Category Archives: writing

Fishy Handshake

This story was inspired by a photo taken from a collection of stock photos. Click here to see them.

enhanced-buzz-6914-1399908192-5 Sal’s palms were sweating profusely. He hadn’t felt well since he got up this morning. He hoped it was just a bad case of nerves. If this kept up he’d probably sweat right through his suit. He couldn’t blow this interview. He’d been out of work for about six months now and while he got unemployment insurance that was barely enough to put gas in the car and food on the table, much less paying for medical bills or rent. Steph had a job, but minimum wage hasn’t changed in way too long and the S-Mart wasn’t giving her full time hours or a raise.

He laced his fingers together and squeezed until his knuckles were about to pop. The pain didn’t do anything to alleviate his nervousness, but it gave him something to think about other than the knot in his stomach or the damn Mutie Panic that flooded the airwaves. You couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing about some new freak. God knows what caused the changes. GMOs, nuclear waste, corn syrup. Whatever it was, the muties were nothing like the comic books. The changes were all just painful or embarrassing.

The two pieces of advice that Giorgio gave him were “wear your best suit” and “don’t give a limp wristed, damp handshake”. He had the suit. He’d bought it before he lost the job at Chem-Tex. He’d been making good money and splurged. Now he just needed to make sure to make a good first impression. He rubbed his palms on the dark gray slacks. Satisfied they were dry, he looked around the office.

Manson and Reed was nothing to write home about, at least the office. The low end law firm was one step above ambulance chasing and the fake plants and out of date office furniture showed it. Work was work though and they needed a sysadmin. He had the experience and would take whatever salary they would throw at him.

“Mr. Petrelli?” The pleasant tenor voice snapped him out of his funk.

He looked up to see a man that didn’t like much older than the kids that worked with his wife at S-Mart. There were fine lines around his eyes though. The suit he wore looked a notch or two above Sal’s. He stood, holding out his hand. No limp shake. No limp shake.

When Mr. Manson grabbed Sal’s hand, he made a disgusted noise. Then he looked from Sal’s eyes down to where they shook and screamed in a pitch much higher than his speaking voice.

Sal could feel the man gripping his hand, but it suddenly felt like he wore a cold glove. He wanted to look at his hand, but he was terrified about what he’d see there.

“You’re a damn mutie.” The man screamed in his nasally, high pitched voice. “You’re a damn mutie.” He sounded like a broken record.

Sal tore his eyes away from the terrified whites of Mr. Manson’s eyes. He saw that the lawyer still clutched what appeared to be a trout or maybe a bass. The fish, Sal was never an expert, protruded from his coat sleeve. He took his… appendage back. “I hope this doesn’t mean the interview is off?”

He found himself rushed out of the building by a burly and slightly apologetic black man. “This isn’t the best place to work, dude.”

Sal nodded at the security guard’s retreating back. “Yeah, maybe not. But it beats being on the state’s dime.” He looked down at the fish. It was still there. He tried to will it back into a human hand, but he hadn’t willed it into a fish, so he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

He supposed he could join the circus.

“Don’t be silly.” The raspy, thin came from the place where the tips of his fingers used to be. “We’re not showy enough for that to work.”

Sal fainted.

Our Chief Glory

1024px-Samuel_Johnson_Statue“The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.” Dr. Samuel Johnson: Preface to his Dictionary.

I was listening to a podcast this morning and this quote came up. It was interesting, because someone said on Facebook yesterday that our greatest citizens are our soldiers. I think the sorts of people a society values says a lot about that society. I try to be as egalitarian as possible, but on this matter I tend to side with Johnson, though I wouldn’t limit it to authors.

I look at where our money goes, not only the American government, but also us as individuals. I don’t think we spend nearly enough on the arts. I like to think there was a time when as a nation we spent far more on encouraging the arts. I know for a fact that our country has used projects like the Works Progress Administration and the National Endowment for the arts to pay authors, artists, musicians, and playwrights. Both programs are controversial and I’m not saying that funding for the arts begins or ends with one’s government. I am saying that it seems to me as a society we will lose out if we don’t use our money, personal and public, to support more arts on the national and local level.

I want to see more books and plays and symphonies produced by our children. I believe that it can do nothing but benefit their studies of the Three Rs. I want to see more things like Detroit’s writers-in-residence program, Write A House. I’ve watched as a focus on the arts and locally produced goods caused my own downtown to blossom.

Soldiers, fire fighters, police officers, and others that put their lives on the line are brave and I thank God daily for their sacrifice. I’m not for a second putting anyone above them. They need to earn far more than they do for the necessary services they provide. I would argue though that we as a nation would always fund them over and above the arts because we see the black and white benefit that we receive. That’s  less true of the creative people who add beauty to our lives and examine creation for universal truths that they then bring to light.

I do think that we need to spend less on our nation’s military efforts. Much of that money can be better spent on our infrastructure and education. I want to see more of it go to support poets and sculptors, wood carvers and weavers, novelists and cellists. I’d love for others to look at this country as a bastion of the creative spirit. That’s the glorification of something I can get behind.

Don’t Ring The Bell!

I usually don’t click on list articles that aren’t from Cracked.com, but Navy Seals are frickin’ awesome and when I saw 10 Life Lessons From A Navy Seal I figured what the heck. Number ten really jumped out at me.

#10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell

“in SEAL training there is a bell. A brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see.

All you have to do to quit—is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims.

Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT—and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training.

Just ring the bell.”

Being a writer can be a lonely business. When you’re on the bottom tier and you see a lot of your peers succeeding (all after a lot of hard work) it can be tempting to hit that bell. In this case, to push away the keyboard and say “no one would miss me if I just slipped away quietly from the writing community”. I’ve felt that temptation more than once. When that feeling rears its ugly head I have to dig deep and find my motivation.

Some times that motivation is external. I went to Balticon this past week. These are my people. They have my back. They want me to succeed. They are my fans, colleagues, and cheerleaders. They would miss me if I faded away. I know all of this, and yet when more than one of them affirmed my writing I was surprised. That’s not because of anything they did or did not do. I have a very poor sense of self and figure that in spite of their constant support over the years a lot of them are encouraging me not because of anything inherent in me. It’s because they’re awesome people. Whether that’s true or not, they’re there. So I keep writing. The bell remains unrung.

That’s not enough though. It’s a full year between Balticons. And even if there were one a week, there should be more to this whole thing. So, what keeps me going? Why don’t I just tap out? It would mean no more long waits between reviews. It would mean not worrying about getting the daily word count down. It would mean no more pouring over a manuscript looking for that last typo or bit of awkward phrasing. Just walk up to the bell, give it a good whack, and leave it all behind.

You know what else it would mean? No more Ginnie Dare. No more Father Ian. No more Libertarian Wank Fiction. I know there are people who would miss those things, but more importantly, I would miss them. I keep writing because telling these stories creates new worlds. If I didn’t write then these things wouldn’t exist and while none of them may change “the world”, writing them has changed my world for the better. Maybe my writing never will change the world. Maybe it already has. Those things are out of my control. What is under my control? Staying away from that big brass bastard.

In the words of my writing Drill Instructors, I say “MO CHECK!”. You say “WRITE!”.

MO CHECK!!

Finish Your Shit

I was challenged at Balticon by a good friend of mine. He’s an author and a podcaster and I greatly admire. He pulled me aside and said something along the lines of “I just want to make sure that you are finishing your shit.” He’s seen my tweets about the Write or Die word counts I’ve been achieving and he wanted to make sure that those words were going somewhere.

See, this isn’t such a bad question actually. I have something that another writer calls “biblioterminophobia” or fear of finishing a book. In my case that’s fear of finishing writing a book. I’ll get very close and then get focused on something else for far too long. This pattern will repeat itself if I’m not careful and I’ll end up with six or seven unfinished projects.

Right now I’m actively working on the following:
The Harvest (second draft)
LWF Satire (unfinished first draft)
Nancy – Unauthorized Predation (unfinished first draft)
Untitled dieselpunk story (unfinished first draft)

That’s four right there. I am committing to finishing the second draft of The Harvest and the LWF satire by the end of June. That will require me to put the brakes on the other things for a bit. It helps that I’m getting on The Magic Spreadsheet bandwagon.

I’m glad that I’m part of a community that strives to encourage writers to follow Heinlein’s Rules:
1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

The last two are somewhat flexible given various attitudes towards self publishing, but rule two is far harder than any of the rest, for me at least. What rule is tough for you? What are you doing to overcome that?

Picture credit Tania Pires

Guest Post – It's Complicated

Aeons ago, I put out a call for guest posts on how your faith might influence your fiction. Author Nobilis Reed was kind enough to submit a post and then life intervened. In addition to NaNoWriMo I had some site issues. Anyway, with apologies I submit his post. If you’re interested in writing one up, please contact me!

If the Divine and I had a Facebook relationship, it would be defined as “It’s Complicated.”

Let’s start with my definition of faith: “Faith is the belief in something that cannot be proven by reason.” Pretty much everyone has faith in something, even hardcore rationalists.* My unprovable assertion is “There is at least one influence in existence that transcends human understanding.” It’s unprovable, because in order to prove it, you would have find this influence and understand it, and by doing so you would disqualify it from the assertion. As a result, my relationship with this entity cannot be anything but complicated.

When you’re dealing with an entity that transcends human understanding, the only way to think about it is with as-if constructs and metaphors. When it’s raining outside, and I step out the door and find that the storm has suddenly abated to a mere sprinkle, which then returns to a steady downpour once I’m inside the car, I raise my eyes skyward and say, “Thank you.” When that happens, do I believe that there is a deity which listens to my prayer in the same way a parent listens to a child? No, but it’s a useful as-if construct to describe the situation. When I describe the experiences of a friend of mine, who was rescued from a (pre cell phone) flat tire stranding by a muscular redheaded guy in a convertible sports car, and now describes Ares as her personal deity, do I believe that she met an actual god that day? No, but it’s a useful as-if construct to describe the situation.

Any deity you encounter in the real world, whether it’s the Christian God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or Zeus, or any of the dozens of other names for the divine or the infernal, what you’re talking about is an as-if construct created by people to describe that great unknowable entity beyond human understanding. We put a face on it, usually a human face, to make the relationship possible.

My personal spirituality doesn’t play a role in most of my books, but there is an exception in the Orgone Chronicles series. The cultures of these novels is entirely spacefaring; they don’t live on planets at all, but instead have space stations and starships scattered over the galaxy. To them, the great unknown is immediate and pervasive, always there just past the outer bulkhead; it’s space, hard vacuum, the void, the hungry nothingness outside the airlock. Different cultures see it slightly differently, of course; the Stationers see it as a cthonic ending, a sort of real-world hell, representing suffering and death. Scouts and Pirates see it as a veil of ignorance, that must be pierced to discover the unknown. They swear with the word “vack,” short for “vacuum,” and the worst punishment that can be inflicted is to expel a criminal out into the void without an airsuit.

In general, though, I think my worldview allows me to more easily empathize with people who have different constructs than I do. I have a work-in-progress sitting on my hard drive (one of many, I’m afraid) set in a future America where cultural divisions have led people to segregate themselves into ideological enclaves where any ideas challenging the local dogma are severely restricted. One of the enclaves featured in that story is an Evangelical Christian community, and I believe my worldview allows me to write them more authentically, because I can more easily get into their heads and avoid excessive caricature.

* If you count yourself a hardcore rationalist and you find this statement offensive, consider your opinion on the following assertion: “There exists no element of human experience that can never be explained by science.” And then consider the difficulty of proving that something does not exist.

Nobilis can be found at Nobilis Erotica and on Twitter @Nobilis

Interview With Horror Author Alex Laybourne

I’m in the midst of NaNoWriMo so the blog has gathered a little dust. I may not have time for regular blogging, but I do have time to introduce you to a new author!

Who is he? I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

Born and raised in the coastal English town Lowestoft, it should come as no surprise (to those that have the misfortune of knowing this place) that I became a horror writer.

From an early age I was sent to schools which were at least 30 minutes’ drive away and so spent most of my free time alone, as the friends I did have lived too far away for me to be able to hang out with them in the weekends or holidays.

I have been a writer as long as I can remember and have always had a vivid imagination. To this very day I find it all too easy to just drift away into my own mind and explore the world I create; where the conditions always seem to be just perfect for the cultivation of ideas, plots, scenes, characters and lines of dialogue

I am married and have four wonderful children; James, Logan, Ashleigh and Damon. My biggest dream for them is that they grow up, and spend their lives doing what makes them happy, whatever that is.

For people who buy my work, I hope that they enjoy what they read and that I can create something that takes them away from reality for a short time. For me, the greatest compliment I can receive is not based on rankings but by knowing that people enjoy what I produce, that they buy my work with pleasure and never once feel as though their money would have been better spent elsewhere.

What’s your latest work? My horror trilogy Highway to Hell. The first two novels are out now, and follow the plight of 6 strangers who die and find themselves trapped in the torture chambers of hell. Rescued by a group of battle hardened angels, they find themselves on a journey that will take them back into the deepest pit Hell and to the highest point of heaven as they attempt to stop the barriers that separate the angelic worlds from crumbling. Book one introduces the characters and set them on their journey. Book two picks up immediately following the events of the first, and shows us that just because they are dealing with angels, it doesn’t mean they are fighting for the right cause. Who can you trust when those trying to help you have motives that could be more sinister than those you are trying to stop.

Marcus, Becky, Richard, Helen, Sammy, and Graham. All complete strangers, different ages, backgrounds and even countries, but they all have one major thing in common…they all must DIE.

Sentenced to offer their penance in the many chambers of Hell, their lives are nothing but a torturous experience. They are brought face to face with their past, their mistakes and the implications that had for others. Until one by one they are rescued and thrown together. Walking in a dying world, they are introduced to their rescuers who do anything but conform to their angelic stereotype. Together, bonded by an unknown destiny the group is set on their quest; to find one individual buried deep within the many Hell worlds. Not only does the fate of their world rest on their shoulders, but that of existence itself.

Heaven and Hell, Angels and Demons, these things were once considered opposites, but what happens when they become neighbors, allies…friends?

Trials and Tribulations:

Marcus, Helen, Becky, Sammy and Graham are no longer strangers, but friends. Pulled from the chambers of hell they thought that they had survived, that they were free to being their eternity far away from the fires and tortures that had greeted them.

They were wrong!

The group soon find themselves back in Hell, this time venturing even deeper into the netherworld. Searching for the one soul the angels’ claim they were unable to rescue, the five friends march their way to the edge of the pit, Avici. It is here, in the castle that looks into the abyss where they come face to face with both the lost soul that they seek and the King of Hell himself; Lucifer.

Nothing is as it seems however, and just as it looks as if the coast is clear they learn that the ones they thought they could trust just might be the ones they should fear the most.

Why do you write/like horror? I think horror is a genre that affords us an escape, a way out. It is a genre that encourages us to face our fears, and to conquer them. We read scary stories, or watch horror movies, and while they scare us, we finish them, we conquer them. Everybody loves horror, we love to be scared, because deep down we know we will survive, but still cannot help but feel on top of the world when we get there.

Horror is an expressive genre, and I feel, having tried to write in others, that it is the most expressive, and versatile. Not many other genres can incorporate so many different things.

I never set out to be a horror writer, it just kind of happened naturally. I sat down to write a story, short stories at the time, and found that my style naturally slid towards the horrific, the scary. The work of Clive Barker has inspired me greatly, his books of blood series inspired me more than any book had before, or has since.

Every writer has a natural voice. Sure, we cross genres, but we have a natural flow and for me, it is horror.

What inspired this particular story? This story was inspired by a golf course. It may sound strange but it was. I wanted to write a book set on a golf course, and when i was researching the number eighteen, (one chapter was one hole) I came across an article talking about the ‘Diyu’ a Buddhist concept of Hell, where there are eighteen different chambers.

The main idea was born here, and after a good 30,000 words, spread over several different attempts at starting the novel, I dropped the setting, unable to link the story and keep characters moving from hole to hole, Without the golf course, the rest really did just come naturally. I didn’t plan any of it. My original idea was a single novel, but once I hit that 100,000 word mark and realized I had only just begun to scratch the surface, I knew it had to be split into a trilogy.

What’s the best horror movie you watched recently? I think James Wan is awesome, so his movies – Saw,, Dead Silence, Insidious, etc. I love to watch – I still need to see the Conjuring – I also enjoyed the Evil Dead re-make, for what it was. My wife isn’t a big horror movie fan, so we don’t watch too many. Of course, the classics of Hellraiser – especially parts 1 and 2- and the slasher movies from the 70’s and 80’s like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm street. They might not be scary, but they are iconic, and I love them.

What scares you? That is a tough one. I guess on a physical level I have the standard spider issues, and also butterflies. Yes, I’m a 6 foot 4, 110 kilo (245-250 lbs- man who is scared of butterflies. They are the creatures of the devil. Which is an image I plan to use in a story one day soon. On an emotional level, it would have to be the concept of losing my family, in any way shape or form.

What are you working on now? I am currently working on three things. I am editing a vampire novel, or rather, re-writing it. I was with a publisher that gave us a prompt which I took on, however, having since left that publishers for reason relating to differing views on professionalism – but out of respect I shall say no more – I am free to re-write it as I see fit. It is tough, I am a very slow editor, and recently my day job has kept me so busy, writing is nothing but a faint notion most days.

I am also working on a few releases that I have coming up. Two more short story collections, on in December (13th) and one in January (10th) and then a re-release of my zombie novel sometime after that.

I am also editing a collection of short stories into a novel, one flowing narrative linking around each story, which will serve as a set up for those telling said stories, to be the main characters in a second novel, and also have plans to start writing the third novel of the Highway to Hell trilogy also. I don’t like to sit still, so am always working on something. Seven days a week, I am writing and working on honing my skills in this craft.

What’s your favorite beverage while writing? Well, i get most of my writing done currently at 4.30am, so I guess coffee, ha. Although I am partial to a bourbon in the evenings. A couple of those and the words just story to flow. Never edit on bourbon though. That would make a great bumper sticker, don’t you think. “Never edit on Bourbon.”

Alex can be found at http://alexlaybourne.com/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alex-Laybourne/212049612180183

Babbling In Fiction

The Secret World Chronicle, one of the podcasts I’m listening to (and one you should be checking out too) brought a question to mind that I’ve been thinking about for years. In various media, characters who speak multiple languages are handled very differently. Let’s take the example of TSWC.

There are several Russian characters in the section I’m listening to now. When they’re presumably speaking in Russian they have Russian accents and may use the occasional Russian word. Their grammar is appropriate to their level of education/intelligence in their native speech. When they switch to English, we get more “Russglish” and their English is broken in ways I think a real Russian non-fluent in English would speak.

In prose, of course, we can’t rely on an actor to get across accents and the like. We either need to use a dialectical form of English or make use of words from their native language peppered throughout their non-native language. When they’re speaking in their native language we can make use of dialog tags or text markup or both to indicate the shift. In this case it strikes me as odd to use a foreign word rather than its native translation. The dialectical option was used by Steve Alten in The Loch, rendering large chunks of dialog hard to read when a Scottish person was speaking. The fusion option is used a lot in books I’ve read and in stories I’ve written with Hispanic speakers.

In movies, I’ve seen some actors use the same techniques used in TSWC. That’s a little jarring since I know in theory when they’re speaking Russian, for example, and I’m hearing it in English. I prefer subtitles in those cases. I’d rather hear the language they’re actually speaking in, even if I don’t speak it, and read the translation. To me that’s preferable than using actors who speak in a heavy accent or in a Standard English accent and I’m to assume when they make the language change. Obviously that requires using actors that can pull off multiple languages, and that is not always an option. That’s also not possible in fiction that’s purely auditory in form. For me, TSWC has chosen the best option available that I’m aware of.

Whatever media the story is in, I’m curious as to other’s opinions on the best approaches to presenting multi-lingual characters. I’m also interested in how it’s handled in the non-English speaking world.

–Read the first couple of chapters of Ginnie Dare online. http://www.kindleboards.com/sample/? asin=B0054R6LVQ

Fiction – The Harvest: Bloodhound


Today’s Flash Fiction is a continuation of the story I posted for the corn related challenge a few weeks ago. I plan on adding to this story serially (cereally?) over the coming weeks. They’ll be available on my Wattpad
page as well. Wattpad is a story sharing site and everything is free. Enjoy the story!

Mikey slotted his coffee cup under the single cup dispenser. He promised himself when he left the force he’d never drink bad coffee again. This stuff wasn’t the best but it was light years beyond the motor oil at the station house. As it brewed he pulled out his Droid and flipped it open. He thumbed through e-mails and stopped when he got a notification his Dropbox business account was nearly full. That was odd since neither he nor his partner Vic were in the office today. He walked over with his coffee to the laptop on his kitchen table.

The screen came to life and it booted to the Ubuntu login screen. He didn’t think he’d ever be this geeky, but his son was in IT and wanted to make sure dear old Dad had access to all the latest tech tools in his new business endeavor. Set up correctly it all worked fairly well. He logged on and opened up the folder. It was full of pictures in a RAW format. The lack of any digital compression meant they were large, but according to his partner it meant they’d have more information and could manipulate the images better. He didn’t understand that part of things yet.

There were thirty pictures in all. He started the light box software. These were from the case they had taken on late last week. Vic had gotten a lead on the missing person and was chasing it down. Mikey wanted to go with him, but it was a one man job. These had been uploaded remotely, which struck him as odd. The pictures of the farmhouse and its interior were all normal enough. That was, until he got to the pictures of the kitchen. When the woman’s head stared out of the fridge at him it was a challenge for him to keep his composure. He did push his chair back, causing the coffee on the table to slop over the mug’s rim.

“What on Earth?” He pulled out his phone again and immediately hit the first number speed dial. The phone rang and rang, but his partner didn’t answer. Not good. That it rung, meant there was at least signal. Vic rarely left it in his car and it was only on vibrate when things were extra risky. If he had it on his person he’d answer and hang up after a three count. No answer meant it was in his car or he was incapable of answering.
Continue reading Fiction – The Harvest: Bloodhound

Chainsaws And Chicken Scissors


I love to read and write smart horror. On of the marks of what makes horror “good” in my mind is the ability to take something common place and make it into something truly horrific. (For more on what I and some others think make for good horror check out Mike Plested’s podcast episode “Horror Comes To Get Published”.) Two examples popped into my mind this morning on the way into work and gave me the title of this post.

I don’t think you can google “chainsaw” wihtout getting hits referring to the 1970’s chainsaw massacre franchise or its remake. Tobe Hooper’s creation set the tone for many horror stories to come. The chicken scissors reference comes from a series of stories by Scott Sigler. In Infected, Perry Dawsey uses them to cut off some very tender bits of himself to stem the tide of an alien virus. Since using the kitchen implement in his stories, his fans all cringe at the mention of them.


Horror is certainly full of unique characters and implements of destruction. Freddy’s glove is a one of a kind item, but seeing a hockey mask or a creepy doll is going to happen with greater frequency. If you can tie a visceral reaction to that everyday object then you’ve succeeded in creating something that your audience can’t get away from.

What mundane object or situation has an author “ruined” for you?

Writing Tools

I was listening to the Reader/Writer podcast on my way into work this morning. The topic was “One Question: Writing Tools”. The question, “what is your most important tool for writing?”, elicited some great repsonses, including not just software and hardware, but tactics. It got me to thinking about mine. It’s hard to list just one, so I’ll list three.

1) Write Or Die – This website and app is dead simple. You an find it at writeordie.com. The purpose is to just make you write. You set a time or word goal and it gives you a blank page. If you don’t start writing, or if you pause, it starts changing colors and playing noises. If you set the level of difficulty high enough it starts deleting words. The app is nice because it lets you save your text to a file, rather than the copy/paste of the web app. There’s also an app for the iPad/iPod. That app will let you export to Dropbox, email, the cipboard, or a text file. The thing I love most is that it’s helped me to turn off my internal editor. The words don’t always flow, but I don’t have the luxury of hemming and hawing over every sentence.

2) Google Docs/Drive – This is nothing new. Authors all over the world use it. I love the fact that I can keep my stuff in the cloud and have it all in one place. I have folders for my different works in progress. I can keep my spreadsheet for outlines in the same folder. When I’m done it makes it easy to share with my beta readers. I also use the app on my tablet.

3) My Commute – This isn’t an app or a strategy really. I’ve often thought about using the commute for verbal storytelling into an electronic recorder, but there you run into turning that into typed prose. What I use my commute for is two-fold. I listen to podcasts and I muse. The podcasts, a mix of writing and fiction, are often inspirational. The musings can result in getting my out of corners I’ve painted myself into. It can mean thinking about characters and motivations. It can mean new story ideas. This time is relatively distraction free and is invaluable.

What are yours?