Mason Truman Is on Twitter, and So Is GeekTells

Mason Truman has a Tweet

Check this out. Mason Truman is on Twitter. @MasonTrumanPI. Yeah, I know. He’s the   main character of my first novel, and sure, he was born…err…will be born in 2087, but there he is tweeting up a steady diet of algae-strained coffee, eagles, and life in the Dawdle. Bleh. AIs, combines, and writers. Literally the banes of my existence. https://t.co/GMGJL8T6MJ — Mason Truman, PI (@masontrumanpi) April 25, 2017

Death Wish Coffee Quick Look

Rancilio Heaven

I Instagrammed a photograph of the Death Wish Coffee Dave Hamilton sent to me, and several people asked me to review it. Accordingly, I pulled a couple of espresso shots with it this morning, and I’m delighted to report that Death Wish Coffee is good. What could go wrong? Thanks @davehamilton!

Prologue Is Past

Old typewriter with "Prologue" crossed out by a red pen.

I stripped the prologue from my novel recently. I had to do it, and that makes me tense. Let me explain. No, first, some catchup: I took time off from my novel last year (hence the lack of updates here). I needed to distance myself from it so I could see it with fresh(er) eyes. Once I came back to it, I realized the beginning wasn’t as tight as the ending, where I’ve spent far, far more time. I fixed that, and in the process I made myself nuke the prologue. Agents and editors are mixed on prologues these days, Continue Reading →

Speaking of Clouds, How about Some Words?

What are words for?

I won’t bother telling you that I’ve finished Accidental Intelligence again. We’ve all been down that path together too many times. I will tell you, however, that I started querying once more. It’s a rough time of year to query because many agents stop taking submissions this quarter, but we’ll see what we see. I have what I think is a good query letter, and Q really helped me polish the holy heck out of my manuscript. Between her and D. A. Del Castillo, not to mention my great betas, I’ve had some remarkable help. Anyhoo, I ran my final manuscript through Wordle.net—which is just Continue Reading →

Fiddle About

ZOMG, but Giorgio A. Tsoukalos is one of my guilty pleasures. First on Ancient Aliens and various standalone UFO specials, and now on his own show, a reboot of Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of…I love this guy. In fact, if there’s a show on H2 where the answer to every question asked by the narrator is “No!” Mr. Tsoukoalos is probably involved, and I love them all. Right now, I’m watching the In Search Of… episode dedicated to Puma Punku. This place fascinates me. I reject the conclusions reached on every show I’ve seen about the site—i.e. that aliens built it Continue Reading →

Scattershot: Writing Update, Guitar Show, Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Drool

I know, it’s been roughly forever since my last update. I’ve been working quite hard on my novel(s), and I have a new query letter that’s almost ready to go out. I’ve also been working very hard at TMO, and have resumed my original role there as editor-in-chief. It’s made for a very, very busy me, and updating my blog has was one area that suffered accordingly. Querying Some of you might remember that I queried my novel before, roughly two years ago. I’ve explained all that, but with the newly completed novel came the need for a new query Continue Reading →

Stick a Fork in It (Again)

I am delighted to announce that my book is finished. Again. I know, I said that before. OK, I’ve said it twice, but I think it will stick this time. I am ready to shop this puppy. Again. Mayhaps I should explain: a few months ago I finished the book and got it out to beta readers. Based on their feedback, I decided to tweak the ending. That ended up being much harder than I was anticipating, and I ended up writing some 24,000 words for what ultimately became a 2,600 word tweak. Just imagine me at an old-fashioned typewriter Continue Reading →

Off to the Beta Readers…

It’s weird. Really weird, but I don’t have anything that I can—or even should—do to my book, and that’s because I’ve sent it to a few beta readers. While I still have 1,000 more words to cut, I need to let it sit before I go through it for what is probably the 50th time. And with that last pass, I was pretty pleased with it. I feel like it’s close, but as I mentioned last week, no one but my trusted critique partner has seen 70 or so percent of it, so now it’s time to find out what Continue Reading →

Buried in Words

Counting Words

I got yelled at on Twitter for not having updated my blog since…July. That was in October, and here it is November, so I might be doing this wrong. Never you mind! Onwards and upwards! Storm the castle! Hip! Hip! Hooey! No time like the present, said Bryan. Never. So what have I been doing with my time? Lots. And lots. For one thing, I’ve been tink, tink, tinkering away at my manuscript. Back in July, I mentioned I was done, but had 35,000 words to cut. since then, I’ve added another 3,000 words in the process of rewriting and Continue Reading →

I Finished Writing My Novel (Again)

Mason Truman. He has a fork.

I finished writing my novel last night. I should say that I finished writing it again, because technically I thought I finished it about a year ago. This time is different, though, because I finished what was originally going to be the second novel, which means the full story is complete for the first time. There are caveats, of course. The last chapter is only in a first-and-a-half draft state, and the last two chapters haven’t faced the withering scrutiny of my critique partner, let alone my bank of awesome beta readers. Also, it’s sitting at 155,000 words. That means Continue Reading →