Editorial Content is the name of the monthly essay I write about editing topics for the Apex Book Company Patreon backers. Here is a preview of this month's essay "Comma Sense." Did you know that of the 1,146 pages comprising the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, that 325 pages are dedicated to…
Health update – BMP
My recovery from a triple mandibular resection last February continues. The debridement surgery in September created a major quality of life improvement. Pieces of the bone that didn't survive the transplant in February were removed, allowing my gum tissue to finally heal. My food options multiplied greatly. I've even gained a few pounds back from…
Plot over everything else?
I've recently watched two television adaptations that created a pair of polarizing responses. On the positive side we have HBO's Watchmen. On the negative side is Netflix's The Witcher. Both series have a respected genre pedigree: one being one of the great graphic novels of our time; the other novel having a cult following and…
IN OTHER WORDS: Matthew W. Quinn on How To Create Awesome Cover Art, or The Tale of Battle for the Wastelands
When I was writing my independent military fantasy novel Battle for the Wastelands, one of the major people involved was none other than Apex Publications founder Jason Sizemore. Not only did he do a developmental edit back in 2016, but he proofread the manuscript, formatted it into an eBook and print book, and put me…
Editorial Content: Assertive Writing
This is the first of an ongoing monthly series titled "Editorial Content" that will be about editing and writing. I plan to write these exclusively for Patreon and our paying backers. However, the first one is free to all and will also appear on my personal blog (and Apex website blog) for cross-promotional reasons. If…
A Patreon series on editing?
I was promoting the Apex Book Company Patreon page over on my personal Twitter when a couple of savvy and trusted friends made a suggestion in response to my thoughts about an editing topic. They said they would pay real MONEY and back the Apex Patreon if I did a monthly series about editing for…
Picking the perfect book as a gift for friends and family
If there's ever a gifting trap, it's the one that happens when you decide to buy a book for someone you know. I can remember several instances over the years where I could sense that the person receiving my gifted book was unimpressed for various reasons. But why would someone be nonplussed by a gift?…
5 Great Episodes of Television of the 2010s
It's been an up and down decade. But one thing consumers have reliably counted on are quality television shows. The world burns around us, but damn if we don't have some fine TV. Here are five of my favorite episodes from the past ten years. Watchmen - "This Extraordinary Being" (S1.E6) Why not start with…
10 Favorite Television Shows of the 2010s
Have we reached peak TV? Hard to say. So many people suffer from recency bias and are quick to declare what they just watched the Best Thing Ever. I remember thinking in the 1990s that The X-Files could never be topped. Then in the 2000s it was The Sopranos. These days, I still love both…
MOVIE REVIEW: Climax (directed by Gasper Noé)
The films of Gasper Noé typically leave me cold. I watch them, I recognize that a director of great skill has created the movie, but the content leaves me unmoved. I'm by no means a Noé connoisseur. He's produced a lot of work, but I have seen four of his films now: Irrévisible, Enter the…
