As I mentioned yesterday, I did quite a bit of reading on my recent trip to the UK. First up was Pwned (Lexy Cooper Book 2) by Christa Charter. I don’t read a lot of mystery books (and I’m not really sure what the difference is between a mystery novel and a crime novel) but the Lexy Cooper books are set in the world of videogames and that was enough to tempt me into trying them. I read the first Lexy book, Schooled, the week before I left for the UK. Schooled has Lexy working with detective Mike Malick to solve the murder of one of Lexy’s coworkers. Lexy works as a community manager at Xenon, a very thinly veiled version of Microsoft. Coincidentally, Christa Charter used to work as a community manager for Microsoft’s XBox console and she’s used that experience to create a fun “world” for Lexy to play in. Schooled was a quick, fun read so I picked Pwned as my first “holiday read”. I didn’t enjoy Pwned quite as much. There’s two separate plots in the book – Mike’s murder mystery and Lexy’s personal life. The two barely intersect and the Lexy plot veered dangerously close to cheesy afternoon TV territory. That said, I still enjoyed it enough to buy the rest … Read More
Still Alive, Still Writing
It’s been a while since my last post. I guess time flies when you’re having fun. Or in my case – time flies when you’re having a root canal retreatment. My day job, a running injury, the aforementioned root canal and a whole load of editing of Leah may have curtailed my blogging but the writing streak continues. Although my daily word count numbers have dropped significantly because I’ve been revising and editing, I’m currently at 533 days with no plans to stop. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve made the last few revisions to Leah, wrapped up the first draft of Reg vs the Martians and started a couple of new chapters that will replace a chapter in Glitch that I’ve never been happy with. I’m not convinced this new stuff is much of an improvement but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. I’ll probably rewrite it again next year. I also outlined the sequel to The Zombie Book (working title). I’m heading off to England next week and I had originally planned to spend some time on the final revisions of Glitch. But I’ve come to the conclusion that editing on the road doesn’t really work … Read More
Five Things I Learned Last Week
After a brief laziness inspired hiatus, here’s five things I learned last week. Make of them what you will. There is a lizard sex satellite floating in space and Russia no longer has it under control (via The Washington Post) – If that’s not the hook for a science fiction novel, I don’t know what is. Dawn of the Planet of the Geckos anyone? Sean Platt, Johnny B Truant and David Wright have launched Sterling & Stone – Inspired by HBO and similar companies, the NSFW overlords of The Self-Publishing Podcast and ultra-prolific authors have created an umbrella ‘studio’ for their various genre imprints. Self-publishing is so easy even a four year old can do it – Okay his dad helped with the technical bits but the story was written and illustrated by him and that’s what’s important. It’s a cracking tale as well, with a nice twist. Well worth 99 of your hard earned cents. You can generate your own Lovecraftian writing prompt from here – There’s a bunch of these but I like this one the best. Rock legend, Midge Ure, is playing the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver in September – You can get your tickets here. [Five Things I Learned Last Week by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on … Read More