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Open to freelance work punching up stories or homepages, script-doctoring, beta reads, or other opinion vendings.
Stories have been with us since the first hunter told another about the one who got away. Stories are what make us human. Stories lead to understanding. Stories are cooked. Fiction, religion, biographies, gossip, gaming, and history it all goes into the pot and out comes as fiction. To those ends I’ve been around, professionally speaking. Marine, taxi driver, teacher, scientist, and coder. This breath of experience has given me a little knowledge about a lot of things, good and bad.
A good story reaches beyond the scope of its words.
Big Talk/Small Business Podcast
John Husler, Co-owner Lestat’s Coffee Houses
John Husler and his partner Jamie have been in the coffee shop business for over twenty years. First with the store in the Normal Heights neighborhood of San Diego. Now with two other shops through up town. Find out how they started, how he hires, and how he’s adapted to technology though the decades.
Lestat’s / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Recent Posts
ConDor Con Schedule, Feb 22-24
When I’m not attending our table in the dealer’s room with Melissa Milazzo and J Dianne Dotson, I’ll probably be off somewhere eating snacks.
On the rare moment that I’m not filling my face with cookies, I’ll be on the following panels with the following people:
Friday the 22nd
2:00pm: How Many Characters is Too Many?: Do we need to know what every son of Westros is doing? Are we just confusing readers? Garden II (J.L. Doty, Tone Milazzo, H. Paul Honsinger, Janet Tait)
8:00pm: Role Play in RPGs: What ways can players make the characters come alive in Table Top RPGs. From accents, pantomime, to detailed character histories. Garden II (Tone Milazzo, Jordan Munn, Marc Biagi)
Saturday the 23nd
2:00pm: I Feel Like Talking: Podcasts are a way to express yourself, but how do you get started, how do you distribute and how do you listen? Is this a possible new way to spread your writing to the world? And is there a financial model that can get the writer paid? Garden I (Daniel Cortopassi, Matt Pallamary, Tone Milazzo, Sherri Rabinowitz, Cynthia Ward)
4:00pm: Drawing from Non-European Folklore and Myth: Fantasy draws mainly from the traditions of Northern Europe and the British Isles. What other cultures might we take inspiration from? Garden I (Jean Graham, Henry Herz, Tone Milazzo, Henry Lien, Cynthia Ward, Deborah Flores)
Stop by the table and say, “Hi!” I hope to see you there!
NaNoFailMo
I tried and failed at NaNoWriMo last month. That’s fine, most experiments fail. I went in hoping for a kick start on the third novel, Alejandro’s Ocean a post time travel story about feeling unappreciated. 3100 words in and the problems were pretty clear:
- The backstory was more interesting than the story itself.
- The supporting cast was a collection of stick figures.
- What little I had, was written toward a theme.
The consequences of rejecting the outlining process and of putting theme before character and plot. Lesson learned. It’s outlines from here on out, and actions will make the message. This book isn’t for me to write. On to the next one.
Russian Espionage Agencies Have Terribly Boring Names
With The Faith Machine and the ESPionage property I draw a lot from the weird history of Cold War parapsychology. US agencies like Stargate Project, MKUltra, and the First Earth Battalion are the backbone of the setting and inspired my own creations; Project Dead Blind, MKIntra, and Task Force 21.
And then there’s Russia; the land of literal and uninspired nomenclature. According to Parapsychology in the USSR, released by the CIA in 2000, there was The Russian Society for Experimental Psychology in 1870, the Institute for Brain Research in 1921, and the Special Laboratory for Parapsychology founded under the Soviets in 1961. Yawn.
There’s an unposted appendix of 27 other Soviet institutes conducting paranormal research. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for this list, but I don’t have high hopes that there’s any flair on that list. The only cool espionage name the Soviets ever came up with was SMERCH which stands for ‘Death to Spies.’