Blog – Page 22

Mar

2015

Getting drafty

The first draft of Dakota Bell and the Wastes of Time, the fourth and final book in the series The Future Next Door, is done! It was a very satisfying feeling, typing the last line of the last chapter, but also a strange one – I’ve been living with these characters for almost three years now, it’s going to be strange to say good-bye to them.

But I’m not quite done with them yet! Finishing the first draft is just the first (big) step towards publication. There’s a second and third draft to go, then a round of edits from my wonderful beta readers, then one last edit for notes and final changes, then a couple of reads for typos and general proofing. Still, the hardest and most time-consuming (and most fun) part is done, and the book should be on its way to you…fingers crossed…sometime in May. I’ll keep you posted!

Feb

2015

Apartment 3-G…sort of…

About eight years ago I was unemployed and consequently had a lot of time on my hands. I became obsessed with the comic strip Apartment 3-G, thanks mostly to the brilliant Comics Curmudgeon. For my old LiveJournal blog (Remember LiveJournal? We were so innocent once!) I stayed up many a night taking ten weeks worth of 3-G strips, whiting out the lettering, and creating my own ongoing saga. I thought it might be fun to show a slightly different path my writing once took me down, so here are all of those strips, plus, for all you original readers, a bonus strip at the very end that I never posted. Enjoy them now, before I get the cease and desist letter!

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Feb

2015

Alan Lennox on Pinterest

I’ve made a Pinterest board for Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom, with some pictures of the real world locations for some of the places in the book, plus the inspirations for Mark and Dakota. Check it out!

Feb

2015

Love Doctor

Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of the holiday, I’m taking a look at that cosmic Casanova, the Lothario of space-time, the Don Juan of the vortex. For someone so often portrayed as either apart from, confused by, or simply uninterested in human romance, the Doctor sure does get a lot of play. Let’s celebrate love with the Time Lord by going backwards through the many, many, many loves of Doctor Who…

Missy kissy.

The Master

Let’s start with what is possibly the most significant relationship in the Doctor’s life – his love/hate affair with his eternal nemesis. The Master may have waited for a gender-swap regeneration to finally plant one hell of a smacker on her arch-enemy, but come on. This was building between them for a long, long time. Just take a look at that death scene in Last of the Time Lords – the Master cradled in the Doctor’s arms, the Doctor weeping, begging him to stay, promising they’ll spend eternity together, just the two of them…now that’s a love scene. (Should it worry me that I find a scene that ends with suicide-by-spite romantic?) Producer Steven Moffat clearly considers the Master to be the Doctor’s One True Pairing – way back in 1999’s charity comedy spoof Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death he had Jonathan Pryce’s Master walk off into the sunset with Joanna Lumley’s Doctor. (But more on that story later…) It’s a fine line between love and hate, they say, and the Doctor and the Master have been straddling that line for a long, long time.

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Feb

2015

The Doctor Who Scavenger Hunt!

I’m a massive fan of the long-running British science fiction show Doctor Who, and if you are as well, then you might have caught some Whovian Easter eggs I’ve slipped into my stories. I did this for my own amusement, but I thought it might be fun to turn it into a contest. Who doesn’t love a contest?

Here’s how it works. In (almost) all of my books, there’s one character who shares a name with a character from Doctor Who. In Doctor Who, the character appears in one and only one story. (Story, not episode – they may appear throughout a multi-episode story.) In my books, the character is referred to by full name, first and last, but does not actually appear on-page.

To win, simply name the character, the book, and the Doctor Who story they appear in. If you’re the first to get it, I’ll immortalize you on the contest’s permanent page forever and send you a copy of any book you like, in any format you like (any type of e-book, or paperback). It doesn’t have to be one that’s out yet – if you’d like to wait for an upcoming release, I’ll send it to you as soon as it’s published.

The best part of this contest is, like Doctor Who, it’s never ending! Or at least, it won’t end until I stop writing. I’ll keep putting these names in my books, and you can keep looking for them!

As of now, the books you can search are Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom and Caitlin Ross and the Commute from Hell. Dakota Bell and the Wastes of Time will also be eligible, once it’s released.

There are two books of mine that don’t have a Who character – This Is What He Should Have Said, and Mark Park and the Flume of Destiny. This Is What is a bit too short to get one in there smoothly, and Mark Park had a character who wound up getting cut from the book before release. So to make up for this glaring omission, I’ll add in a BONUS question! In Caitlin Ross, there’s a character who doesn’t quite fit the rules of this contest. He or she is mentioned without ever being seen, but we don’t get his or her first name, and the matching Doctor Who character appeared in more than one story. This character does appear in Mark Park and the Flume of Destiny, where we learn his or her first name – which does not match the Who character’s. Name this character, the not-quite-matching Who character, and any of the Who stories that character appeared in to win!

You can email me your answers at brianolsenbooks@gmail.com, or send them to me through my Contact page. Happy hunting!

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