Writing

Pareidolia: Chapter Two

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

LEAH

Northwest Philadelphia | July, 1999

The long walks started in June. I was sick of sitting around at home, pretending to read or staring at the cat. I’d disappear behind the wall of trees across the street from our house almost daily, losing myself for hours. Dad asked about this over dinner one night, but I wasn’t sure what to say. Where was I off to? Just getting some exercise? Yes, that was it. Not that it was a secret.

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Pareidolia: Chapter One

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

(PART ONE)

ZEKE

Rosedale, MD | September, 1998

Cory’s coded message brings me to a cinderblock apartment on the edge of a Baltimore suburb. I dial 011 for the Miller birthday party. Arrows on signs guide me through a pale maze to a long low room where balloons gather in corners and look down on people in various states of milling under lights turned up too high.

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Pareidolia: Part One

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

PART ONE

In your mind you have capacities, you know;

To telepath messages through the vast unknown;

Please close your eyes and concentrate with every thought you think;

Upon the recitation we’re about to sing:

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft;

Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft.

– Klaatu

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Artificially Powered

_eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind

 

Aside from the necessary business of revealing character, I’ve come to believe that power is central to great storytelling. It’s more than just a means to an end; specifically in science fiction and fantasy, power and influence become explicit gravitational centers of a narrative. They are externalized and, more importantly, artificial.

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When The Words Write You

I’m sick. It’s 2:16 in the morning and I absolutely can’t sleep. The decongestant I took earlier in the day is refusing to play nice with the mouthful of hopefully not rancid NyQuil I downed a good four hours ago. At any rate the dark room is pulsating with that awful clarity of dilated eyes and the thing I can’t stop thinking about is how a single simple idea can explode with unpredictable and uncontrollable complexity into a full-blown novel.

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