Where is My Flying Car?

You’ve sitting in a traffic jam and in normal traffic you have an hour more of driving to do. Wouldn’t it be great if you had a flying car. Weren’t we suppose to have one by now. A little history. Back in the 1960s there was a animated cartoon show...

Get Annoyed to Find Ideas

“So where do the ideas actually come from? Mostly from getting annoyed about things. Not big issues so much … as the little irritations that drive you wild out of all proportion.” — from the introduction to The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of...

Finding Ideas and Writing a Newsletter Column

I write a monthly column for a radio club newsletter. Every month I have to come up with an idea for the column. At first this was easy, I was over running with ideas. Then it became a slog. I write books and screenplays and a lot of other things. The column for the...

Writing , New Ideas, and the Virus Block

I have been having trouble writing these blogs and the cause has been starting me in the face. I’m stuck, isolated at home. I need inputs. One big source of inputs is conventions. Be it radio conventions, Science Fiction, or Steampunk conventions. Meeting new...

Too Little Background or World in the Story?

I’m writing a story set in 1890s Paris, France. I have a history book that tells me that this is a time of great upheaval. They are rebuilding the streets of Paris. Widening them and straightening them. Of course this means taking away land, building and homes...

The Backhoe, a Weapon of Mass Destruction

This morning a fiber optic cable was cut in Brooklyn, NY. This stopped internet service in NY city, then it spread throughout the Northeast and Mid Atlantic States. This was a break in a Verizon cable, but the backup the break caused effected other providers. Hours...

Roots, My Old Home Town, and the Future

I just saw a picture of main street Disneyland from Christmas last year. It bought back memories of my old home town. They use to have the fire department string decorations across the four blocks of old down town. They may have been the same decorations year after...