My excellent former co-writer and dear friend Michael Reaves and our old buddy Marc Scott Zicree have done something extraordinary with another mutual acquaintance and occasional dinner guest, George Takei.
Today is the last day you can vote at TV Guide’s Online Video Awards for their joint effort in the Star Trek: New Voyages series, World […]

Posted in Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing 1 Comment »

And so, to my great sorrow, passes one of the most senior, and certainly one of the most beloved, of YA fantasy writers: one of the first of us to break out, over the course of years, into worldwide fame, and to general agreement that she “wasn’t just writing kid stuff”.
She was […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Writing, Young Wizards 5 Comments »

I just wanted to drop a note to thank all those of you who were so kind as to send sympathy messages to me (and to Peter) about the loss of his Mum.
We are both coping as well as we can: it’s obviously harder on him than on me… yet I’m in the strange situation […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Home life, Young Wizards No Comments »

Authors’ copies of my books have started piling up around here again, so I thought I’d offer some of them here for those of you who might like signed copies of this or that before we start restructuring / restocking our offsite storage. Also, I’ve been able to acquire some good-quality copies of earlier stuff […]

Posted in Home life, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

Lou Romano has a blog.
Wow!

Posted in Film and TV, Graphic and plastic arts No Comments »

I thought that for my offering to this noble group effort, I would bring along something that people have been asking about on and off for a while: something of a rarity, one of the very few extant short works set in the Middle Kingdoms universe.
“Parting Gifts” is, I think, the first piece of short […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Writing 3 Comments »

This has been in the pipeline for a while.YoungWizards.com is now running under the Drupal content-management system, which will make it capable of handling its own blogs, forums, and other goodies. YW.net will follow suit shortly.
Feel free to stop by and kick the tires!
Technorati Tags: Young, wizards, Nita and Kit, Diane Duane, […]

Posted in Computer stuff, Fantasy and science fiction, Home life, Online life, Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

I roared. Someone email this to JKR, quick…
The seventh and last installment of boy wizard Harry Potter and his antics at Hogwarts, sinisterly titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Gallows…
Whoopsie!  (snicker)
Technorati Tags: J. K. Rowling, JKR, Harry Potter, deathly, Hogwarts, July, 21

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Humor, Typos, Writing 1 Comment »

INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — NIGHT

She’s hidden by the tented-up blankets on her bed.
The dim light welling out from underneath would make
you think she’s doing the reading-by-flashlight thing.

NITA (O.S.)
I don’t get why some spells call
for these weird objects. The knotted
string you were using. Batteries.
Sugar cubes! Who needs this stuff
when you have the Speech?

KIT (V.O.)
It’s something to […]

Posted in Film and TV, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

There are various book memes that seem to have been around forever…and So You Want to Be a Wizard is number 356 on one of them, a meme apparently native to LiveJournal. (Here’s an example, and here, and here, and here…)
I was glancing at the list today, and an idea came up. Eventually […]

Posted in Computer stuff, Note to self, Online life, Writing No Comments »

…for the book that didn’t get published, starts on page 16 of this fascinating document.
Just look at all those zeroes. (Not that the poor ghostwriter gets to have many of them…)
Technorati Tags: O.J., Simpson, book, novel, contract

Posted in Current events, Writing No Comments »

The transfer to The Big Meow’s new hosting provider at Lunarpages has gone smoothly, and the new installation of Drupal 5.0 is now up and running. Everything seems to be working OK, but if those of you who read this and venture over there should find anything strange going on, please register so that you can […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Computer stuff, Fantasy and science fiction, Online life, Writing No Comments »

…to its new hosting servers at Lunarpages, starting today.
This means that the site will disappear for a while as the domain registrar passes the domain’s internal change-of-address information (DNS) into the Net. The site may take as long as seventy-two hours to reappear, so please don’t panic if the absence seems to be getting prolonged.
The […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Computer stuff, Online life, Writing No Comments »

It’s good to take a challenge every now and then. From over at Daily15, for today’s challenge word, which is “solstice”:
Invictus
In the dimness he woke and knew it was too late. Morning never came so late unless the world was ending.
Fortunately, he knew what to do about that.
He blinked and ruffled his feathers, looking around. […]

Posted in Home life, Ireland, Writing No Comments »

Not about Jade. (Well, only peripherally.)
The inevitable comments are starting to come out of the British newspapers regarding the Big Brother bullying-and-racism flap. A few of the articles are making puns on Jade’s last name, including a very specific one: Is it too late to be Goody Two-Shoes?, etc. And something about that brought my […]

Posted in History, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Media, Writing 2 Comments »

A moment from a screenplay:

EXT. SCHOOL — AFTERNOON

The door into the playground cracks softly open.
Kit peers out, looks around. Then he slips out,
followed by Nita.

From around the corner of the building, Joanne and
her crowd emerge. Nita and Kit pause, look at each other.
Then, together, they head toward Joanne and her gang.

A “High Noon” moment: the […]

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

Those of you who may have been watching the progressive site revamp at The-Big-Meow.com should be warned that, while I was attempting to add some features this morning, some stuff got screwed up. It’s not serious, but it affects the look-and-feel of the site, and may take a while to fix, as I’m still not […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Technogeekery, Writing No Comments »

From the newsblog that appears on Blogger’s dashboard page:
I am overjoyed to announce that today we have o’ficially graduated the new version of Blogger from “in beta” to “.” Why is this significant? Allow me to explain via analogy:
Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene : Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos :: Old Blogger : New […]

Posted in Film and TV, Media No Comments »

Folks, I’m wrecked, so more about this tomorrow: but the new chapter’s up for the book’s subscribers. (It’s a fairly plump one, at 18,000 words.)
It’s in the same directory that Four, Five and Six were in for subscribers, and can be got at using the same username / password pair. The “mailing list” mails […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Writing 2 Comments »

A nice mention of The Empty Chair this morning at the Albany Times Union books blog. Thanks, Michael: thanks, Eleanor! And regards from an expat New Yorker.

Technorati Tags: The Empty Chair, Rihannsu, Star Trek, Times Union, Diane Duane

Posted in Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing 6 Comments »