Tomorrow, Tuesday June 11th at 12 PM PST, I have a very special guest on for Geekchats, author Beth Cato, famous for her Clockwork Dagger and Blood of Earth series, some of the best steampunk and alt-history around. We’re going to chat all things steampunk from tropes to alt-history to final fantasy and back again. […]
The Last Crusade: Judging Evil and Wickedness
I’ve talked about common phrases that non-Christians like to take out of the Bible and smugly use to criticize Christians into silence. The topic at the time “turn the other cheek”, attempting to dupe Christians, but there’s another that does pretty much the same thing, which has been used to con a couple of modern […]
How Do We Fix SFWA’s Brand – Part I: Identifying the Issues
From my poll the other day about whether I should join SFWA. It was a good sample size for my audience, which I estimate to be at about 4,000 people overall based on blog clicks/book sales. It’s no bestseller status (yet) but no chump change either in the science fiction and fantasy community, which has […]
The Should I Join SFWA Poll
SERIOUS VOTES ONLY. I have been told that I will get what I give if I join SFWA. Should I do it? — Mr. (JD)A (@jondelarroz) July 7, 2017 So far, my audience is pretty adamant, but there’s still 12 hours left for SFWA to get a chance. President Cat Rambo, who last month called […]
Hot Take: Milo Sues Simon & Schuster
The culture war has shifted in a way I never thought possible. The big media conglomerates have been put on the defense on every front, to the way the fake news has gone full tilt in an effort to preserve their power, resulting in their lower ratings, not to mention the entire internet declaring war […]
Drown The Cat – The Writer’s Guide For The #PulpRevolution
Doing a post on writing advice this morning reminded me of a new release this week, something that flies in the face of conventional “how to write” guides, focusing on dialing in the passion of a writer. Drown The Cat quite intentionally parodies the title of Save The Cat, the writing guide that so […]
On Writing: Character, Character, Character
I used to worry heavily about concepts, about extreme details about setting, worldbuilding, plot, and pacing. All of those things are nice, and when they come together, they can make for a fine book, but what differentiates a book most readers find good or even great, is having a relatable protagonist that people can care […]
Review: Wandfasted by Laurie Forest
I’ve been saying that within 2 years, Laurie Forest will be one of the biggest, most respected names in fantasy. Her new novella, Wandfasted, will go a long way toward making that reality. It’s a longer novella, almost full novel length, which is good bang-for-your-buck in terms of entertainment/cost value. And actually, it’s almost two […]
#CNNBlackmail: The Mainstream Media’s Waterloo
On the 4th of July, a day dedicated to celebrating independence from tyranny, CNN used its corporate power to strong-arm an anonymous internet user into apologizing for posting a meme. The article was written by Andrew Kaczynski, a reporter who came to fame via his Buzzfeed platform through publicizing a poor joke by an average young […]
Geek Gab: On The Books At 2 PM PST!
I’ll be on talking Indie vs. Trad Pub with Dragon Award winning author, Brian Niemeier. Tune in! I’m sure the both of us will have very nice things to say about the traditional publishing market/outlets/corporations.
How I Use Rhetoric To Sell Books
I’ve been thinking a lot about the use of rhetoric vs. dialectic lately in life, and how that works as a tool for persuasion. I won’t get into the details of it, but you can look up some pundit guy you may have heard of named Aristotle if you want to get into the nitty […]
Anthology Review: Straight Outta Tombstone
Straight Outta Tombstone – edited by David Boop. Between the title and the cover, it didn’t take much for me to be salivating over buying this. I’m a big fan of the Weird West, as many folk know, going back to my work on Doomtown Reloaded for the Deadlands RPG universe. Add in some of […]
LibertyCon Round Up!
Just getting back from LibertyCon, and I have to say I was pretty blown away by how awesome it was. Almost as awesome as being a gangsta with author A.M. Freeman here: As much as I understand they had some issues with capacity for the hotel, the actual convention at a train station and inside/around […]
#SteampunkMonth Review: Everland by Wendy Spinale
I went into Everland not knowing what to expect. I saw steampunk wings on a cover, heard it was a Peter Pan retelling but Steampunk, and that was enough to get me in the door. It turns out it’s more of a “twisted fairy tale” which I found out afterward is a genre in and […]
Where The Heck Is Jon?
Hello there loyal readers. I am quite sorry that this is the first time in… well, since you probably started reading that I haven’t had at least a blog a day up during weekdays, and that I’ve left you hanging for two straight days. That’s not very nice of me! I mentioned my LibertyCon schedule […]
LibertyCon Schedule – June 30th, Chattanooga TN!
I’ll be going to libertycon this weekend, and I’ll be in Nashville a couple of days before that to go see the Charlie Daniels Band and watch the Nashville Sounds play baseball. I actually have a pretty packed schedule but I’ll do my best to make time for everyone. At libertycon: Day Time Name […]
Social Media Strategy: Crowd Source Fun Things!
Something I do that’s different that I don’t see a lot of other authors do is crowd sourcing. “How do you crowd source books?” one might ask. I actually do it fairly regularly. I give my readers voices in what blogs they want to see and what I’ll write about if I have multiple ideas, […]
Psalm 40
Many of you probably don’t know it, but it’s been a rather hard week for me. I don’t say much about things like that, because I am a firm believer that mindset, energy, pushing toward goals are the way to overcome things. There’s also trusting in God. Instead of reading the news every morning, I’ve […]
#SteampunkMonth Review: The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis
The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis is a Steampunk war story about a woman who, by luck and her willingness to fight, becomes an airship captain. She is set up by the general, with his nephew Bernat being sent aboard to report on her and provide evidence she’s incompetent. After the opening battle, the first […]
Speaking Out Against The Disavow and Disassociate Game
I’ve dealt with this game for a long time on a personal level, and see it going on elsewhere on a regular basis. Back in 2015, I wasn’t all that well known in the science fiction community. I had my group of friends locally, and was on the periphary of Anne McCaffrey’s sorta crew (who […]
#Steampunk Month Retro Anime Review: Steamboy
The first comment my wife made for this movie was during the opening crawl, where she said “why is it that all these take place in Manchester, 1866.” Too true. Then again, she watches primarily BBC historical dramas, which all seem to take place in such a setting. This took a different take. I watched […]
Chirs Kennedy’s Asbaran Solutions on Audio!
Really not posting this for any other reason other than I’m excited to listen to this. I loved Book 1 in this universe, written by Mark Wandrey, and since I did that on audio, I like to follow the stories in the same format. This just came out, and I’m super pumped to listen. My […]
Writing Blog – On Character Voice and Perspective
I know I said I wasn’t going to write a blog today, but I just got the best compliment probably I’ve ever received. I was told by a reader that For Steam And Country in terms of prose, writing, tone looked NOTHING like Star Realms: Rescue Run. The reader couldn’t believe it was written by […]
Great Book Launch!
Thanks again to everyone who bought For Steam And Country. Please remember to review on Amazon and Goodreads — it’s most important to have reviews when people are looking at it, like now. Write to what you know, edit it later. It’s a promotional tool, that’s all reviews are for, don’t have to overthink it. […]