Literary Easter Eggs

I love to give gifts for Easter, so in that spirit, I have several writerly nuggets of advice gleaned from Ray Bradbury. They come mostly from an interview he did back in 2001. Here are my favorites, passed along to you via a frisky Sylvilagus audubonii (Desert Cottontail).

Get Rid of Unbelievers

Are there people in your life who won’t support your writing? I don’t mean support as in pay for your lazy butt, but people who frown on your endeavors. Fire them. Unfriend them. Unlike them. Unfollow them. They will drag your dream down.

Write with Joy

Why did you get into writing in the first place? There had to be a spark of joy there. Right? Fan that spark until it’s a flame. Make your work your love. After all, for most of us, no one’s paying for it. So if a story feels like drudgery, scrap it. Start a new one that you love.

List Ten Things you Love

Then write about them. Create stories about them. Combine your passions. I love to write and cook. No, that doesn’t mean I’ll write a cookbook. But I do have some ideas in the works for stories that involve cooking.

List Ten Things You Hate.

Kill these things but putting them on the page. It’s great therapy. I once had a difficult time with a few friends of mine, so I bashed out a screenplay. A serial killer screenplay. Then I promptly offed all the offending friends. I felt awesome afterward. Thought I’m not sure what this says about my psyche.

Type Anything, So Long as It’s English 

The first thing that pops into your head. Put it down. Use word associations to break through that dreaded writer’s block. Hey, words on the page beats a blank page. Even if they don’t make a lot of sense. You might even try the Write of Die website. The screen turns red if you stop typing for too long.

Don’t Write for Everyone

It just takes one person. Someone to notice and appreciate your writing. Maybe it’s the fella who will tell you that you’re not totally nuts.

Be a Cheerleader

Writing is a lonely awful business full of neck aches, bleary eyes, and rejection letters. Sometimes people need a little encouragement. Writers need to support other writers. It’s the only way we’ll all get through this.

Tim Kane

Rube Goldberg Devices

I’ve always adored Rube Goldberg devices. It may stem from watching too much Tom and Jerry or Wile E Coyote as a young tot. Each of those fellas built some outlandish contraptions.

Another great product from Acme

The origin of these machines dates back a century to Ruben Lucius Goldberg. At a young age, he obsessed with tracing from books, newspapers, and calendars. After a failed career as an engineer, he began drawing cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Perhaps the best device I’ve seen to date is “Page Turner”. Watch and enjoy.

Tim Kane

4 Steampunk Must Reads

For those of you with a literary bent, here are some amazing, and possibly overlooked, books dealing with Steampunk.

Doctor Grordbort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory

Think of it as a Sears catalog for ray guns. Everything a planet-hopping adventurer could need. The author, Greg Broadmore, has thrown in the kitchen sink on this one. In addition to the various rayguns sold by his emporium (Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators) he has armored suits (like the Ignas Fraunhofer III Gas Driven Gadabout), robotic moving couches ( Chairlord 2200), along with straight up robotic servants (Automaitre D’). There are even some comics at the end to exemplify the exploits of Lord Cockswain. Buy it now.

 

Doctor Grordbort Presents: Victory (Dr. Grordbort Presents Victory: Scientific Adventure Violence)

More adventures with Lord Cockswain. The subhead says it all: Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men & Literate Women. Mr. Cockswain aims to bring order to the galaxy by obliterating anything that personally offends him. And he’s got the rayguns to back him up. Filled with mock advertorials inviting you to join up with the “British Colonial Expeditionary Forces.” It also comes with a complete bestiary of Venus. Such a value!

 

The Omnibus of Doctor Bill Shakes and the Magnificent Ionic Pentatetrameter

Technically not out yet (May 11th) this proves to be a tremendous addition to any steampunk aficionado. Who could beat Will Shakespeare gone steampunk? The dialogue alone is worth the price of admission. Will Romeo have a mechanical arm? Will Hamlet be a cyborg? The possibilities are endless (as long as they contain gears and springs).

 

Bartleby’s Book of Buttons Vol. 1: The Far Away Island

Okay, so technically not a book, this iPad app will appeal to anyone who has a love for gears, levers, and of course buttons. Bartleby collects buttons. In this interactive tale, he sets off to a mysterious island to find a new button for his collection. There’s plenty of button pushing fun with this book. Plus, if you dig it, there’s a sequel: Bartleby’s Book of Buttons Vol. 2: The Button at the Bottom of the Sea.

Happy adventuring fellow gear-heads.

Tim Kane

When Will Apple Build a Car?

I recently took my vehicle down to the shop for maintenance. Well, it wasn’t voluntary, the battery died. I mean died. It took a tow truck to jump it and even then, when I stopped at the service department, they couldn’t restart it again.

As always, there were plenty of other nifty (and expensive) repairs on the docket. One had me scratching my head. My car needed a software update. I get this all the time for my iPhone or laptop. But a car? Plus I had to shell out a c-note for the update (no wireless download for me, thank you).

Then I thought: when will Apple build a car? The idea isn’t so far fetched. Google has created a driverless car. So why can’t Apple join the fray? People thought Apple was nuts when it teamed with AT&T to make a cell phone. Look what happened there.

An Italian designer, Liviu Tudoran, created a car prototype inspired by Macintosh and iPod products. Check out all the specs here. For a look at a Microsoft developed car, check this out.

Imagine it. The new Ford powered by Apple. It could happen. At least then I could get my software downloaded off the cloud. Hey, I’d probably be able to get all the schematics on my vehicle’s performance sent to my phone. That’d put all those specialized mechanics out of work. Plus, think of the apps you could download.

Food for thought.

Tim Kane

5 Books I Couldn’t Put Down

It isn’t often that I’m struck by this phenomenon: I start reading, pass a point, and I can’t stop. I literally steal every single moment to read, craving each and every word of a book. What follows are five books I’ve been addicted to.

Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs

Although the selling point for this novel is the bizarre (and authentic) photos of freaks, the book doesn’t need them. That’s how captivating the prose is. I started reading it on my Nook and eventually sneaked away from my family to finish it. It has time travel, freaks, and monsters. Who could want more? Plus it has the most realistic young romance I’ve read in years. I actually want to buy another copy in print, just to appreciate the pictures.

Uglies
by Scott Westerfeld

This book constantly circles through my head. It’s not just the premise (getting surgery at 16 to make yourself pretty) but the characters and the world is addicting. The hoverboards, the Smoke, the Specials (hyper-enhanced soldiers). I’m amazed this hasn’t made it to film yet.

 

The Wave
by Todd Strasser

This is a book I chanced upon in the bookstore, picked up, and then never put down. It concerns a high school teacher wanted to instruct his class on why Germans were swept up by the Nazi movement, so he started a propaganda campaign in his class. Soon the whole school is involved and the experiment is out of control.

 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
by Stephen King

I’ve read this book at least six times (in print and audio). The opening line is the best: “The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.” It follows a girl who gets lost in the woods and has to face the God of the Lost. She struggles to survive, her only salvation is a radio which plays the Red Sox games with her favorite pitcher, you guessed it, Tom Gordon.

 

Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare
by Darren Shan

There are too darned many vampire books. Yet this one has such a vivid voice it’s addictive. I showed it to a colleague of mine who can hardly spare the time to read a comic book, and he devoured it. It’s a book build for people who don’t like to read. Addictive.

Hope you fall in love with one of these.

Tim Kane