Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing Fiction, the Guardian asked 27 other writers for their own contributions. The result is overlong, contradictory, but intermittently fascinating. I’ll reproduce some of the advice here, but only the bits I agree with. Using adverbs is a mortal sinNever use an adverb to modify the verb “said” […]

Two notes from the world of energy:Bloomenergy today rolled out its Bloom Boxes, new-generation fuel cells that can generate electricity in the home (or the factory, or the server farm, or wherever). The cells take in oxygen from one direction, natural gas (or biogas) from another, and produce kilowatts in exchange. The industrial-sized cells weigh […]

Watching the skating at the Winter Olympics while improving my vocabulary. I’ve learned that many of the jumps are named after the person who invented them. The lutz is named after Alois Lutz, the walley after Nate Walley, the axel after Axel Paulson, and the salchow after Ulrich Salchow.And the toe loop, of course, is […]

The Science Fiction Writers of America have released the list of this year’s Nebula nominees. And you know what’s the second thing* I noticed about it? Two of the nominees in the short story category— Will McIntosh and friend-of-the-blog Saladin Ahmed— are graduates of my Taos Toolbox workshop! Amazingly enough, there is still room available […]