So I’m on vacation until the first work day of the new year. Among other things on the docket, mostly holiday-related, that I need to do, I thought I would plan to finish the third and final rewrite of the book — final, as in, the manuscript that is agent-ready and something that I would … Staycation 2010-2011
The Art of Manliness posted about nine writers that are carrying the torch for men’s fiction. It’s not really a secret that most modern fiction is marketed towards women, but I wonder exactly how a story can have a gender. It’s an absurd notion on its head because only people have genders, not words on … Genitalia Fiction
I recently gutted my RSS reader of a few dozen writer blogs and a few select agent blogs because the effort to keep up with all of the linguistic confusion was reaching critical mass. Few writers actually write in their blogs; there’s always some urgent contest, a vomit-dump of acronyms in every post, people scheming … Oh Hey, Speaking of Trying To Get Published, Check Out This Cool Top 10 List
I ride my bike to the bus stop almost every work day — even in the winter. That sounds crazy, but it’s hardly that; biking in the winter is actually much more pleasant and not any more dangerous than in warmer seasons. With a few key pieces of clothing you will not get cold. In … The Risk Taken
Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday is a mystery novel about a poet and secret agent, Gabriel Syme, and his mission to infiltrate an inner circle of anarchists in early 20th century London. He first meets Lucian Gregory, a fellow poet and one of the anarchists, and through some verbal sparring he goads Gregory into … Book Review: The Man Who Was Thursday
A photographer friend of mine, Jonathan, was telling me about a discussion he had with someone at a video shoot we had just covered for Noisecreep. This person asked Jonathan how to become a photographer. He said his response was this, roughly paraphrased: “I didn’t really know what to tell the guy. The way you … Waste Your Life Away With Words
Hanukah starts at sundown today and it snowed a little bit in Pittsburgh, so to celebrate these two unrelated events I set up email subscriptions to jd.com — in case you’re one of the five people that read this site and are scared of URL locators and RSS readers. You will make your inbox vomit. … Spin the Dradle, Nauseate Your Inbox
I recently subscribed to the wonderfully-designed blog of someone high-profile in the publishing industry — a writer and editor. There was a good amount of useful information for people like me: unpublished twerps waiting in line to get their hopes eradicated. But there was also plenty of drek: two levels of main navigation, advertisement graphics … Read It, Won’t Buy the T-Shirt
The Road is Cormac McCarthy’s tenth book, and it’s about a father and his son traveling through a post-apocalyptic America. It was panned by critics and by the crowning jewel of praise, Oprah, and has been already been shuffled out of Hollywood as a film. McCarthy’s other recent success which made it to film was … Book Review: The Road
Umberto Eco: Sinclair Lewis: Malcolm Muggeridge: Kurt Vonnegut: J.R.R. Tolkein: John Steinbeck: J.D. Salinger: G.K. Chesterton: George Orwell: F. Scott Fitzgerald: David Eddings: C.S. Lewis: Alan Moore:
With my first book’s third draft only four chapters deep into in the can, zero agent prospects in sight, and no other connections to the literary industry at any level, I already mentioned that I have ideas and envisioned scenes for another book. Today I took this a foolhardy step further and formulated the dreaded … One-Sentence Summary For New Book, Only Worshipful Praise Welcome
Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer is probably his best known work, and it was highly-praised from its first pressing in 1962. Though mostly plot-less, it follows a few month in the life of Binx Bolling, a stock broker and veteran of the Korean War who now lives a quiet life in suburban New Orleans. The book … Book Review: The Moviegoer
The other day I ran into one of my pastors downtown. He had on his headphones so I laid my hand on his shoulder in the most non-threatening way one could do. We talked for a few minutes on the sidewalk in front of a coat store, and it was the sort of interaction seemed … Vitruvian Rendezvous
There’s colored yarn strings of stuttered graffiti phrases on the once-bare concrete walls that parallel the east busway on the ride into downtown. One of the legible phrases is “NO SET FUTURE”, set in half-serifed seafoam. Given the number of people that ride on those buses every day I’m estimating that more people will read … One Set Future
There’s an annual, month-long phenomenon called National Novel Writing Month (usually referenced by the offensively cutesy portmanteau, NaNoWriMo), and any writer with a blog worth its Google-salt is mentioning it — often through several posts. The idea is that participants spend the entire month of November writing, and completing, an entire 50k word novel, with … National Throw Words Onto A Screen Month
With a nod to its rural heritage, America recently resurrected a lost hour, so now the days are brighter earlier and much colder. The bike ride to the bus stop is actually less terrible in the these months because the only motivation heat doesn’t kill is the desire to smash your nose into ice cream. … It’s Thanksgiving Time and You’re Kicking Me
The Tell Tale Heart and Other Writings compiles (presumably) Poe’s better short stories and poems. If you’re familiar with “The Raven” and “The Tell Tale Heart” — and anyone who’s taken high school-level English, known a few goths that affect airs, or simply owns a TV would be — you’ll have a good idea of … Book Review: The Tell Tale Heart and Other Writings
Through some recent discussions with a friend I’ve decided to take comments off the blog. Not that the comments were really a huge “problem” to begin with, but it’s more representative of something internal. I want this site to be a documentation of a cadre of various things, a few of which are broad topics … Comments Closed, For Eternity
I received The Road to Serfdom last week in the mail, and book club is this Sunday. So immediately I switched from Poe to Hayek to make good on the deadline. Is this noteworthy? Not really, other than as an exemplary occurrence of the mania of someone who might take too seriously his reading schedule … The Pit (of a Certain Nantucketian) and The Penduluum (of Economic Theories)
On an episode of 60 Minutes a while back I heard of a writer who preferred to create on a typewriter instead of a computer because it forced him to reconsider things more effectively. Ray Bradbury drafted Fahrenheit 451 on a rented typewriter in the basement of a college building. He inserted dimes at the … This Is Not What You Wanted
“The grim phantasm,” of paper. The blurry, delicately left-aligned photograph you see here are all of the books in my possession that are in queue for reading. Please note the absence of the highest priority item, Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which has been posted from an operative in Ebayland. You see, book club has … The House of Usher (of Books)
I ate an apple today that was named after a typical American male forename: Joey, Dennis, Christopher. Something. In my hand it was bigger and more dense than I expected and I wanted to yell out “APPLE GRENADE” before biting into it, but I generally like staying employed. Now the fruitbomb has been turned into … An Assembly of Resented Fools
My long-time friend and blog boss Seth W wrote a little e-book for which I did a mostly-adequate layout job, and you can download it for free. It’s called How to Buy Your First Bike, where he finally sticks it to Gettier’s paradox. Just kidding. He just advises us on the best way to hand … How to Download a PDF About Buying Your First Bike
Humble Apologetics offers to steer Christians toward a better way of defending (or explaining) their belief system in the general market of religious ideas. As you can guess, like most of other books addressed to the church at large, author and theology professor John Stackhouse says church has been doing it wrong for the last … Book Review: Humble Apologetics
Older than many things. It’s not very big (that’s a mini-pencil beside it), but I didn’t want anything bulky. The edges of some pages are yellowing, and there’s arcane charts and tables of measurements relating to growing and caring for commercial crops, some minimalist advertising for fertilizer, and two calendars of the entire year of … Notebook Bought
Not my notebooks. I’ve toyed with the idea of a pocket notebook for a while, after reading somewhere about how Chesterton would stop while crossing the street to write down a thought. This is partly because I like to cause car accidents, but mostly because I can’t remember any thought that strikes me from the … Write It Down
After reading Why I Am Not A Christian I wanted to balance it out with the other side, though the intent of the books are very different. I had read Warranted a few years ago, but a second pass through helped me retain a whole lot more of Platinga’s idea. As barely an amateur philosopher … Book Review: Warranted Christian Belief
I totally made a big change in my life by increasing the font size of the body text and changing the font itself, to trebuchet MS. I like how readable the articles on mises.org are, so I took a cue from their designer. On a less successful note, I tried using (a very large version … Totally Useless Update About Fonts and Background Images
I may get some business cards printed up. Why? Because there have been a few instances where I wanted to give people my contact info for something writey-related and I had to resort to ye olde fashionede quill and parchment. It feels far less professional than handing over a decently designed business card. So here … Making the Call
Brett McCracken’s Hipster Christianity attempts to document the fusion of modern western Christianity with the hipster subculture. It’s mostly a descriptive book with a bit of prescriptive advice at the end that might ruffle some feathers, but for the most part McCracken -– a writer for spiritual hipster publication Relevant magazine –- offers germane insight … Book Review: Hipster Christianity
Invisible Creature started a series of posts on packaging design, then and now. Their first target is a box of Trix. It’s the case that packaging has gotten a lot more cluttered the past few decades. Empty space in design is seen as wasted real estate for marketing or information. Our eyes aren’t able to … Your Writing Is Terrible: Put Your Pen Down
Being the father of an almost-five year old and a book dweeb, I naturally enjoy reading her books with her — at least, as much as an adult can enjoy that sort of thing. The ones that are didactic are fairly innocuous in their delivery; they promote good manners, cooperation, learning, imagination, inventiveness (some of … Collectivist Kids’ Books
I received my copy of Hipster Christianity that I won from Mike Duran. When I unzipped the FedEx box, that one part from Handel’s Messiah echoed somewhere from the side of my house. You may recall that I won one of his handmade crosses a few months ago. Didn’t hear any Handel when the package … I Heard Jesus Smoked Cloves
On a non-literary note, I did some tidying up on the site, most noticeably in the graphics department. It’s 8-bit time! After listening to some Anamanaguchi I redid the “jd” logo in the corner, jiggered the icons (and the content) on the About page — and made all the images one sprite file. I also … Wizard Needs Food…Badly
I’ve informally made sure to keep this writey blog Christian-theology-free — and sometimes I skirt too close to the edge — but I’m not afraid to post in that area of interest if it has something to do with the engrossing use of language (I have a Venn diagram benignly hovering in my head). Enter … The Confession of Chalcedon
A longtime friend of mine, Seth W, wrote an e-book on killing your blog, a minimalist diatribe to encourage us to spend more time doing things rather than writing about them. This is coming from someone who has been blogging for nearly a decade and runs the Internet’s biggest metal sites (and who is singlehandedly … Kill Your Friends
Not so much a book as it is a compilation of essays and lectures, Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian encompasses, presumably, his reasoning for Christianity as a religious truth. I say “presumably” because I know Russell to have been a noted and influential philosopher, and that Why would follow in the tradition … Book Review: Why I Am Not A Christian
I came across You Write Like, where you can input text that you’ve written, a form of necromancy passes through your hard drive, and you are assigned a literary doppelganger. I input about a half-dozen bodies of text that I’ve done, from stories on here to a some paragraphs from my book. About four times … Your Writing Is Terrible: You Write Like A Dead Person
The other day in the car the family was listening to a song from Anberlin, called “Reclusion”. One of the lines in the chorus goes like this: Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide. Nice line, but it had me thinking that this could be taken two different ways, which aren’t radically different … English Be Hard: Skeletal Punctuation
The excerpt below is from a book I never published, titled How the Gods Shook or A Season Underneath. “What’s the story?” I asked. “Morning glory!” he said. “My battery is getting worse and worse. We should move to a quieter place. What’s with the cap?” “I’m not allowed to wear one?” Pedaling slowly, he … How the Gods Shook, Excerpt Two
A few years ago I started the official site for Alvin Plantinga, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Notre Dame. I had contacted him about doing a site after reading Warranted Christian Belief (read it all for free here). There were papers and other things floating around the web that weren’t really consolidated into one … Planting(a) Seeds
The excerpt below is from a book I never published, titled How the Gods Shook or A Season Underneath. “Afternoon, Bite Size,” she breathed in her smooth contralto. “What’s up with you and Cecil?” I asked, pointing my chin towards 5th. “We were talking.” “I could see that.” “Then why’d you ask?” Her blue eyes … How the Gods Shook, Excerpt One
Matt’s been my friends for more than a decade now, and we were in a band together so I got to witness the words firsthand. At the time I wasn’t too much attune to good writing that much, but in the last few years I’ve been recollecting and piecing together lyrics and things I’ve read … Other People Write: Matt Clifford
I’ve been searching for ways to get the second draft of my book knocked out. Usually it’s “when I find time”, and this still holds true, but I will be finding more time in the next few months to actually pound this thing into submission. With that, I think I will be posting excerpts of … How the Gods Book
Earlier this month Rachelle Gardner gathered a lot of responses from authors about the one-sentence book pitch contest. I mean, she’s a literary agent that encourages comments her blog, so of course authors are going to flock in droves to get themselves noticed. She could post about the off-color of her pee in the morning … Gods In One Sentence
I issued a challenge earlier in the week for writers to write a poem or short story about or set in the summertime, without using a list of certain words. That was kind of a big risk because I have almost no readership and having no responses would make me look sillier than I already … Your Writing Is Terrible: Summer Poetry Finished
With the summer months upon the northern hemisphere, some fiction writers and bloggers will attend to the most favored of all seasons (except if you’re already somewhere hot…then it’s just annoying). Unfortunately, because of the common vocabulary bank tied to the summer experience, after a few dozen stories the flow and bounce of words will … Your Writing Is Terrible: Summer Poetry
I got a new bike over Memorial Day weekend: a steel frame Trek 520. It’s actually very old, but it’s new to me — and it’s my first road bike. I was using a mountain bike heft to my bus stop, which was certainly workable but not ideal in suburban/urban terrain. It was also a … Memorial Day 2010 Bike Ride
I was pretty excited to read this as it comes recommended by a lot of proponents of the Austrian school of economics. Despite knowing about Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson, I didn’t know much of the content. I believe the title is misleading, because the lesson is actually just one sentence long. Hazlitt humorously … Book Review: Economics In One Lesson
One of my favorite philosophical paradoxes is the Ship of Theseus. If I have a ship and I gradually replace the parts of the ship as they break or suffer from wear and tear, it’s possible that eventually I will have a ship with none of the original parts. The real ship of Theseus — … Paradox in Character Development
I hadn’t heard of O’Connors Wise Blood until it mysteriously materialized in my to-read list. This might not be remarkable except for the fact that the mid-century book is highly rated both critically and general readership-wise. Maybe my cultural connection to the literary world and its history is still in question. The story follows Hazel … Book Review: Wise Blood
You can buy a print of Eve’s Geometry, signed by me, on the store page. If I’m feeling adventurous while I pack it you might even get something extra with it — though I promise it won’t be a pig’s heart with a nail through it. Those are expensive to procure and that kind of … Throw Your Dirty Money At the Internet’s Face
I recently won a drawing for a handmade cross by writer Mike Duran at deCOMPOSE, and it came in the mail a few days ago. It’s called “Moon”, and I’m kind of glad that there’s two different moons on there. Look carefully, one of them is implied — so implied that I don’t think Mike … Something Something Clever Cross/Mail Pun
Most people know of Nabokov from Lolita, a book bearing a title now synonymous with guileless jailbaiting teenage girls. Pale Fire was published after Lolita and hasn’t enjoyed its household word status, probably because it’s significantly more difficult to read and far less prurient. If you can successfully wade through his complicated narrative and strange … Book Review: Pale Fire
Saturday and Sunday were pretty busy for me, as it was Art All Night in Pittsburgh. I checked my “art” in (I goofed the process up a few times. Apparently I can’t follow simple written directions…) with Marcia and her husband Travis, came back to my place for some food, then hit up the actual … Art All Night All Done
I registered to be a part of Art All Night in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I won’t go into details about what it is, but basically anyone can submit a piece of art for it. I don’t qualify as a real artist but I am passable at graphic design — I’ll be submitting a … Art All Night, Falling Out My Pants
Her Fearful Symmetry is the followup to unfortunately-surnamed Niffennegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (which, I have been told, is slightly more enjoyable and popular). The story revolves around twin sisters, Julia and Valentina, who inherit a flat in London, from a recently-deceased aunt’s. It’s located directly adjacent to the large, historic Highgate Cemetery, where their … Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry
The Devil Wears Prada recently released the video for ‘Assistant to the Regional Manager’. I covered the video shoot for Noisecreep, so it was nice to see the finished product emerge. I only witnessed a fraction of the gruntwork, organization, and creativity that went into it, but I know that the entire videographic process is … The Devil’s Assistant
Tiffany Cooper, a good friend of mine and one half of the Hot Metal Studio duo, recently let loose with a blog post containing photos of the interview I did with Iwrestledabearonce and their set at Diesel in Pittsburgh’s South Side. I’m not super into photos of myself but she did a great job. One … Iinterviewedabearonce
I have a recent post over at Noisecreep on a video of a death metal version of Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”. It’s probably one of the only pop standards I really like, especially the elegance of the lyrics (“elegance” in the sense but “brief but meaningful”). My favorite line is the “dark, sacred … Louis Armstrong Goes Death Metal
Come and see the place where he lay. -Matthew 28:6 I thought about writing another scripture-based story, like how I did with A Native’s Story, but the idea came to me about ten minutes ago and it’s already Easter. Maybe next year, if someone cares enough to remind me. EDIT on 4/5: My conscience/muse has … He Is Not Here
I’m interviewing Iwrestledabearonce tonight. Their new album is called It’s All Happening, and their vocalist may become a focus of furries if they get big enough. Do they know the convention is in Pittsburgh? Time is in front of my face and burning up quick. The ashes are getting in my eyes.
Dr. Alaniz’ Beyond Future Shock is a triple combo romance-sci-fi-war novel that takes place over the span of a few millennia, though most of it is in the 20th and 21st centuries. The amount of quality reading material is cut about 50-50 with some drek that required an editor’s literary filtering to make a less … Book Review: Beyond Future Shock
Head on over to Noisecreep to read the second post from my interview with Cory Brandan from Norma Jean, about his graphic design work. We met in a venue’s smoky side room with an unused bar. There was a flossing pick on the couch on which we sat. Not sure if it was also unused; … Norma Jean Interview, Part 2
It’s a boy. It was born with a switchblade in one hand, and in the other hand a slip of paper with your name and address on it.
Pastor Joe spoke about the many messiahs and he used the Powerpoint to his great advantage. There were many of them, splendidly arrayed in their dopey spiritual regalia. The slides flew by one after another like a disjointed flipbook of crazies. Later that day I dozed somewhere and dreamed of being at work, on 38. … The Sharp Hills
Maria Solheim’s “Train Underwater” slinks through the ear buds, introducing itself with a series of muddled swishes and string scrapes that barely step over into tonal territory; just before the simple, clean vocals and compressed low-end jabs. “At tiny ray of light sneaks up…” The Franktuary (formerly Hot Dogma) is on Oliver and 3rd. Reflecting … Listen and Learn