I’ll be doing an article in a couple of months about writing hooks. I’ll let you know when it goes up. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of me at the beach with my son in Florida.
Monthly Archives: December 2017
Sale! “Free the Sky”
I just received the contract for a sale of my short story, “Free the Sky,” to Little Blue Marble magazine. They publish speculative fiction having to do with handling climate change, and my story involves changing the entire planet’s weather, and–depending on how you look at it–not necessarily for the better. I’ll post a link when it comes out.
Today’s writing buddy: Luka
While working here in FL I have an assistant, Luka the calico cat. She makes sure I take frequent cuddle breaks and is in charge of getting cat fur on my clothes.
Graduation Day
I’m in sunny Florida where my son Jon and his wife just got their bachelors degrees in organizational management from Eastern Florida State College. Congratulations to them both!
Tomorrow will be a work day, but today was all family. Although I did update Jon on my in-progress science fiction novels and enjoyed his reactions. I’ll post excerpts eventually.
European reader!
Here’s reader Elizabeth Kitzing with a copy of Confessions, in Sweden! She won’t let herself read it until Christmas.
Holiday blooms
My amaryllis is blooming. This is right next to where I write.
Yes that’s a UPS under the tree
There was nowhere else to put the Christmas tree this year, so since we could not move it, we put a bow on the Uninterruptible Power Supply.
Snow?
I live in South Carolina. It’s blustery, with cold rain, and maybe a freeze tonight. The rain took the last of the autumn leaves off our trees, but I don’t miss them; in the Deep South, fall leaf colors are muddy or puce-tinged and not the least bit fluorescent.
What I miss is snow. Texas, Louisiana, and even Arizona got snow, and we will not. Bummer.
Reading Books For Review
The last few days’ I’ve been reading books for reviews that will show up in the January 1, 2018 Abyss & Apex. I’ve read The Experience Arcade and other Stories by James Van Pelt, and Books 2 & 3 of The Horn series, by Jeanette Kathleen Cheney.
What, doesn’t everyone read three books in two days?
A flattering comparison
“This is the most insightful read on influencing skills since Cialdini,” said one of the 5-Star reviews of Confessions over at Goodreads.
I confess, I had to look Cialdini up. Per Wikipedia:
Robert Beno Cialdini is the Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and was a visiting professor of marketing, business and psychology at Stanford University, as well as at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is best known for his 1984 book on persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The book has sold over three million copies and has been translated into thirty languages. It has been listed on the New York Times Best Seller list and Fortune lists it in their “75 Smartest Business Books”.
One of Cialdini’s other books, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, was a New York Times Bestseller; and another of his books, The Small BIG: Small changes that spark a big influence, was a Times Book of the year. Cialdini’s most-recent book is Pre-suasion, which was published in 2016.
So. Quite the flattering comparison, that.