James Maxey, author of Bitterwood and the just-released Dragonforge (which has an awesome cover), has published seven dragon-related haiku on his dragon-related blog.  One of them is by yours truly.   *Bonus points for those who can identify the source of the quote without looking it up.

I've often said I'll listen to just about anything if it has a good dance beat. A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded some Russian dance club music to help put me in the mood for writing the Russian scenes in my novel.  One of the songs is a catchy number with a great beat.  And here's a translation of... read more »

My friend Sandra Tayler has published a children's picture book called Hold on to Your Horses.  It's a fun story and the illustrations are a delight.  You can check it out by going to the website, which includes a PDF version of the entire book, so you can sample it before buying. My tiny contribution to this project was I... read more »

So I've passed 30,000 words on the novel.  I'm probably more than a third of the way done with this draft, as I don't think I will end up reaching 100,000 by the time I finish the plot.  (In fact, I have some concerns that the novel will be too short, failing to reach 80,000.  But I've decided I can... read more »

Since it's my friend Jay Lake's birthday, it's about time I got around to blogging about how much I enjoyed his book Mainspring. After Newton's discoveries about the laws of the universe, many thinkers during the Enlightenment saw God as a "Divine Clockmaker" -- a creator of the universe who then left it alone to run according to the laws... read more »

I've crossed the 25K mark on Unforgettable. Israeli science fiction magazine Mercury is interested in translating and reprinting my story "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars," which originally appeared tin Intergalactic Medicine Show.  You can read it for free in the original English here. I've mentioned before that the story will be included in the IGMS anthology coming out from Tor... read more »

I just passed the 20,000-word mark on Unforgettable.  A bit over 17,000 of those words were written in the past 18 days, which is a little slower than the pace I'd like to maintain. But considering that word total almost certainly exceeds my word total for the previous four or five months put together, I'm counting this as my warming... read more »

If you've been to my website today, you may have noticed a new "Novel Progress" word count meter.  It currently reads 11,267/100,000.  That number is significant, because it means this novel, Unforgettable, is now the second-longest work of fiction I've written, after Heir of the Line.  (It will never become the longest, because there is no way it will reach... read more »

Over the past few years, I've used Google and Wikipedia for a lot of research for my stories.  Over the past couple of days, while doing research for my latest novel, I've come to appreciate YouTube as a research tool. For example, here's how to use a bobby pin to get out of handcuffs: And here's how to disarm someone... read more »

Apparently, old gas pumps with mechanical meters can't display prices above $3.99 per gallon. One of the solutions being used is "half-pricing"--displaying the price per half-gallon, but that's a bit confusing to consumers.  Meanwhile, there are delays in getting the mechanical upgrade that will allow displaying $4+ prices, and some stations can't afford the hundreds of dollars per pump it... read more »