This is why spelling is important: I originally wrote that “And the Fuhrer dies”, and that’s a completely different concept. For those of you who are still researching/cursing/pondering/lambasting/or just generally checking out the Richard Ridyard Plagiarism controversy (or #plagiarismfail, as my friend Mason puts it), I have a bunch of links for you. You may read on to your hearts … Read More
WIP Wednesday. Magic Happens!
Oh. My. Lands. This has been a two day firestorm. I have been shocked, angry, saddened, and finally bolstered and encouraged by the sense of community and support. And then the biggest treat of all was hopping over to Ray Veen’s blog where he wasn’t talking about ugliness and theft, but his insane word count. Rock on! And then … Read More
Plagiarism Ticks Us Right Off. Obviously.
Wow. This hit and it hit HARD. By now most of you are familiar with the idea that a person going by the name Richard Ridyard submitted a plagiarized version of Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” in to the magazine that I work for, Shock Totem. We immediately contacted Mr. King’s people and got the ball rolling. Then I found the … Read More
We Interrupt This Blog Post…
to give you a warning. A few days ago Shock Totem received a story called “Baboulas” by an author calling himself Richard Ridyard. John Boden, Assistant Editor of Shock Totem, read the story and immediately cried foul. “This is plagiarism,” he said. “This is Stephen King’s ‘The Boogeyman’ from his Night Shift collection. Even the title is the same!” ‘Baboulas’ … Read More
Pitching For The Terrified. First Impressions.
All right. It’s time to talk pitches. I am qualified to write on this subject because last week when I gave my first pitch, I had absolutely no idea what a pitch even was. How does that qualify me, you ask? I’m going to discuss Pitching for the Terrified, Mercedes Style. What does that mean? It means that if I … Read More
Running Through the Mojave…Part 2
Like it wasn’t hard enough the first time! (Heat exhaustion, throwing up on the course, longing to die for days afterwards.) And that was only a 5k! (True, it was in the heat of the day. “Running With The Devil” indeed.) But I’m going to be running my very first half marathon on Halloween morning. Where, you ask? Through the Mojave and … Read More
Be Mysterious: An Official Call
So if you have to blame somebody, blame Natalie Sin. Come on, it’s easy. I blame her all of the time! My daughter is so into dancing boys in bunny suits, now. Thanks to Sin herself, I may be raising a Furry. But I digress. We were talking about online personas and how we want our authors and artists to be … Read More
Robert Duperre Reviews…Moi!
Robert Duperre, author of The Rift, wrote an especially nice review of Michelle Howarth and I. That’s pretty cool. I waver between being all blushingly demure and “Yay!” excited. Stop by his blog A Journal of Always to read it, if you’d like. It would make all three of us happy. 🙂 Tomorrow I make my official Call to Mystery. … Read More
Come Back, My True Love
It’s still officially WIP Wednesday, at least for another 8 minutes. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I read slush, work from my writer’s group, and I’m going to town on a friend’s novel, since I’m good at removing back-story with a lethal stroke of my fiery pen. I read stories that my friends write. Oh, yeah, and … Read More
Luck Be A Lady…I’m Not Buying It
If there’s one thing that I don’t have, it’s luck. Or I do have luck, but it’s usually terrible, black luck, so I simply choose to ignore it. But when it comes to writing, you hear it all of the time: A lot of things depend on luck. You run across the right agent at the right time. The editor … Read More