Most of this blog is about writing, so most of the posts will be categorized, ‘Writing’. You can select this if you don’t care about anything that’s not writing.
I’ve gotten a fair bit of feedback from the short stories I’ve put out for critique. On the one hand, I hear flattering things about my writing, which is nice. People seem to appreciate the mystery aspect of the stories. But I hear some of the same criticisms over and over: the characters are not […]
No, I don’t want bad SF. I want good SF — but about economics, the “dismal science.” As part of my side hobby of world-building, I’ve been collecting SF-oriented papers by economics like Paul Krugman and Robin Hanson. Hanson’s page (linked left) is a great starting point. There are some fantastic ideas there. But what […]
Started on Chapter 1 over the weekend. Took a long damn time to put those first words on paper, but once I started writing, I could barely keep up. It’s funny: I’d been struggling for a while with one of the weaker aspects of the plot in the planning stages and never came up with […]
“There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader’s trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.” — S.S. Van Dine, “Twenty […]
I’m pretty evenly split, in writing, between writing on my laptop and writing in notebooks. This occasionally bothers me: I kind of prefer the notebooks, but I have a bad habit of misplacing them. I have a Wacom tablet, but have found it to be (for these purposes) the worst of both worlds: non-portable and […]
I’ve been pretty quiet here lately — work and life and a nasty summer cold intruded. But I’m still scribbling away in that little black Moleskin of mine and in Scrivener and, mirabile dictu, progress is being made. Most of my worry these days is about prologueing. Survivors as I have it outlined will be […]
I’ve been spending some time and energy getting ready for Viable Paradise. I picked up a number of books by and recommended by the instructors. So far I’ve been very impressed: Steven Gould’s Jumper was fantastic, and Doyle and Macdonald’s Land of Mist and Snow is a fine piece of fiction, too. Scalzi’s recent short […]
I’ve been feeling energized lately about my writing! The outline for the novel is progressing by leaps and bounds, which is a nice feeling. But I have been neglecting my short fiction a bit, and I do need to change that. I admit, the prospect of becoming a better writer in a few months’ time […]
Yesterday I had two pieces still out on submission: A Stab in the Dark (to Strange Horizons) and Death in a Tin Can (my submission piece to Viable Paradise) At 1am, Strange Horizons said “No, thanks” At 1:45am, Viable Paradise said “Congratulations”! I now have no short fiction on submission anywhere. I need to remedy […]
I haven’t actually forgotten this site! Things have just been a little busy around here (who knew it would be that hard to put in an extra outlet for the A/C, even with someone else doing most of the work?) but I’ve been working hard on planning this novel. (Discussion of plot follows, but no […]
John P. Murphy 