least in that venue, you know that the poten­tial buyer can access the open­ing line of your book. There’s a chance they’ll see it. But a lot of peo­ple don’t. A lot of read­ers lit­er­ally judge a book by its cover: its back cover. The blurb on the back cover of a paper­back, or the jacket flap of a hard­cover, tells most read­ers every­thing they need to know about whether or not to make a pur­chase. If that sells them, they’ve already made their deci­sion by the time they see the first line.

So does that mean first lines aren’t impor­tant at all? Of course not. Like I said, it sets the tone and nar­ra­tive expec­ta­tion for the reader. And no mat­ter what, you want to start strong. But the open­ing line isn’t the most impor­tant part of your nar­ra­tive – that would be the end­ing – and it isn’t vital to get­ting your book noticed. Make it good enough, match the tone to the rest of the story, and focus on get­ting the story right. The rest will take care of itself.