Category Archives: society & culture

Believe It or Not

Posted on May 5, 2018 by

I really wish I could stop insulting people’s religions. It doesn’t feel good. My fantasy series has a couple of evil religions in it, but they’re fictional — and that’s all you’re going to read in this post about writing. … Continue reading →

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Those Darn Pronouns

Posted on April 28, 2018 by

The question of what pronoun to use (he? she? he/she? they?) plagues writers. With less frequency but deeper consequences, it plagues everybody else. Today I got into a wrangle with a guy — on Facebook, as usual — who referred … Continue reading →

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Are We Being Creative Yet?

Posted on March 31, 2018 by

Creativity is when you create something. Something that didn’t exist before. That’s glaringly obvious — or so one would think. Oddly enough, classical musicians seem a bit confused on the subject. Writers of fiction have no trouble understanding it. If … Continue reading →

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Those Fabulous Fakes

Posted on December 6, 2017 by

We live in a world of fakes — fake boobs, fake eyelashes, fake scandals, lip-syncing musicians, and the ever-popular bare-faced lie. So we shouldn’t be surprised that some aspiring self-published authors resort to fake book reviews. Apparently there are people … Continue reading →

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Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on November 24, 2017 by

The trouble with being a white, middle-class writer in the 21st century, and specifically a writer of fantasy or science fiction, is that human culture is a lot stranger than we’re inclined to think it is. We tend to make … Continue reading →

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Cave Dwellers

Posted on October 18, 2017 by

Every author of fiction is an amateur psychologist. Fiction is about people, and except by an unlikely accident our stories and novels can be no better than our understanding of human nature. All human beings look at the world through … Continue reading →

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R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Posted on August 9, 2017 by

It’s a curious and depressing fact that while religious people very generally expect that their beliefs will be respected, they seldom show much inclination to respect the views of others. It sometimes happens that someone makes a statement about “God.” … Continue reading →

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