A Post About My New E-Reader

I’m over at SFNovelists today — that’s the site I help to maintain with over one hundred other published authors of fantasy and science fiction.  I’m writing about my new E-reader in a post called “My New E-Reader and Me:  A Match Made in ‘Meh.'”  I hope you enjoy it.

A Post About Writing and Photography

I’m at SFNovelists today, with a blog post about the similarities among various art forms.  Specifically, I’m discussing a few lessons I’ve learned doing photography that translate to my writing life.  The post can be found here. I hope you enjoy it.

A Post About a Writer’s Resolutions

Today’s post can be found at the SFNovelists blog, a site I help to maintain with over one hundred other published authors in speculative fiction.  The post is called “Writing Resolutions for the Coming Year,” and it is my annual post listing my goals and resolves for the coming New Year.  I hope that you enjoy it.

And I want to wish all of you a merry Christmas and a New Year filled with laughter and joy.  Have fun, people, and be safe.

A New Interview as the Summer Blog Tour Shifts Into Fall

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post for the Summer 2013 Thieves’ Quarry Blog Tour (yes, it’s September, but it’s still summer officially . . .), and in that time I have attended DragonCon, and been busy on a couple of other fronts that I can’t discuss just yet but hope to announce soon.  Today, I am happy to point you to an interview I did with Garrett Calcaterra about writing professionally in the current market.  Originally, Garrett interviewed me for an article he published at Black Gate Magazine that touched on these issues and focused not only on me, but also on fellow writers M. Todd Gallowglas, Wendy N. Wagner, and Patrick Hester.  Today, the full interview is available here, on Garrett’s website.  I hope you enjoy it.

Emotion and Writing, Today on the Blog Tour!

Today the Summer 2013 Thieves’ Quarry Blog Tour is back at Magical Words, the group blog on the craft and business of writing that I maintain, as David B. Coe, with Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, John Hartness, James Tuck, and Mindy Klasky, among others.  Today’s post coincides with the dropping off of my oldest child at college for her freshman year.  So it is called “Grist For the Mill:  Emotion and Creativity,” and it is about using personal experience and emotion and memory to strengthen the emotional content of our books and stories.  I hope you enjoy it.  And I hope to see many of you at DragonCon later this week!

A Post About Narrative and Life, At Magical Words

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, Mindy Klasky, John Hartness, Kalayna Price, and James Tuck, among others. The post is called “On Creativity: Narrative, Fiction, and Life” It is a special post, written on a very special day in my life. I hope you enjoy it.

Thieftaker Fundraiser and Giveaway: A Month Ago Today

A month ago today, bombs set off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded hundreds.  One month.  It doesn’t seem like that long ago, and yet the bombing has virtually disappeared from the headlines.  The city is healing; I heard a report on NPR this morning about how some semblance of normality has returned to that part of Boston.  But for those whose lives were shattered that day, the long, slow, at times painful recovery continues.  And you can help them.

The Thieftaker Fundraiser/Giveaway is still up and running, collecting donations for the One Fund for Boston, which will donate every penny to helping the injured, and the families of those who died.  We are only about $200 short of the first giveaway: a signed bound manuscript of THIEFTAKER, a collector’s item.  But we remain several thousand dollars short of the fundraiser’s goal of $5000.00.  If you have already given, thank you.  If you have not yet done so, please consider giving a gift today.  You don’t have to give a lot; every dollar truly does help.  Here is the URL:

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/DBJacksonThieftaker/thieftakergiveaway

Many thanks.

Thieftaker Fundraiser and Giveaway for Boston Bombing Victims

I grew up just outside of New York City.  I was a Yankees fan, a Knicks fan, a Rangers fan, a Giants fan.  And, as a loyal New Yorker, I have spent much of my life rooting against teams from Boston — the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Bruins (the Patriots too, but they haven’t really been the Boston Patriots since I was a little kid).

On the other hand, I lived for several years in Providence and all of my siblings lived for at least some time in the Boston area.  So, while I grew up hating Boston’s teams, I have always loved the city of Boston.  When it came time to set my Thieftaker books in a Colonial era city, Boston seemed the logical choice.

The terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon venue left me stunned and grieving, not only for the victims most affected by the bombings, but for the entire city.  I still recall my sense of outrage, of violation when my beloved New York was attacked in 2001.  I know what the people of Boston are feeling.

And so, it is with deepest sympathy and love and solidarity that transcends lifelong sporting rivalries that I embark on a fundraiser and giveaway to do my small part in helping Boston get back on its feet.  Through a website called First Giving, I am hosting a fundraising event the goal of which is to raise $5,000.00 by July 2 (the release date for THIEVES’ QUARRY, and for the paperback reprint of THIEFTAKER) for the Boston Foundation and the One Fund of Boston.  If you will help me raise the funds, I’ll make it interesting for you.  Here’s how it works:

For each fundraising milestone we reach, I will be giving away prizes to lucky donors.

— When we reach $1000 raised, I will give away one signed uncorrected manuscript of THIEFTAKER. This is a collector’s item — a copy of the manuscript that was sent out to other authors who were asked to blurb the book before its release in 2012.
— When we reach $2000, I will give away one Boston Thieftaker’s Guild t-shirt in whatever size the winner wants. The t-shirt can be signed if the winner would like it to be.
— When we reach $3000, I will give away one signed paperback edition of THIEFTAKER. (This book comes out on July 2, so the giveaway will happen then.)
— When we reach $4000, I will give away one signed hardcover edition of THIEVES’ QUARRY. (This book will also be available on July 2 and will be given away then.)
— When we reach $5000, I will give away a second signed paperback of THIEFTAKER and a second signed hardcover of THIEVES’ QUARRY to one lucky donor. (Also to be given away on July 2.)

The donation site can be found here:  http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/DBJacksonThieftaker/thieftakergiveaway

I hope you will join me in reaching out to the people of Boston, and doing our part to speed the healing process.  And I hope that you’re one of the luck winners.

Thank you.

The Sad Tale of Roger and Barry

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were arguably the biggest stars in Major League Baseball in the 1990s.  Bonds was the best position player, Clemens the most dominant pitcher.  Their careers followed eerily similar paths, culminating today with what I expect will be the failure of both of them to garner enough votes from the Baseball  Writers of America to enter the Hall of Fame.  A dozen years ago their fate in this regard would have been unthinkable.

In 1985, Clemens debuted as a twenty-two year old pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.  The following season, Bonds became the starting center fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  He moved to left field in 1987.  Clemens established himself as a star during that 1986 season, winning both the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards with historically impressive statistics.  He won his second Cy Young Award in 1987, and a third in 1991.  Bonds took longer to find himself as a player, winning his first Most Valuable Player Award in 1990, but he won two more in 1992 and 1993, the latter with the San Francisco Giants.

By the late 1990s, both men were considered the best in the business, superstars who were destined for the Hall of Fame.  Clemens had added two more Cy Young Awards in 1997 and ‘98 to give him a total of five, more than any pitcher in history.  He had his MVP award and was also a seven time All-Star.  He was on pace to reach the milestones that defined excellence at his position — three hundred career victories and three thousand strikeouts.  Bonds had won his three MVP awards, had been an All-Star eight times, a Gold Glove winner eight times, and Silver Slugger winner seven times.  He was on pace to reach five hundred home runs in his career — at that time a near-automatic qualification for the Hall — and was also on pace to wind up among baseball’s all-time leaders in runs scored and walks.

But at that point both men started down the path that would be their undoing.  Clemens, then in his late thirties, started to wear down, as aging pitchers do.  Bonds was still going strong, but his ego could not take the attention lavished on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998, during their historic (and, as it turned out, steroid-induced) assault on Roger Maris’s single-season home run record.  By most accounts, it seems that both men turned to steroids in order to enhance their performances and prolong their careers.  And they did so with spectacular results.  Clemens, seeming to defy the passage of the years, won two more Cy Young Awards and finished his career with over 350 wins and over 4,600 strikeouts.  His seven Cy Young Awards is still a Major League record.

Bonds’s performance in the early 2000s is even more astonishing.  He broke the single-season and career home run records, amassing statistics that exceeded even those of Babe Ruth in his prime.  He won the Most Valuable Player Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, giving him seven for his career, more than any other player.  He finished his career as the Major League leader in home runs and walks, and among the career leaders in runs scored, runs batted in, extra base hits, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.

And yet, the accomplishments of both men were so tainted by their rumored use of steroids that even these glittering credentials will not get them into the Hall of Fame.  Not this year, certainly, and perhaps not ever.

Clemens and Bonds were two sides of the same tarnished coin.  One white, the other black; one a pitcher, the other a position player; one (mostly) an American League player, the other solely a National Leaguer — they seemed to have so little in common.  But they reached the Major Leagues within a year of each other, and both retired at the end of the 2007 season, Clemens with his seven Cy Youngs, Bonds with his seven MVPs.  They were both prickly personalities who were not terribly popular with their teammates or the media.  And when baseball’s reputation was damaged by revelations of steroid use, they were the two men at the center of the controversy.  Both have been in court in recent years, arguing desperately for their innocence, both seeming to understand that baseball’s greatest honor, election to the Hall of Fame, would be denied to them if they could not clear their names.  And both will be disappointed today when the Hall of Fame voting for this year is made public.

At a time when our nation — indeed, our planet — faces issues of near-existential proportion, when people are struggling to feed and clothe their families, when tragedies seem an everyday occurrence, it is hard to muster much sympathy for these men.  There are more like them — men who might have thought they would make the Hall, only to discover that in violating the rules and the law in pursuit of gaudy numbers and gaudier contracts they had made themselves anathema to the writers who would decide their fates.  Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa, Sheffield, Ramirez, perhaps Rodriguez in another few years.  The names are familiar, the stories now border on cliché.  All of them made millions playing a game.  As I say, it’s hard to feel sorry for them, or to see their fall into ignominy as any sort of calamity.

Theirs were sins of hubris, of greed, of vanity; the same foibles that have thwarted the ambitions of so many, in countless fields of endeavor, over the course of human history.  But what separates Clemens and Bonds from the other baseball players who used performance enhancing drugs — an occurrence so common that the very category of substances now has its own acronym:  PEDs — is that they didn’t need to do it.  Palmeiro and McGwire and Sosa were good players who made themselves great, hoping to find immortality.  But Clemens and Bonds were already great when they started to cheat.  They were destined to be in the Hall of Fame.  They would have been remembered as truly outstanding players.  And that wasn’t enough for them.

Maybe this disgusts you, or angers you, or leaves you shaking your head at their foolishness.  It leaves me sad, and nostalgic for the perhaps-imagined simplicity of my youth, when stars like Aaron and Mays, Bench and Morgan, Schmidt and Brett played the game by the rules, with respect for the traditions of which they were part.  Maybe that’s naïve.  After all, those guys were paid pretty well in their day.  But just as Paul Simon once wondered where Joe Dimaggio had gone, I wonder what has happened to the kind of stars I remember from my childhood.

Six Ways to Keep the Creative Process Flowing

Today I have a post up at the SFNovelists blogsite, a site I maintain in cooperation with approximately 100 other published authors of fantasy and science fiction.  The post (written under David B. Coe) is called “Six Non-Writing Things That Might Improve Your Writing,” and it is about the things I do to keep my creative juices flowing and my life balanced and healthy.  I hope you enjoy it.