Category: Blog

There’s a meme joke about how unrealistic it is that “Padme chose Anakin” when Obi Wan was right there, but…

Padme didn’t choose Anakin. Continue reading “Padme’s Lack of Choice”

One of the best things about writing a book called “The Otter’s Wings” is knowing that I’m really doing the title justice.

As a kid I was constantly disappointed by titles like “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” NO CATS. NOT ONE. Continue reading “Earning a Title”

As a writer, it’s easy to get lost in the wash of goals and aspirations that always seem just out of reach…

What I find that helps is to think of one of the novels I’ve finished, and remember back to what my very first inspiration for writing it was — a character? an idea? Continue reading “Seeds That Have Already Grown into Novels”

The show named after Buffy cares so much more about Xander’s feelings about her not wanting to date him than about her own feelings at having one of her best friends mess with her head and guilt her and show he thinks of her differently than she’d like.

It makes it hard to identify your own emotions — to even understand your own feelings & self — when so often looking in the mirror of pop culture shows the feelings of everyone around you… and leaves you invisible, a metaphorical vampire who doesn’t cast emotional reflections. Continue reading “The Cipher in the Middle”

The way Data describes friendship in Star Trek: TNG (as recounted by Troi) has always deeply spoken to me:

“As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent.” Continue reading “The Right Kind of Unfamiliar”

I’m rewatching Moana, because I think its structure may be useful for the fantasy novel outline I’m trying to refine.

I find working with models for story structure really helpful, especially because I struggle so much with outlining. Continue reading “Borrowing Plot Structure as a Stand-In for Outlining”

When you’re not used to seeing yourself depicted in society, and then suddenly, you see someone like you…

Sometimes your own initial reaction will be, “This person seems weird and wrong!” before (hopefully) having it sink in that, actually, you’re finally seeing yourself. Continue reading “Spooky”

David Rose (Schitt’s Creek) and Rarity (My Little Pony) are both characters whose strong aesthetic senses resonate deeply for me… while also causing me to recoil, because they’re so focused on fashion, and I loathe fashion, because I can ONLY WEAR COMFORTABLE CLOTHES, which is anathema to most fashion. Continue reading “David Rose, Rarity, and Fashion”

Today, I got to the point in my sci-fi horror novel-in-progress where I got to kill off one of the major characters. He’s been slated for death from the beginning, designed specifically to be annoying, so it’d be fun for me to kill him.

But it wasn’t fun… I don’t know why. Continue reading “Killing a Character for the First Time”

Sometimes I wonder how much of the intensity of my ambition comes from having spent the first two decades of my life under the power of an erratic, terrifying, 6’3” man with social power and a prestigious academic position. Continue reading “Escaping My Dad Through Fiction”