All posts tagged: Jenn Lyons

You’re Not Good Enough

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‘What if I’m not good enough?’ That’s my goblin. It’s not just my goblin. It’s my husband’s goblin and my friends’ goblins and it haunts the dreams of so many people I know, online and in the real world, who dip their toes in creative works or dive in with both feet and a held breath. That goblin waits for the dark hours of the night and ambushes us from paragraphs of mangled reviews or worse, from the silence of a lone voice echoing lost in the static of the internet. So let me be perfectly clear: you’re not good enough. Don’t be mad. I’m not good enough either. No one is good enough. We are, all of us, flawed and imperfect and self-destructive, and while we are constantly striving towards perfection, it a goal that none of us will ever reach. Take a deep breath and accept that you are not good enough. Be liberated by that, so that you give yourself permission to make mistakes. (Sometimes the accidents are so damn beautiful.) Pick yourself …

On Book Covers

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I used to be a graphic designer. This isn’t exactly a secret, and I was a graphic designer for something like 20 years (a little over, but close enough.) I became something of a specialist in logos, which are often considered the hardest work a graphic designer can do. Nope. I wasn’t giving enough credit to book cover designers. This stuff is HARD. Keep in mind: I am an artist. I have that advantage over most writers — I still think this stuff is hard. Insanely hard. When I say writing the book was the easy part, that is nothing but blunt honesty. You’re probably wondering why I’m designing the book cover at all, if I have a publishing contract. The truth is: I don’t have to. I’m very lucky in that my publisher is open to the idea of letting me take a crack at it (even if they go with something else, which would be their contractual right.) As a graphic artist turned writer, I have it within me to be the most obnoxious of …

©2013 Richard Lund

Beginning My Next Novel

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Okay, so here I am…I have two finished books shopping for a home, one of which is well on its way to publication. So I should finish the epic fantasy, right? Hell no. I’m writing the sequel to Blood Chimera, my debut novel. Because when folks finish reading that, I want them to have a book they can jump right to, or at the very least, know that it will soon follow. Oh, which reminds me: Avast! Here there be spoilers! Go away if you don’t want to accidentally find out details of Blood Chimera. You still here? Okay, let’s get this shit started (as Ze Frank would say.) So the first thing I do, the very first thing, is pick out music. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I like to have soundtracks when I’m planning a book. And this is a pretty music heavy book. There will be nightclubs, concerts and stuff as we spend some more time in Hollywood and along Sunset Strip. So let’s see…I start with some David Bowie, and then …

Weaver @2013, Jenn Lyons

Marduk’s Rebellion Concept Art: Mallory McLain

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Meet Lieutenant Mallory McLain, code-named “Weaver,” an Intelligence Operations agent working for the Solar Independence League, the fancy-schmancy title for what most folks just call ‘The Rebellion.’ She’s one of the best of the best, a solo operative who specializes in break-ins: computer, prison or research lab. Only now that the aliens the human race has been fighting for almost a century are suing for a treaty and withdrawing from their occupation of Earth, there will finally be peace and she’s going to be out of a job. Right? Works in theory. Updated: The great thing about posting this is that after staring at her for a few days, I’ve decided to return her to being a blonde. The character is happier that way, if that makes any sense.

Why Momma Needs Her Stories

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Anyone who doubts that the worlds we create in fiction can have a profound effect on the reality around us should go read this article on world-wide fertility rates. If you’re anything like me, you grew up being told several unassailable facts: one, that the world-wide population was booming to unsustainable levels and two, this was because  third world countries were having too many kids. I remember hearing incredible numbers: the population of the planet would be at 10 billion by 2010, which would of course lead to everyone starving and killing each other over that last piece of broccoli  Except this hasn’t quite panned out. The chaotic system turns out to be just a little self-adjusting, and it’s not necessarily for the reasons you’d think — certainly for no reason Darwin would have suggested. Population growth has slowed radically in the last twenty years. Virtually every part of the world but Africa is now operating at near ‘replacement’ levels of population growth — i.e. populations that are either self-sustaining or shrinking. Africa is still seeing …

The Best School

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Last year this article started making the rounds on facebook and social media. Various other sources have picked it up because…well go on, read it. It’s amazing, isn’t it? The core idea is like Lord of the Flies with knowledge instead of blood as the punchline. They took one thousand tablet PCs, still in boxes, dropped them off at two villages, and left. No instructions. No lesson plans. Then…they let kids do what kids do best: get into shit they’re not supposed to be messing with. Six months later, those kids had not only figured out how to use the computer to teach themselves, their parents, and everyone around them to read and write but had taught themselves hacking in order to turn back on some of the tablet features (like the camera and internet access) that had been turned off originally. Would those kids have done all that if they’d been forced to? Marched into a school, sat down and given a strict lesson plan with at least three hours of homework? Maybe…I’m open …

Dark Son

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Another reposted story from There by Candlelight: ——————————- Marty Lucas walked into the principal’s office like he was about to receive an award, maybe something for bravery or valor — a citation for standing up to a bunch of punk bullies who thought they could get away with beating the candy out of every kid who was weaker, smaller and different from what they thought was ‘cool.’ The difference in posture was transforming: most of the kids who knew him in class wouldn’t have recognized him. Marty normally walked through the world with his head down, his hands stuffed into the pocket of his tan jacket, his eyes on the street, lost in his own thoughts. Today only, he walked like he owned the place, like he was a foot taller and could take on anyone who gave him the wrong look. The school secretary, Nina Collington, looked distinctly bemused as she observed him. Nina was saucy looking redhead in her mid-thirties with short page-cut hair and mod cat’s eye glasses who has worked for the school …

On the Road

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An essay worth reading by Vanessa Vaselka. [Edited to add: Read this piece too. I think I love this woman.] I remember when I was twenty-one, and working as a graphic artists for a newspaper in Los Angeles, two of my female co-workers left for a year to travel around the world together. It was not a good time for American women to be traveling around the world, but then again, I suppose one can argue it has rarely ever been. There’s always some reason it’s safer to stay at home. I was jealous of their bravery and their financial means (although they were not traveling in anything like style — this was $5 a day hitchhiking stuff they would be undertaking.) I was astounded that they could want to do this. Weren’t they scared? What if something should happen? Were they really going to hike through India? China? The same imagination which is so beneficial to me as a writer also would have tied me up in anxious knots about such a journey. A …

©2013 SnowSkadi

You See a Gazebo

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It’s one of the most famous stories in tabletop gaming history. I was well into my gaming career when I first heard it, as well as a little amazed that I hadn’t heard it prior because I had, for a brief time, gamed with one of the Cal Tech RPG groups, and you’d think that’s just the sort of thing that they would have gleefully shared with anyone and everyone. But heh, I was was also that rarest of creatures (at the time,) a female gamer, so maybe they didn’t think think it was the right way to impress me. Follow the link above for the full and complete tale, but to paraphrase: once upon a time a group of terrifically smart people got together for an evening of make-believe and during the session, the DM explained that there was a gazebo. It was white, it was large, it was just sitting there. What followed was worthy of an Abbott & Costello routine, because it never occurred to the DM  that his player might have no clue …