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The Playthings of Rich Men
When the news broke that Elon Musk was buying Twitter, I was thoroughly unimpressed and ambivalent. One rich asshole is the same as another to me, so I didn’t think much of the acquisition. But I failed to take into account that Musk would use Twitter as a tool to flex his enormous wealth, ego,…
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A Reboot of a Reboot
Hello there. I am Jason. The last time I blogged here was January 2020. I decided to give the website a facelift. Before my comeback in early 2020 was derailed by more health problems, I was in the process of launching the freelance side of my career. The site now has all that information. Very…
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FOR WRITERS: Comma Sense
I like commas. I detest semi-colons – I don’t think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn’t need them, they were fly-specks on the page. E. L. Doctorow Did you know that of the 1,146 pages comprising the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of…
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HEALTH: An 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…
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REVIEW: 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 among the great graphic novels of our time; the other is a series with a cult following…
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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…
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FOR WRITERS: Assertive Writing
“I have great faith in fools—self-confidence my friends will call it.” Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia One of the easiest ways to make your manuscript stronger is to practice assertive writing. Practicing Word economy can improve your writing, make your editors happy, and create narrative drive. What do I mean when I say to practice assertive…
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FUN: 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?…
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FUN: FIVE 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.
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FUN: TEN 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 as 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…