by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 10, 2020 | About Writing, The Craft of Writing, Wild Cards
I was scrolling through Twitter this morning and came across a gif of a group of cows jumping over the white line on a road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHneXbfFwsc And it reminded me of a funny Roger Zelazny/Wild Cards story. Also how Roger was freaking brilliant and one of the finest writers ever to grace the field of science fiction and fantasy. Anyway, we were working a particular volume — Down and Dirty — where Roger’s iconic character Croyd Crenson aka The Sleeper...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 5, 2020 | Blog
I don’t often do this, but in this “splendid” Covid isolation I don’t have anyone to talk this out with so I’m going to pour it out on the page. Typical writer, right? So on Wednesday evening a lovely family came and took away the sort-of-antique-beds that were in the casita. The bed I had in Los Angeles will be coming back to New Mexico and I decided a queen with a really good Tempur-Pedic mattress was a better choice for any guests I might have once the plague...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 8, 2020 | Blog
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke We are where we are — 76,740 dead from Covid-19 — because of the cowardice of putatively good men, brave men, intelligent men, patriotic men. Where is Rex Tillerson who reputedly called Trump a “fucking moron”? You have anything to say? Where is General Mattis who said Trump had the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader,”, and ultimately resigned, but now refuses to speak out about what he has...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 20, 2020 | About Writing
I’ve been pacing and staring at the white board trying to lay out the full plot for book 4 of the Edge series. This one’s called The Edge of Infinity. I know the final scene of the book, I have major (tent pole) scenes, and lots of plot threads some of which are to tie up hanging threads from other books. But what I don’t have is the unifying bad guy. I had been considering using the Old One disguised as a homeless Jesus figure, but then I was texting with a friend this...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 6, 2020 | About Writing
You become invested in the characters you create for your books and even scripts if a character becomes a recurring character on a show. I had that happen on Reasonable Doubts, and it was cool. It was very hard for me to write the end of the relationship between that character and Marlee’s character. I got a bit teary as I typed. It is said that when Dumas killed Porthos in The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later he laid down his pen, unable to continue so great was his grief. I can...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 1, 2020 | Blog
Personal anecdote to indicate just how badly Trump & his administration botched the response to Covid 19. I’m a news junkie, I read the Post, the Times, Guardian, I watch the news, probably too much. I was aware of the outbreak of a new virus in China, but erroneously thought it was a flu. I know not to listen to a damn thing Trump says, but I (wrongly) assumed that the CDC or NIH would give us accurate information. What I missed was that Trump had throttled them. So I went about my...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 14, 2020 | Blog
I get it. Many of us are terrified that we’re witnessing the final days of the American experiment. We fear another four years of Donald Trump will result in the end of the Republic and the slide into autocracy… or worse. So those of us who frequent the inter-webs, and play around with social media have set aside the cute cat videos, and kids doing adorable things, and are talking politics. A lot. But we’re not doing it very well. Or at least a subset of us aren’t. Because this feels like the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Dec 31, 2019 | Blog
Okay, there are going to be SPOILERS so please don’t read this if you haven’t seen the film, and SPOILERS make you nuts. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Any of you...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 28, 2019 | Blog
So everyone made it safely to the house. Cordelia Willis gave me one of her bound books of their trip this past summer. Cordelia is a wonderful photographer. George and Parris gave me a darling Dr. Who purse. Considering I was just texting with a friend about whether he was the Doctor and I the Companion or vice versa it felt very apt. I overcooked the stuffing, and burned rather than toasted the top because I forgot about it because the damn bird would not get done! I blamed the turkey (and I...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 28, 2019 | General
This is going to be one of those Thanksgivings that we all talk about for years to come. Yesterday it started snowing. And it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed. I had been cooking all day yesterday, and today. Had a 21 pound turkey (our dinosaur descendant) in the fridge that had to be cooked whether my guests reached me or not. But being ever the optimist I went ahead and shoveled, and made great-grandfather’s homemade egg nog, and deviled the eggs while the bird roasted in the oven....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 23, 2019 | About Writing
I wanted to write and explain why I have reached this decision after spending my entire career as what some have referred to as a “New York author”. First allow me to give a huge thank you to the publishers, Tor and Titan in particular, and the editors, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, Stacy Hill, Diana M. Pho, Miranda Jewess, Cath Trechman who have supported and whose insightful comments have improved my work over the years. I have great respect and sympathy for the situation in which they, and in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 9, 2019 | TV & Movies
Okay, so if you haven’t watched Rebels, and hate spoilers you might want to skip this post. *********************************************************************************************************DANGER WILL ROBINSON! SPOILERS AHEAD!!! ********************************************************************************************** So I keep watching the episode from season 2 called The Honorable Ones. Because I love, love, love Agent Kallus. Yeah, I’m a sucker for redemption...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 1, 2019 | Blog
So I wrote these three urban fantasy novels under a pseudonym — Phillipa Bornikova because I didn’t want to risk reader confusion and these were really different from the Edge book and the Imperials books. For one thing they are in first person and they have vampires, and werewolves and elves, Oh My! After my beloved editor was taken ill the books fell into a black hole and the third book didn’t come out for several years. When I finally got a new editor both he and the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 1, 2019 | Blog
I wanted to give folks an update on getting Imperials back into print and the final two books available to readers. First the good news. I’m making really good progress on book 5 thought I’ve had to set it aside briefly while I revise the third Linnet Ellery book. (More on that in a separate post). Now the bad news. The publisher we had hoped would pick up Imperials didn’t bite because they don’t do reprints and wouldn’t put the first three books back into print....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 15, 2019 | About Writing, TV & Movies
I love Star Wars. I know that probably sounds treasonous since I wrote for Star Trek, but truthfully Trek in its later iterations was just too clean, too antiseptic, too boring, frankly, for my tastes. Give me the world of rogues and scoundrels, Hutt mafia bosses, pirates, and cantinas that don’t look like a nightclub on Fifth Avenue; give me some grunge. Oh and space wizards, can’t forget the space wizards. Star Wars also has Darth Vader, Alexsandr Kallus, Kanan Jarrus, Han Solo, Hera...
