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Month: February 2013

The Lascaux Review

The Lascaux Review

I was recently named “web editor” for the website The Lascaux Review, which in their words “provides a showcase for emerging and established writers and artists”. This is a pretty cool thing, in my opinion.

They let me choose my title. I decided to go with “web editor” because it makes me feel like Spiderman a little bit. Don’t judge.

I’m really just working with them part-time, as needed, on anything they need done to their website (they are launching a new design for the site soon). It’s something I’d be happy to do anyhow, but it’s official so I get my name listed on their About page (check it out!).

While you’re at it, head over to their Flash Fiction site and check out their latest writing contest (cash prize – $250!). You could totally win.

The Earth Is Where We Make Our Stand

The Earth Is Where We Make Our Stand

The above is an animation of the wonderful web comic done by Zen Pencils which is originally based on a quote by Carl Sagan which in turn was inspired by the famous Pale Blue Dot photograph.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

This is along the same lines at what I was getting at the other day, when I talked about the myth that we can’t afford to explore space. The fact of the matter is that we’ve screwed up this place too much and eventually we’re gonna have to abandon it. Might as well start sooner than later. Although, maybe the real point is this: even if we do manage to escape the Earth, we won’t ever escape ourselves.

Pantser or Plotter

Pantser or Plotter

I did a fun interview about novel planning, Pantser or Plotter, with Sherry Soule a while back. She just posted it to her blog yesterday and you should totally check it out (and leave a comment over there so she knows you all love me). I was quite silly in my answers. Not only that, if you go over there you can find out which fictional character I once had a crush on.

Anyhow, check it out. Please?

Pantser or Plotter? with @strugglngwriter

Dinosaur Wars – American Experience

Dinosaur Wars – American Experience

Do you like history? If you’re a deep person, as I imagine all my readers are, then I’m sure you are. Do you like Dinosaurs. You are a carbon based human life form from the planet Earth, so I’m just going to assume your answer to this one is yes also.

Well, then I think you’re going to want to watch this episode of PBS’s American Experience: Dinosaur Wars. From their synopsis:streaming movie Transformers: The Last Knight 2017

In the summer of 1868, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh boarded a Union Pacific train for a sight-seeing excursion through the heart of the newly-opened American West. While most passengers simply saw magnificent landscapes, Marsh soon realized he was traveling through the greatest dinosaur burial ground of all time. Ruthless, jealous and insanely competitive, Marsh would wrestle over the discovery with the other leading paleontologist of his generation — Edward Drinker Cope. Over time, the two rivals would uncover the remains of dozens of prehistoric animals, including over 130 dinosaur species, collect thousands of specimens, provide ample evidence to prove Charles Darwin’s hotly disputed theory of evolution and put American science on the world stage. But their professional rivalry eventually spiraled out of control. What began with denigrating comments in scientific publications led to espionage, the destruction of fossils and political maneuvering that ultimately left both men alone and almost penniless.

Riveting stuff. My only complaint is that I wish it were an ongoing series.