When Your Dystopian Sci-Fi Starts Coming True

In order to fully explain my current depth of freaked-outedness, I'm going to have to refer to a whole lot of other websites and links.  Please click them. They are part of the story. I'm also going to have to delve into some backstory that never really gets talked about in Salvaged. It's what happened 6 years prior …

Researching Science Fiction

The fun part about Science Fiction is that it’s based on science. Real science. The world now. Then it’s imagined, invented, and takes several logical leaps.  Then scientists leap along with these imaginings, and those things become real.  Life imitates art imitates life. I freaking love it. One requirement of being a science fiction author …

“Not science fiction enough”

I've mentioned before that I have recently submitted a story to Critters.org, an online critique group.  You might have caught my live-tweets of all twenty critiques I received for my short story.  If you didn't, you can click here to read them. One thing that I found interesting was a fairly consistent comment that my …

Scary Vulnerability [CARTOON]

You may recall that last week, I mentioned that I wanted a critique partner or two in my blog posts.  It looked a little like this: (Oh, and I got a haircut, so I get to change my cartoon-self's hair!) I actually got more offers than  I thought I could handle! I've now started to …

Crystal-Ball Gazing [CARTOON]

I have drawn parallels between my day job and my writing before, but sometimes they freak me out. They both involve asking "what if". More to the point, they both involve a good bit of predicting future events based on trends and past occurrences. I am good at my job. Sometimes, I am amazed at …

Research vs. Networking

Science fiction isn't the easiest genre to write. Because, science. While sci fi authors don't have to data-dump all of a world's wacky rules and wobbly physics into each book, the author has to at least know how it works.  In my definition, science fiction needs to have a scientific reasoning behind extraordinary events (as …

How do you convey genre in sci-fi?

I learned a lot from Jeff Gerke's The First 50 pages. But I've got a quibble, and one I'd love to discuss with my fellow writers. Help your reader out. Just trot out a half-goblin in chainmail armor and a shield if this is a fantasy.  Have someone make an arrest if this is a police …

Female Sci-fi Authors v. Myths About Girls, Math and Science

I've been doing a lot of seriously depressing reading about how many women have chosen male pen-names or gender-neutral pen-names over the history of the genre.  The most famous and current of these is J.K. Rowling, who was advised by publishers that little boys wouldn't want to read a book written by "Jo Rowling". That …

Sci-Fi Writers, Let’s Talk About Suvudo

Last weekend, I joined the Suvudu universe at http://universe.suvudu.com/  for my sci-fi writer blog. The concept is "curated" science fiction content that users can up-vote and browse.  It's basically a way to get your name and blog posts out in front of other science-fiction fans.  (Or fashion fans, or foodies - the main company, Tidal labs, …

My earliest Sci-Fi and Fantasy influences

Most kids these days grow up with fairy tales and think nothing of the fantastical elements within them.  They are among our earliest introductions to portal fantasy, high fantasy elements and even horror. Both of my parents enjoyed science fiction and fantasy, so these were films and books that floated around the house regardless of …