A Blog Post of Small Bits of Information of Possible Interest

»  My church is doing a series on art and Christianity and they asked me to be a part of it, which I am honored to be doing^*. I’ll have a short story (not flash fiction) to be included in a nicely-designed short story book for sale in the near future. I don’t know the subject matter of the other stories but mine will be Biblical fiction. Please be aware that it will not an “inspirational” story^**, as I don’t do drive-by evangelism and neither does Discovery.

»  I just finished helping Mike Duran format his e-novella, Winterland, for Smashwords and eventual release to other online retailers. I haven’t read it but I plan to.

»  After some unmerciful yet partly misinformed reviews of Bored in the Breakroom I got some actual, thoughtful critiques from a few people who have no real interest in pleasing me. I also do not like drive-by reviews by cranky Twilight jockeys.

»  At some point (as in, since I last checked a while ago) the max size for a Google Doc doc (heh) increased from stupidly-small kilobytes to a-million-or-so-characters kilobytes. What this means is that you can use it to work on that novel for that National Novel Month Thing That I Will Not Name Directly. I only want to deal with the unwieldly hellhammer of Microsoft Word at the last possible excruciating second so I will drink some vodka with a sour face to this news.

»  Most important of all, my friends in Life In Your Way have made their latest release, Kingdoms, available for free download. I understand that some of the people reading this find metal and hardcore distasteful, though I hope you all hold no issue with Christians making this kind of music. To that end, please take a read at the album lyrics here. It’s a concept album (actually, a set of 3 EPs) so there’s a definite theme and I think they pulled it off very well.

^*Ever notice how some people—usually actors or other celebritity-types—claim to be “humbled” when the opportunity for self-promotion or a recognition event arises? Getting your ego massaged in this way is approaching the opposite of humility; it’s not complimentary to it at all. Being passed over and not being the center of mass attention is humiliating. Let’s stop abusing the word.

^**I don’t have anything truly against inspirational art. It just so happens that the ones I’ve come across aren’t for art, it’s for the message. It would be better off as straight evangelism. My question is: why can’t they both be equal?