At the moment, I am hard at work on my second book, and just thought I'd share that I'm pretty excited about it. I've got some advance interest from agents, and I've got a whole lot of platform to work from; it's just a matter of figuring out how to present that platform.
It's a brand new book based on a project I worked on with my friend Byron Jones back when we were teenagers in the '80s. I'm borrowing liberally from my past to write the book, which is pretty much memoir. And there is a huge Doctor Who theme involved in it, as Doctor Who was, and still is, my favorite show. (If you've read Indian Summer, you know that one of the main characters, Don, is devoted to Star Trek. I share Don's passion, just for Doctor Who instead of Trek.)
So, watch here for news of an upcoming Website about that, and I look forward to blogging more (maybe once a week) as soon as the craziness of 2012 dies down.
Showing posts with label Daniel Rider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel Rider. Show all posts
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Back to the Blog
I've been silent on this blog for a while, which is not a good thing. A writer should blog...always.
Yes, this mantra is a bastardization of the idea that a "writer should write...always," an idea I first heard when I was in junior high from the film Throw Momma from the Train, and it's true. A writer should always be writing. However, now, in the ice cold light of the 21st century, a writer has to do a hell of a lot more than write his or her book/script/poem, whatever. Now, unless you're huge, like Stephen King or Salman Rushdie, you have to do at least some of your own marketing, and one of the big ways to keep yourself on public view is to blog.
So, here's my new goal: for the rest of the year, I will write one blog every day. My blogs will mostly be about my writing process, and will be an intensely honest look at how I write on a day to day basis (or often how I don't write, how I spend my writing time zoned out staring at some point to the right of the computer screen, thinking "Duh.")
I'll write about the projects I'm working on (four, which is two too many, actually), how the work is going, what kind of stumbling blocks I come upon, be they internal or external, and how daily life and my writing bleed into each other despite seeming to be completely at odds most of the time.
I'm not promising genius in these blogs. After all, I've only got twenty minutes a day scheduled to blog. But I do promise honesty. So come along on this crazy artistic trip with me if you dare; it's bound to be fun!
Yes, this mantra is a bastardization of the idea that a "writer should write...always," an idea I first heard when I was in junior high from the film Throw Momma from the Train, and it's true. A writer should always be writing. However, now, in the ice cold light of the 21st century, a writer has to do a hell of a lot more than write his or her book/script/poem, whatever. Now, unless you're huge, like Stephen King or Salman Rushdie, you have to do at least some of your own marketing, and one of the big ways to keep yourself on public view is to blog.
So, here's my new goal: for the rest of the year, I will write one blog every day. My blogs will mostly be about my writing process, and will be an intensely honest look at how I write on a day to day basis (or often how I don't write, how I spend my writing time zoned out staring at some point to the right of the computer screen, thinking "Duh.")
I'll write about the projects I'm working on (four, which is two too many, actually), how the work is going, what kind of stumbling blocks I come upon, be they internal or external, and how daily life and my writing bleed into each other despite seeming to be completely at odds most of the time.
I'm not promising genius in these blogs. After all, I've only got twenty minutes a day scheduled to blog. But I do promise honesty. So come along on this crazy artistic trip with me if you dare; it's bound to be fun!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Worf!
Seven days to Indian Summer!
Bollywood movies are obviously a part of the mix, but would you believe Klingons appear in the novel as well (to an extent)? One of the main characters was a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager, going so far as to have a cardboard cut-out of that character standing in his bedroom for over a decade. So in honor of that cardboard cutout, I give you: WORF!
(Note: I'm happy to say the Indian/Star Trek thing occurs in other places, like the first page of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, and one interesting scene in Meredith McGuire's Bollywood Becomes Her. Is it because Data mentions Diwali in one of the episodes, I wonder?)
Bollywood movies are obviously a part of the mix, but would you believe Klingons appear in the novel as well (to an extent)? One of the main characters was a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager, going so far as to have a cardboard cut-out of that character standing in his bedroom for over a decade. So in honor of that cardboard cutout, I give you: WORF!
(Note: I'm happy to say the Indian/Star Trek thing occurs in other places, like the first page of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, and one interesting scene in Meredith McGuire's Bollywood Becomes Her. Is it because Data mentions Diwali in one of the episodes, I wonder?)
Sunday, July 1, 2012
It's July!
I can't believe it's July already! However, it's certainly staying lighter later, and I did turn the ceiling fans on for the first time this year, so the context definitely fits the definition of July. And of course the big news is that Indian Summer is almost here--nine more days and it is go for launch.
Thus, in spirit of the upcoming book launch, I present to you a bit of a countdown to the release. Every day I will present some little tantalizing treat related to Indian Summer. That's right; for the next eight days, I will present a blog that shows something that inspired the novel, or at least something that has to do with me writing the novel.
Here on Day One, I present the two Bollywood scenes that first got me hooked on "action musicals" and that ultimately led to me writing Indian Summer.
In the first scene, two young men profess their love for their mother in song. This is about five minutes into the 1995 film Karan Arjun, the first Indian film I ever saw, and I have to say I wasn't very impressed at this point:
But then, five minutes later, this is how those two young men end up (thanks to an evil uncle): Wow--I wasn't expecting that. The following two hours of the film are, like many Bollywood films, a mixture of many things: action, songs, drama, comedy, etc. I loved it, although maybe not so much as Don, one of the main characters in the novel... By the way, don't worry about the two men in the movie; they are immediately reincarnated so that they can come back and kick Uncle Durjan's butt.
Thus, in spirit of the upcoming book launch, I present to you a bit of a countdown to the release. Every day I will present some little tantalizing treat related to Indian Summer. That's right; for the next eight days, I will present a blog that shows something that inspired the novel, or at least something that has to do with me writing the novel.
Here on Day One, I present the two Bollywood scenes that first got me hooked on "action musicals" and that ultimately led to me writing Indian Summer.
In the first scene, two young men profess their love for their mother in song. This is about five minutes into the 1995 film Karan Arjun, the first Indian film I ever saw, and I have to say I wasn't very impressed at this point:
But then, five minutes later, this is how those two young men end up (thanks to an evil uncle): Wow--I wasn't expecting that. The following two hours of the film are, like many Bollywood films, a mixture of many things: action, songs, drama, comedy, etc. I loved it, although maybe not so much as Don, one of the main characters in the novel... By the way, don't worry about the two men in the movie; they are immediately reincarnated so that they can come back and kick Uncle Durjan's butt.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Working on the Book Cover
Over the past couple weeks, I've been working on getting everything set for the book cover. Because I'm a complete amateur when it comes to design, and because I had a very specific image in mind for the front of Indian Summer, I've decided to use an artist to put it together.
Luckily, I knew of an artist who does good work (he did the cover for a friend's book which will be coming out within the next couple months) and I contacted him. The first step, of course, was to explain to him what I wanted the cover to look like. This was where it started to be tricky. Basically, I wanted the cover of the book to represent the scene where the main character goes a little wacky and begins running across a field lined with wind turbines. It's a very Don Quixote moment, but since my character thinks of himself as a Bollywood superstar as opposed to a knight errant, he is singing and dancing in front of these modern-day windmills. His exasperated best friend Shayla is chasing him across the field.
To come up with a solid cover, in particular the image that was in my head, I needed to give the artist some visual references, which I happily did. The background comes from shots of wind turbines I took while driving across the United States soon after finishing the first draft of the novel (the cover concept was already in my head then.) The characters were a little bit different. One is based on a real person that I know; the other is a mix of five or six photos I found online that were then put together into a brand new "face." The poses for the front cover being a little difficult to explain, I asked a couple of friends to help me simulate, and then we took a ton of photos trying to get it right. In addition to this, I had a specific title logo concept, and specific requests for how the characters would be clothed. Finally, a very generous friend, and a great photographer and visual artist, created a number of mock ups for me so that I could send the artist an image that strongly showed what I wanted. (Forgive me for not mentioning names and giving credit where it is due--at least not yet; all the names will be credited in the book when it comes out in July, so be patient.)
I sent about fifty different reference photos to the cover artist, and within 48 hours, he had sent me this mock up image:
This is only a mock up at this point; the artist will be painting it within the next week or two, and I will share the final product with you then. Before I go that final step and have him start creating the painted cover, I would love to hear your opinions.
What do you think about this cover for Indian Summer? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to pick up the book from just this cover itself? What are your thoughts, people? I can't wait to hear them!
Luckily, I knew of an artist who does good work (he did the cover for a friend's book which will be coming out within the next couple months) and I contacted him. The first step, of course, was to explain to him what I wanted the cover to look like. This was where it started to be tricky. Basically, I wanted the cover of the book to represent the scene where the main character goes a little wacky and begins running across a field lined with wind turbines. It's a very Don Quixote moment, but since my character thinks of himself as a Bollywood superstar as opposed to a knight errant, he is singing and dancing in front of these modern-day windmills. His exasperated best friend Shayla is chasing him across the field.
To come up with a solid cover, in particular the image that was in my head, I needed to give the artist some visual references, which I happily did. The background comes from shots of wind turbines I took while driving across the United States soon after finishing the first draft of the novel (the cover concept was already in my head then.) The characters were a little bit different. One is based on a real person that I know; the other is a mix of five or six photos I found online that were then put together into a brand new "face." The poses for the front cover being a little difficult to explain, I asked a couple of friends to help me simulate, and then we took a ton of photos trying to get it right. In addition to this, I had a specific title logo concept, and specific requests for how the characters would be clothed. Finally, a very generous friend, and a great photographer and visual artist, created a number of mock ups for me so that I could send the artist an image that strongly showed what I wanted. (Forgive me for not mentioning names and giving credit where it is due--at least not yet; all the names will be credited in the book when it comes out in July, so be patient.)
I sent about fifty different reference photos to the cover artist, and within 48 hours, he had sent me this mock up image:
This is only a mock up at this point; the artist will be painting it within the next week or two, and I will share the final product with you then. Before I go that final step and have him start creating the painted cover, I would love to hear your opinions.
What do you think about this cover for Indian Summer? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to pick up the book from just this cover itself? What are your thoughts, people? I can't wait to hear them!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sample of Indian Summer
Just for fun, here's a quick sample of Indian Summer. This is the scene where Don goes all Bolly-mad at a truck stop in California.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/118983676/?key=OGRhNjlkZmIt&pass=M2FjYS00YjI1
To read the beginning chapters, go to http://authonomy.com/books/43028/indian-summer/, and make sure to comment, give a star rating, and if you like (and this would be truly helpful to me), click on "Back the Book."
Thanks,
Daniel
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/118983676/?key=OGRhNjlkZmIt&pass=M2FjYS00YjI1
To read the beginning chapters, go to http://authonomy.com/books/43028/indian-summer/, and make sure to comment, give a star rating, and if you like (and this would be truly helpful to me), click on "Back the Book."
Thanks,
Daniel
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Putting the "Networking" into Social Networking
Twitter.
LinkedIn.
MySpace.
Authonomy. Digg.com. Luscious.com. Facebook pages galore. Yahoo Alerts... etc, etc, etc.
Here's the deal, folks. In order to sell a book, one must have a platform. This means, basically, that one must go about getting an audience BEFORE the book goes out, not afterward. Agents and publishers like authors that already have interested readers because that means the book will sell. For this reason, college professors who have an interesting subject matter, and politicians running for office, have a great chance of getting published.
This is not the case for someone like me who writes fiction, especially when I'm writing something that isn't a particular genre like Indian Summer. In my case, I need to go about building up reader interest, and the most basic tool for this is social networking. Now, rather than just looking at the social side of things, I need to look at social networking as a business and advertising tool, something that is a huge paradigm shift for me, since I usually just have fun on Facebook catching up with friends.
Here's a few tips for good social networking:
1) Let the base you already have know what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that not everybody on Facebook knows I've got a book coming out in July, but in the next several weeks, particularly after I get a cover, that will change. I'll still do the fun posts, but I'll also be making my book be known.
2) Join several social networking sites.
3) Get your own blog and Webpage and create links/badges to your major social networking sites.
4) Comment on other blogs and forums that seem to have a lot to do with your topic. For example, my novel's got a Bollywood theme but in an American context, so I'm going to make a lot of posts on bollywhat.com, which is run by Meredith McGuire, an American who loves Bollywood, and also has her own book out called Bollywood Becomes Her. (I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't been searching out sites!)
5) Search out the books that are like yours in theme, tone, and genre. Look at the big ones and small ones. Make friends with the authors if you can because you share a base, and if you talk each other up, it's definitely a mutually beneficial arrangement.
6) "Make three intelligent blog comments a day." In other words, read blogs that deal with your subject matter, or writing in general, and make comments on them that are helpful, interesting, and/or move the conversation forward. Don't just blog little meaningless comments. This idea comes from Jason Matthews' excellent book How to Make, Market, and Sell Ebooks, which has been a godsend to me. In fact, many of the ideas I have here come from him, so please buy his book. I'll be blogging more about how awesome he is later.
7) Include a link (or at least paste the URL) to your Website or blog or whatever represents you on the Web when you post a comment anywhere. (Note: People will only click on the link if you've said something that shows you're worthwhile. If your comment is something like "Yeah! Me, too!!!" nobody will take you seriously, and worse, they'll think you're just trying to sell them something.)
8) Always be polite and professional. Not everybody will be. There will be those who are rude to you. There will also be those who are trying to be helpful, but whose advice rankles. Be the rock in the river. Let the water flow around you. Never respond with an angry, rude comment.
There you go. Eight ideas on using social networking. I'm just getting started with all this myself and finding it difficult to balance everything. However, once you've checked everything out, you can choose a few social networking and blog sites that you really like and focus in on them. You don't have to be going to a hundred different networking sites a day, just three or so. My suggestion: Jump fully into the social networking scene and then find out which places are best for you.
LinkedIn.
MySpace.
Authonomy. Digg.com. Luscious.com. Facebook pages galore. Yahoo Alerts... etc, etc, etc.
Here's the deal, folks. In order to sell a book, one must have a platform. This means, basically, that one must go about getting an audience BEFORE the book goes out, not afterward. Agents and publishers like authors that already have interested readers because that means the book will sell. For this reason, college professors who have an interesting subject matter, and politicians running for office, have a great chance of getting published.
This is not the case for someone like me who writes fiction, especially when I'm writing something that isn't a particular genre like Indian Summer. In my case, I need to go about building up reader interest, and the most basic tool for this is social networking. Now, rather than just looking at the social side of things, I need to look at social networking as a business and advertising tool, something that is a huge paradigm shift for me, since I usually just have fun on Facebook catching up with friends.
Here's a few tips for good social networking:
1) Let the base you already have know what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that not everybody on Facebook knows I've got a book coming out in July, but in the next several weeks, particularly after I get a cover, that will change. I'll still do the fun posts, but I'll also be making my book be known.
2) Join several social networking sites.
3) Get your own blog and Webpage and create links/badges to your major social networking sites.
4) Comment on other blogs and forums that seem to have a lot to do with your topic. For example, my novel's got a Bollywood theme but in an American context, so I'm going to make a lot of posts on bollywhat.com, which is run by Meredith McGuire, an American who loves Bollywood, and also has her own book out called Bollywood Becomes Her. (I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't been searching out sites!)
5) Search out the books that are like yours in theme, tone, and genre. Look at the big ones and small ones. Make friends with the authors if you can because you share a base, and if you talk each other up, it's definitely a mutually beneficial arrangement.
6) "Make three intelligent blog comments a day." In other words, read blogs that deal with your subject matter, or writing in general, and make comments on them that are helpful, interesting, and/or move the conversation forward. Don't just blog little meaningless comments. This idea comes from Jason Matthews' excellent book How to Make, Market, and Sell Ebooks, which has been a godsend to me. In fact, many of the ideas I have here come from him, so please buy his book. I'll be blogging more about how awesome he is later.
7) Include a link (or at least paste the URL) to your Website or blog or whatever represents you on the Web when you post a comment anywhere. (Note: People will only click on the link if you've said something that shows you're worthwhile. If your comment is something like "Yeah! Me, too!!!" nobody will take you seriously, and worse, they'll think you're just trying to sell them something.)
8) Always be polite and professional. Not everybody will be. There will be those who are rude to you. There will also be those who are trying to be helpful, but whose advice rankles. Be the rock in the river. Let the water flow around you. Never respond with an angry, rude comment.
There you go. Eight ideas on using social networking. I'm just getting started with all this myself and finding it difficult to balance everything. However, once you've checked everything out, you can choose a few social networking and blog sites that you really like and focus in on them. You don't have to be going to a hundred different networking sites a day, just three or so. My suggestion: Jump fully into the social networking scene and then find out which places are best for you.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Read the Beginning of Indian Summer
Hi all,
This is just a note to say that the first four chapters of my novel Indian Summer are up for preview at authonomy.com. The book will be making its premiere in July, but this is a great chance to look at it early, and to give me some feedback.
So please-- check out Indian Summer on authonomy.com right here. You'll have to register to get started, but after you do, I'd be really grateful if you would click on "Back the Book" for my novel (which puts it on your bookshelf and raises the book in the rankings), and also give a comment and a star rating.
Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing some early reviews!
This is just a note to say that the first four chapters of my novel Indian Summer are up for preview at authonomy.com. The book will be making its premiere in July, but this is a great chance to look at it early, and to give me some feedback.
So please-- check out Indian Summer on authonomy.com right here. You'll have to register to get started, but after you do, I'd be really grateful if you would click on "Back the Book" for my novel (which puts it on your bookshelf and raises the book in the rankings), and also give a comment and a star rating.
Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing some early reviews!
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Writers in Bollywood
Here is a great article about the importance of writers in Bollywood, both the authors of books that are adapted to the screen and the screenwriters themselves. I just love when authors get some respect!
http://www.desitvforum.net/forum/features-specials/197851-literature-bollywood-complement-each-other-chetan-bhagat.html#post368283
http://www.desitvforum.net/forum/features-specials/197851-literature-bollywood-complement-each-other-chetan-bhagat.html#post368283
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Ideas with Nowhere to Go
Once in a while, I get very excited about an idea only to find out that it has been done before. This has happened enough times that I've taken to doing quick Google searches to see if I'd be breaking new ground or not. Usually, my brilliant ideas (and just as often my stupid ones) have already been capitalized on, by somebody else. It's the more personal ideas that always seem to go somewhere, and ultimately give me more pleasure.
However, just to see how brilliant I could have been if I was first (or how laughable), here is a smattering of my pre-empted projects:
1) The New Testament, Zombie Version: Yes, I know, sacreligious, and I'm sorry about that, but the "resurrection" of Jesus lends itself to zombification. C'mon, what would be better at Easter than to see Jesus and the twelve apostles eating their way through the brains of the Roman legion? Actually, this was such an obvious treatment that a Google search showed me that it had been considered and done...by MANY.
2) Shakespeare as Porn: I have a version of Othello I'm considering putting to pen that actually IS an original concept, and in thinking about that, and particularly the line about "the beast with two backs," I thought, "Wow, what a great concept. People would surely buy Shakespeare in dirty movie form." I thought this despite the fact that I myself could care less about seeing Shakespeare in porn form (I like it just fine as it is), and the other fact that I would be embarrassed to be the progenitor of such pretentious trash while also being the father to a little girl. What drew me to the idea was the thought that it might actually draw in money. "Not to be," as Hamlet might have said, and if you doubt me, see this: http://www.radosh.net/writing/shakespeare.html
3) The Benjamin Franklin Lifestyle: I rarely get excited about non-fiction, but I love good old Ben Franklin. I love him so much, in fact, that I considered using his guide for living from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as the base for an experiment. I would test myself by following Franklin's thirteen virtues to the letter (Temperance, Silence, Order, etc) and then writing honestly how well I held up. This actually WAS an original idea at first--no other person had taken on this reality-show-like task--but within three months of my starting my experiment, Ben and Me by Canadian lawyer Cameron Gunn was announced and my project ended. This was probably for the best because when I subsequently picked up Ben and Me, I couldnt' actually get into it.
Ultimately, I guess my "brilliant" and "original" ideas are exciting to me not because I actually think they would be fun to write about (or read about), but because I see money coming from them. In these three cases, I don't think the people who actually utilized the ideas actually made much of a profit. Thus, rather than following the money, I'd better just keep writing the stuff that I find personally fulfilling, which in the end is probably more original, and also, I hope, more interesting for readers.
However, just to see how brilliant I could have been if I was first (or how laughable), here is a smattering of my pre-empted projects:
1) The New Testament, Zombie Version: Yes, I know, sacreligious, and I'm sorry about that, but the "resurrection" of Jesus lends itself to zombification. C'mon, what would be better at Easter than to see Jesus and the twelve apostles eating their way through the brains of the Roman legion? Actually, this was such an obvious treatment that a Google search showed me that it had been considered and done...by MANY.
2) Shakespeare as Porn: I have a version of Othello I'm considering putting to pen that actually IS an original concept, and in thinking about that, and particularly the line about "the beast with two backs," I thought, "Wow, what a great concept. People would surely buy Shakespeare in dirty movie form." I thought this despite the fact that I myself could care less about seeing Shakespeare in porn form (I like it just fine as it is), and the other fact that I would be embarrassed to be the progenitor of such pretentious trash while also being the father to a little girl. What drew me to the idea was the thought that it might actually draw in money. "Not to be," as Hamlet might have said, and if you doubt me, see this: http://www.radosh.net/writing/shakespeare.html
3) The Benjamin Franklin Lifestyle: I rarely get excited about non-fiction, but I love good old Ben Franklin. I love him so much, in fact, that I considered using his guide for living from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as the base for an experiment. I would test myself by following Franklin's thirteen virtues to the letter (Temperance, Silence, Order, etc) and then writing honestly how well I held up. This actually WAS an original idea at first--no other person had taken on this reality-show-like task--but within three months of my starting my experiment, Ben and Me by Canadian lawyer Cameron Gunn was announced and my project ended. This was probably for the best because when I subsequently picked up Ben and Me, I couldnt' actually get into it.
Ultimately, I guess my "brilliant" and "original" ideas are exciting to me not because I actually think they would be fun to write about (or read about), but because I see money coming from them. In these three cases, I don't think the people who actually utilized the ideas actually made much of a profit. Thus, rather than following the money, I'd better just keep writing the stuff that I find personally fulfilling, which in the end is probably more original, and also, I hope, more interesting for readers.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Packing and Writing
At the moment, I'm feeling very much like a college student.
First off, I am totally rushing to meet a deadline. I've got two great stories that will be appearing in a sci-fi/fantasy anthology next month; all they need is to be completed and revised in the next eleven days. That wouldn't necessarily be that difficult, but...
Second off, I am living in a house that is very sparse in terms of furniture. Obviously, there's the laptop, which I'm using now, but my wife and I are rather quickly getting rid of a lot of our possessions. Why? Because we're moving to Washington at the beginning of December. This is a great move. I'm from Washington, and I've always considered myself a Washington writer, but relocating our lives from Atlanta to Seattle in less than a month is a challenge.
Third, I had pizza yesterday. A lot of it. And I loved it. It's the perfect stress food, and having just completed a four-hour garage sale, I needed stress food. I'm just happy that Congress agreed that pizza was a vegetable and therefore good for me. I had no idea I was being so health conscious all those late nights at Washington State University. Now if they could just declare beer a vegetable (hey, hops! barley! wheat!)...
First off, I am totally rushing to meet a deadline. I've got two great stories that will be appearing in a sci-fi/fantasy anthology next month; all they need is to be completed and revised in the next eleven days. That wouldn't necessarily be that difficult, but...
Second off, I am living in a house that is very sparse in terms of furniture. Obviously, there's the laptop, which I'm using now, but my wife and I are rather quickly getting rid of a lot of our possessions. Why? Because we're moving to Washington at the beginning of December. This is a great move. I'm from Washington, and I've always considered myself a Washington writer, but relocating our lives from Atlanta to Seattle in less than a month is a challenge.
Third, I had pizza yesterday. A lot of it. And I loved it. It's the perfect stress food, and having just completed a four-hour garage sale, I needed stress food. I'm just happy that Congress agreed that pizza was a vegetable and therefore good for me. I had no idea I was being so health conscious all those late nights at Washington State University. Now if they could just declare beer a vegetable (hey, hops! barley! wheat!)...
Friday, November 18, 2011
The first blog post
It is 6:21 a.m. on Friday, November 25th, 2011, and I think it's high time I introduce myself to the world.
My name is Daniel Rider, and I am a writer. I'd like to point out that "Rider" is actually my name and not just some cheesy pun on the word "writer." That would be silly, whereas now the last name, being indeed mine, could be called fortuitous, gratifying, even poignant.
The end of 2011 finds me at a crossroads of sorts. I've got all kinds of cool things brewing--a children's book, my first published novel coming out in July, two stories to appear in an upcoming anthology--and this is all great, but the problem with any crossroads, of course, is the fact that a road must be crossed. Road-crossing takes time and there's all kinds of problematic outcomes to said activity: one might be hit by a car, one might cross over and not like where one ended up and even stare across at another part of the crossroads and wish that he had gone there, and one might even trip and sprain an ankle in which case, no matter how great the destination may ultimately be, it will always be enjoyed with a certain amount of discomfort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm looking forward to finishing up this year and really getting going in 2012. I have so much to share with you--as soon as I cross this six-week road!
My name is Daniel Rider, and I am a writer. I'd like to point out that "Rider" is actually my name and not just some cheesy pun on the word "writer." That would be silly, whereas now the last name, being indeed mine, could be called fortuitous, gratifying, even poignant.
The end of 2011 finds me at a crossroads of sorts. I've got all kinds of cool things brewing--a children's book, my first published novel coming out in July, two stories to appear in an upcoming anthology--and this is all great, but the problem with any crossroads, of course, is the fact that a road must be crossed. Road-crossing takes time and there's all kinds of problematic outcomes to said activity: one might be hit by a car, one might cross over and not like where one ended up and even stare across at another part of the crossroads and wish that he had gone there, and one might even trip and sprain an ankle in which case, no matter how great the destination may ultimately be, it will always be enjoyed with a certain amount of discomfort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm looking forward to finishing up this year and really getting going in 2012. I have so much to share with you--as soon as I cross this six-week road!
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