A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness Could we just call this what it is? Twilight for women with Ph.D.’s. I hate to give this a bad review because it’s my wife’s favorite book, but I have to tell it like it is. A coat of sophistication and aristocracy doesn’t change when the female lead acts like a weak little moron. Granted, there’s no stupid stuff like ochre eyes or tween wool-gathering or sparkles. But the characters do the same things as their red-eyed counterparts. Despite the fact that the female is a witch, she does nothing to save herself. She has no control over her powers and no desire…
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Go Ahead, Make My Incentive
If you haven’t noticed, posting frequency has gone down lately because of work, but that should change soon. But I had to write about this thing that came up recently. My company was trying to come up with a way to incentivize the developers to release the app we’re working on “on time with zero defects”. One of the ways they offered up was a kind of raffle. For each hour of overtime (productive overtime, emphasis theirs), you get an entry to win a VIZIO 50″ Smart TV. I did the e-mail equivalent of laughing in their face. First of all, think about the people that work in software engineering.…
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I’ve Got To Stop Playing Facebook Games
I don’t need to write how these Facebook games are huge time-sucks. Those articles are already out there. What I do need to do is tell you that I’m a victim. And I’ve realized why they’re stupid and that, difficult as it is, I’m stopping playing them. First I played Knights of the Crystals because, well, it’s a Final Fantasy game. And I guess I’m always trying to recapture that feeling that I first got from Final Fantasy VII. Cannot be done. While I was doing this, I played some CityVille, because my cousins were playing it. It’s now more popular than FarmVille. I was trying to recapture the satisfaction…
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Delaying
Well, it’s been light writing lately, as you can tell from the blog. What with having a new baby and being the year’s turn-around time, I think I can be forgiven, at least for now. My main worry has been whether I’m subconsciously putting off the new novel because I’m afraid of starting something so big. I finished my pre-writing on Monday. On Tuesday I went out for lunch, so I did not write. Wednesday, the baby was born, but I was in the hospital a lot of the time reading. Nothing wrong with reading, but it’s not writing. I never had a long enough break to set aside some…
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Gotta Get Back In Time
Writing’s been lean these days. If I didn’t dedicate my 45 minute lunch period to Black Hole Son, I wouldn’t have time to write at all. Tasks at work are piling up. During downtime, I used to do misc writing – short stories, scene planning, writing for the blog to keep me sharp. But I’ve been transferred to a busier division, and my time is short. Clearly, my work is a priority, but that means my secondary career suffers. I’m not a slow writer, but it’s been almost a year since I finished the rough draft of Black Hole Son, and I’m only halfway through the second draft (granted, there…
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The Updates, Such As They Are
I got a letter back from that stupid girl. She apologized for sending repeat messages, and said she’d been on for years but never realized there was a zipfile of critiques. Can’t say I know what to make of this. But hopefully this story is over.But, oh noes, the stupidity doesn’t stop there. No, I get another one, this from a boy, who thinks that English is not my second language. Now I realize that everyone’s got their own opinion and a comment like this should indicate something about my writing. But WTF? Does this sound like I’ve got a fucking accent? Do I sound like a fucking turban guy?…
