Are You Linksperienced?

The writing proceeds apace at Chez Olson, after some bumpy days where I was not sure what the hell I wanted to write–not because I didn’t like what I was writing, but because I had several ideas that all wanted to come out at once. For a while, I thought that Entering Cadence, my ‘science fiction noir’ novella, would be what occupied my winter, until it decided it wanted to be a novel instead. I knocked out the first draft of a short horror story, “Goldilocks Zone,” then had to decide whether to return to Entering Cadence or start in on one of these other ideas.

The idea that won was to revisit a very old short story of mine, The Morpheist, and rework it into a dark fantasy novella set in a biopunkish future (once again, showing no respect for genre boundaries–tsch!). For the first time in a long time, I’ve been meeting the (admittedly modest) daily writing goals I’ve set for myself, and expect to have a first draft done by mid-April (stopping only to revisit, revise, polish, and send out “Goldilocks Zone”). After that… it’s either back to Entering Cadence, on to an as-yet-untitled biopunk SF story targeted for an anthology, or over to True Places to see if I can take the salvagable first half of that and turn it into a decent standalone book.

(As far as Starless Midnight–the projected sequel to Brutal Light–goes, that’s also a possibility, but low in priority at this point. Maybe by fall I’ll be ready for it…)

In the meantime, here are links! Yay?

I’m going to be on Blog Talk Radio’s A Cup of Coffee and a Good Book, hosted by Jennifer Walker, on February 29th from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. Jennifer will be interviewing me on Brutal Light and other writerly things, and I’ll be doing my best to keep my brain from locking up due to the stress that comes to me from trying to keep my train of thought from leaving the station before all the words are done boarding. Drop in and listen! (It’s not really ‘radio,’ it’s streaming, so if you’ve got a good internet connection, you should be able to follow along. Also, it’ll be archived, just in case you decide not to rearrange your life so as to listen live.)

Lincoln Crisler recently released a free story on Smashwords (you’ll need to log in or create an account to see it) to promote his soon-to-be-released anthology, Corrupts, Absolutely?. (And yeah, that anthology is one of the new releases I just talked about above.) Check it out!

Here’s something that’s simultaneously both cool and worrisome: Google will be selling ‘heads-up display’ glasses by year’s end. Cool because… well, come on. Worrisome because you just know people are going to be wearing these while doing other things, such as walking and driving and who knows what else, and it’s only a matter of time until we hear someone caused a multi-car pileup because they saw that a store they were passing had several funny cat videos on their YouTube channel.

Speaking of biopunk, here’s an article on some of the real-life bio-hacking that some people are already doing. This has ‘beginning of a SyFy Channel movie’ all over it…

I used to like eating hot, hot foods. In college, I would snork up jalapeno peppers straight out of the jar, and afterward, for years, I’d grow my own chili peppers. I’ve mellowed somewhat on that (my orders of Indian food never go above ‘medium,’ which is ‘hot’ to most sane people), but this article on the world’s hottest pepper tempts me to the challenge…

Here’s Five leadership mistakes of the Galactic Empire that you’ll want to avoid, especially if ‘force choke’ isn’t an option on the table for keeping your employees in line…

Finally, here’s something (originally brought to my attention by Naomi Clark) that I just loved: the opening of Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus, retold as a heartwarming children’s story. It is made of awesome.

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and several previously published and forthcoming short stories. He can be found via his website, his blog A Taste of Strange, as @gwox on Twitter, and in many other far-flung places on the Internet.

Links Con Queso

It’s been a pretty warm winter up here in Michigan. There’s been nothing I’d really call a major snowfall, let alone a blizzard, when by this point in most years we’ve been held down and snicker-snagged upon repeatedly by Old Man Winter, Jack Frost, and Cold Miser. Not that I’m complaining, mind you… it’s just… strange. Strange weather… weeeeiiiird weather…

I’ve been busy, as per usual. I put my latest project, Entering Cadence, briefly on hold in order to pound out the first draft of a horror short that, if done right, will be very, very wrong. Entering Cadence itself has been chugging along pretty well, though it keeps trying to change as I type. Then again, that’s true of most anything I write.

But enough about me. Release the kra–er, release the links!

Last Sunday I put up a page on this site excerpting the full prologue for my novel Brutal Light. If for some gobsmacking, logic-defying, plausibility-stretching, disbelief-suspending reason you haven’t bought and devoured (or at least licked) Brutal Light, check it out!

Get photos sent directly from Mars on your smartphone! Because that’s what smartphones are for, when you’ve run out of funny cat videos.

If you’re like me, and I know I am, you’re worried about robots, AIs, and othersuch sentient artificial life rising up and destroying us all. But it turns out that cyborgs and mutants are more likely to do that. (How they compare to zombies, though, I’m not sure.)

Here’s the 6 Most Counterproductive PSAs of All Time, according to Cracked.com. YMMV, of course, but I’m suddenly craving some Gofer Cakes for some reason…

…and then I’ll wash it down with some coffee. 10 Reasons Coffee is Both the Best and Worst Beverage Ever Invented.

The battle goes on: If you opposed SOPA and PIPA, you should oppose ACTA, too.

Some news that put a big, Gumby-like smile on my face: the Monty Python crew is reuniting to appear in ‘Absolutely Anything,’ a SF comedy. While it won’t be a ‘Monty Python’ movie, per se, it’s probably as close to one as we’ll ever get…

Finally, you may think that 2-Headed Shark Attack is the bad shark movie of the year to watch for, but I contend that Sand Sharks is going to be so much worse. And by ‘worse,’ I mean ‘more awesome.’

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and several previously published and forthcoming short stories. He can be found via his website, his blog A Taste of Strange, as @gwox on Twitter, and in many other far-flung places on the Internet.

Link-o-pation

So, we’re now six days into 2012, that exciting, unstable year with Roland Emmerich’s sweaty handprints already over it. I’ve just started on writing a dark science fiction novella, Entering Cadence, while continuing researching things in preparation for the sequel to Brutal Light. I’m determining which conventions I’ll make the extra effort to go to this year (beyond the Michigan-based ones I attend every year). I’m also working on some surprises for this month and next. Good times!

But you’re not here to listen to me be enigmatic, you’re here for a blog entry! Or possibly lutefisk. With that in mind, I direct your attention to these links…

Author J.E. Gurley’s new book of horror Blood Lust is now available for a very limited (that is, for today and the next three days) time for free as a Kindle download from Amazon.com. If you have a Kindle (or a Kindle app for your computer or phone), check it out!

Author Karina Fabian has launched the 30 Minute Marketer, a series dedicated to helping writers market their books. It’ll come out weekly (depending on donations) and breaks down marketing tasks into easy-to-fit-into-busy-schedule bits. Well worth a look if you’re a writer like me who wants to do more with marketing but can never seem to find the time.

A new anthology will soon be open for submissions: Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous, edited by Tim Marquitz. In a world where the light has faded, what creatures will make their presence known to man once more? Submissions are open from 1/15/12 to 5/15/12.

There’s a Facebook meme thingy going around where people are posting links to videos on YouTube featuring the song that was at number one on the pop charts when they were born. Here’s mine: In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans. A song that somehow manages to be both haunting and annoying at the same time. (I think I would have liked it if I’d been born one week later, though, so I could claim the Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Woman. 😛 )

One more video, from the ‘Epic Rap Battles of History’ series: Gandalf vs. Dumbledore. Because it’s Friday, and it’s made of awesome.

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and several previously published and forthcoming short stories. He can be found via his website, his blog A Taste of Strange, as @gwox on Twitter, and in many other far-flung places on the Internet.

Gettin’ Merry With It

The publication of Brutal Light just 23 days ago was undoubtedly the high point of my year. I had a lot of stressful things going on outside of my writing life this year, and while the work on the novel and the promotion thereof got a bit crazy as well, it was the kind of ‘good stress’ that I needed to counteract the not-so-good kind. I learned a lot this year, met a lot of new friends, pushed myself out of my comfort zone for the first time in a long time… and I’m looking forward to next year.

Like I wrote last week, I’m going to be taking next week off from blogging and the other social media venues. No blitherings shall I blog; no statuses shall I update; no tweets shall I twit. I’m also putting off the next issue of the newsletter until January. I’ll be reading everything, of course, but unless I’m really moved to say something (most likely because I’ve thought of a bad pun), it’ll be eerie silence from me until January 2012.

Which is not to say I won’t be busy! I’m on vacation from my day job as well, and am determined to get cranking on my next project, a dark science fiction novella called Entering Cadence. You may have read me going on about it in some of the interviews during my virtual book tour; naturally, the story has mutated further from what I then described. But I’m itching to start it, and next week is a perfect time to do so.

So from me and mine to you and yours, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a festive New Year!

(And if you like snow, you can have my share, when we get some.)

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and several previously published and forthcoming short stories. He can be found via his website, his blog A Taste of Strange, as @gwox on Twitter, and in many other far-flung places on the Internet.