I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend lately. The only way to get a company’s customer service department to actually help me is to get mad on Twitter. In the years before my life aligned in a way that allowed me to write stories full time, I worked as an IT specialist doing inter-company support for …
A fellow writeblr on tumblr recently asked me: I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a full time author, but then I worry that I’d get burned out and it wouldn’t be fun anymore. Is that something you’ve ever experienced? While I contemplated my answer, I realized I have a lot to …
I’m waiting for a phone call. I hate this kind of waiting. It ties my insides into knots. I fidget and try not to focus on the subject I’m waiting to speak about, but it invades every aspect of my consciousness. Butterflies fill my stomach and my heart pounds in my chest. I tell myself …
I’ve touched on bad or, at least, incomplete writing advice. There was my editing revelation about slaying your darlings and my mini-rant about using the Becthdel Test as a benchmark when it should be the barest of minimums. Lately, a new piece of writing advice has come under fire and I’m keen to hop on …
I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of the Internet. How amazing is it that we can connect instantly with someone living on another continent and speak face to face? When I was a kid, our only connection with people overseas came in the form of pen pal letters our teachers forced …
I wrote last week about the responsibility of security in the digital world. Whether or not you agree with the policy, part of maintaining security rests in the hands of users. As I mentioned briefly before, we expect those growing up with computer technology to possess a certain common sense in regards to its use. …
Internet security is a hot-button topic. And why shouldn’t it be? We live in a wired world. We put all our information into the giant world web, and there are plenty of people lurking in the shadows, waiting for a chance to take it. It seems every month a major company is hacked. Account names …
The May 2012 launch of the long awaited Diablo sequel introduced video game fans to the insidious Error 37, which looks to become a staple of the industry. For those unfamiliar with Error 37, I’ll back up. When Blizzard introduced the sequel to their popular Diablo franchise some dozen years after the release of the …
My husband is a high school English teacher. I’ve drawn from his experience in the classroom before, and I’m doing it again. Pretty much every teenager (myself included) drags themselves through high school believing they’ll never use a tenth of the information being pounded into their heads. And while it’s true that much of your …
I spend a lot of time in this blog talking about writing and indulging in my geekyness. I’d like to devote some time to the other reason this website was established. In college, I devoted my last two years to the study of technological security. There’s a deep dark underbelly of the Internet, much like …