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Bad Habits of Beginning Writers
(RE: latest on the Bubba saga, see below) In my years hosting a writers’ critique group, I found that beginning writers frequently made the same writing mistakes, over and over. These were not necessarily due to inability or illiteracy, but simply to bad habits, habits that could be fixed. Here’s a brief summary of what I encountered. Sentences all the same length. Readers are not machines, they need variety in input and, like many endeavors, writing is not a science, but an art. A writer must develop a feel for implementing...
read moreWhat makes a best-seller?
As a Chinese philosopher once said, may you not live in interesting times. This was meant as empathy, since “interesting” signified social chaos and a decline of objective standards. Well, we live in an age of declining standards, just look at how many colleges are abandoning the SAT as a qualifying entrance exam. Part of this wider social decline is any standards for what constitute quality writing. Today’s writing mirrors today’s Hollywood movie-making, which is to say that popular fiction has become puerile,...
read moreJIHAD BUBBA
JIHAD BUBBA is my latest fiction book. It will soon be published by Equus Publishing. Set in a future United States, go-along get-along Bubba tries to survive and take care of the people he loves, but somehow just can’t manage. Anything that can happen does. Finally, Bubba decides he’s Not Going To Take It Anymore. In his own way, Bubba goes Full Jihad, with unpredictable consequences for everyone. You won’t stop laughing while reading this sci-fi novel about a futuristic Rainbow society with smart-alec robots and flying...
read moreAre books dead?
The above strip may give an idea of what kind of writing I like to do. Exotic, odd, detective and crime, alien invasion, satire, in short whatever is Just Plain Weird. But if one does not read, one can not write. And if one does not read widely and in depth, one can not write with originality or with deep meaning. The strangest thing I have ever heard was when I recently overheard someone say “I was so bored I almost read a book.” My response: “This person must be the most boring person alive. He knows nothing at...
read moreHappenings at Equus
I have been away from this blog for a good while but much has been happening in the background. Equus Publishing has always been mostly a vehicle for publishing my own works so I have usually declined to publish other people’s works while I waited to attract attention from entities that have more marketing capacity than I possess. In short, I have been waiting to be discovered, confident (hoping?) that good writing and great stories have not yet completely disappeared from modernity. I have had little time to devote to this endeavor....
read moreMaggie Kindles Updated
All Kindle versions of Equus / Dark Lotus Books have been updated with prices lowered to match current market conditions for eccentric works that are Just Plain Weird. All three books in my series the Adventures of Maggie the Radiated Lesbian Nun are now available in Kindles for $1.99. This a dollar more expensive than the Epubs currently available for purchase on Smashwords, but Kindles are easier to deal with and read than simple epubs. I still think the RLN covers need updating as well. I had great fun designing them myself, but maybe...
read moreUPDATED EQUUS IP
Just a note here as FYI that the Equus website recently switched IP’s. Since I decline to use third-party mailers on the grounds that many have a reputation for de-platforming users without notice thereby vaporizing their subscriber list, I instead use a Post SMTP delivery. But this is imperfect and inevitably some Equus notifications have been blocked by receivers’ ISPs because the new IP was not recognized, despite the double opt-in confirmations. There is no 100% solution except to re-signup for the Equus Newsletter at the new...
read moreImmanentizing the Eschaton with The Glow
The past two months have been frenetic as I finished my latest novel and transferred the Equus Publishing site to a new host. The Glow is complete, designed, and almost out. The first copies from the printer had a small defect, but for me—always obsessed with immanentizing the Eschaton—no defect is small. New copies are on the way for final inspection. For an explanation of the phrase, see Robert Anton Wilson’s classic The Illuminatus Trilogy, which happily threw POV into the dirt and trampled it into nothingness, to my immense relief....
read moreFree Frenzy with plot pics
This post is to let people know that an ebook version of Frenzy is available for free for a limited time at the following Book Funnel promotion. Click here to get a copy before the offer times out. Thanks! Please consider posting a review at your favorite review site, or shoot me an email letting me know how to improve, or perhaps advising I go into another line of work! The purpose of the freebies is to generate reviews and let people know the kind of crazy books that I write, given that I am just an individual without the advertising budget...
read moreFree Judge Crater: limited time only
I am currently offering FREE ebook copies of my book Judge Crater Takes a Powder. This is the first book in the comedy sci-fi satire: Adventures of Maggie, the Lesbian Radiated Nun. I had great fun writing this book, and–warning–it is irreverent, adult, and very funny! The book has no Safe Spaces for snowflakes or the easily offended. From the back cover: The most famous disappearance of the 20th century is solved as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Crater goes undercover for the FBI in this hilarious satire set in mid-century...
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