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Gaming Television & Movies Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

Konsplosion konfirmed!

KonsplosionI’m confirmed as a panelist at Konsplosion, this September in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The scheduling here is a bit tricky: I’ve been committed to this year’s OVGE since… well… last year’s OVGE. This year’s OVGE is the tenth anniversary show, the tables are already reserved, and I can’t really not go.

So the trick here is this: Konsplosion runs September 20th through 22nd. I will do three panels – probably back to back! – on the 22nd: Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, Brit Sci-Fi that isn’t Doctor Who, and the Early History of Video Games. I will have my books and DVDs there to sell/sign between panels. (The books and DVDs will also be available at OVGE the day before.)

I will not have a table at Konsplosion, but my good friends at the Facebook group River Valley Time Lords will have one. Basically, if you’re anywhere in the western half of Arkansas and you like time traveling police boxes, you probably need to be joining that group rightaboutnowish. Big Things are being planned in this area. This area needs cool geeky stuff, and I’m proud to have even a small hand in helping to make some of that stuff happen.

Anyway, that’s the update. Stay tuned!… Read more

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Television & Movies Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

Thanks to all the VWORPers and Storybundlers out there!

McCoy's bookin' itThanks to all who have bought the unofficial Doctor Who Storybundle thus far – the feedback’s been great so far.

If you like my occasional Whovian musings, also check out my fellow authors’ sites (and their other books):

See what I said about good company? And quite a few mentions on the web:

Thanks to everyone who has partaken so far – spread the word, there are only 12 days and change left! Do it in the name of peace and sanity and affordable ebooks!

Also: please remember to write reviews on sites such as Amazon and Goodreads, not only of my books but the others you read in the Who Storybundle. As I said in an earlier post, for those of us trying to hit escape velocity, break out of the orbit of our old lives and become full-time writers, you’re writing our new resumes when you review our books. If nobody reviews a book, it kinda looks like no one’s read it either.

Holding out for a physical copy? Hit me up at Glitchcon in two weeks, I’m always happy to sign ’em.… Read more

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Funny Stuff Television & Movies

To WHO it may concern, GREETINGS!!1!

Who goes thereThe past week or so has been interesting in the world of Doctor Who fandom. Honestly, I’ve almost forgotten that we’re supposed to be taking bets on who replaces Matt Smith at this point. On the off-chance that you’re not really a Doctor Who fan yourself… well, first off, what on Earth are you doing at this web site, which is fairly dripping with Doctor Who?

But, beyond that, all you really need to know is this: during the 1960s, Doctor Who was produced in black & white on video, and the series was made almost year-round to the tune of one 25-minute episode per week. The videotapes were transferred to a more universal medium – film – and sold abroad, often dubbed into the local language. From various points in Europe to the Middle East and beyond, these films were “bicycled” from broadcaster to broadcaster, a practice that was still in force as recently as my early years in the TV biz (I distinctly remember that, at the station where I worked in the early ’90s, episodes of Mama’s Family were bicycled from station to station; no, I don’t know why either).

And then, in the late ’60s, staring down the barrel of an impending change of video format with little reasonable expectation that programs recorded in the older, lower-resolution format could ever be exploited commercially, and knowing that yet a further new format would be introduced in due course (namely, color television), the British Broadcasting Corporation issued internal instructions to its videotape archive: get rid of these old shows. Get rid of everything that isn’t of obvious historic value (such as footage of the Queen’s coronation). In the BBC’s view, there was no point in wasting all of that valuable space to preserve programming which had no commercial future.

If only they’d known. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming ToyBox Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

Conventional thinking: Darkon & ComiCon-Way after-action report

What a long, strange couple of weekends it’s been.

VWORP!1 + PDF

Last weekend I went to Darkon in Tulsa (a first-year horror-themed event put on by the folks behind Tulsa Trek Expo), and this weekend I was at another first-time event, ComiCon-Way in Conway, Arkansas. But more than just the latest stops on my tour of nearby conventions to promote VWORP!1, these were Little E’s first conventions. Whereas previous conventions were “daddy is gone this weekend,” now he wonders what we’re going to do, and what we’re going to see, next weekend. … Read more

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Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

A request from your friendly neighborhood writer

I could lay a great big sob-story guilt trip on you about how hard it is to even begin to get within four billion light years of “making it” as a self-published author, but instead I’ll just throw out a few facts and figures. I’ll try not to take more than, oh, say, 45 or 50 minutes of your time with this. … Read more

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Television & Movies Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

So about that book thing…

The GuideThe GuideI’ve been teasing a third book project in the works for a couple of weeks now, though at the time its general shape was still sort of coalescing in mid-air before my eyes. The skeleton of it has evolved to a point now where I feel comfortable enough to make an announcement. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll probably dig this if you even remotely liked VWORP!1. … Read more

Categories
Write, Write, You Bloody Well Write

What is occurring?

Angel robot thingiesI haven’t been blogging very regularly, for which I apologize. Many things have been occurring.

Konsplosion was the weekend of August 17th/18th/19th in Fort Smith, and while I was there (in my first gig as a guest speaker) for all of two hours, it seemed pretty packed. In the weeks leading up to Konsplosion, I had a bit of difficulty getting the show’s organizers to respond to my multiple attempts to pitch myself as a guest speaker; I literally didn’t know until about 72 hours out if I was going or not. My presentations were outlined but not practiced in any way (every speech or drama teacher I’ve ever studied under will no doubt be revving up to about 3,000 RPM in their grave right about now), and then, to my horror, I got up in front of a crowded room and discovered that the outline I’d printed at home about 10 minutes before leaving the house… … Read more