Writing – The Warbler Books

A November Pledge

November 1, 2017 No Comments

It’s the first of November. It’ll be one of busiest months I’ve had in as long as I can remember, and I’m sitting on the bus to work, typing this blog post instead of getting to work on any of the many things that will fill every minute of these next thirty days. Because I just sat for about fifteen minutes and meditated. Specifically, I followed a guided meditation from the 10% Happier app, which has become a staple of my daily life over the last month or so. In this series, about developing emotional agility, meditators are asked to examine their feelings from a neutral perspective; to learn to identify the feelings, then identify how those feelings affect us. It’s a bit meta, to say “how do I feel about being angry?” or “am I okay with this frustration?” but I’ve also found it to be informative. This morning,

On Travels and Withdrawal

September 19, 2017 2 Comments

Is it possible to experience withdrawal from a trip? It must be, since I’ve been feeling symptoms that I’d label withdrawal since returning from Europe about four weeks ago. It’s likely a combination of things: my partner, her brother, and most of our friends were away at a Certain Desert Shenanigans festival, leaving me plenty of time with my thoughts; and I just started a new job, so even though I’ve got plenty of time to myself, most of it has been consumed with adjusting to the implications of that new role. But that isn’t an explanation of why I’m feeling the way I feel. It’s the setting in which those feelings have the opportunity to metastasize. To grow tentacles and explore the boundaries of their cage, to prod and test the limits of their power over my day to day. It might seem strange to bestow agency and cancerous

2k to 10k – Rachel Aaron

August 13, 2017 No Comments

Given that the podcast I’m on recommended this book almost a half-dozen times, I decided it would be prudent to read Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. So I did. And I’m glad we’ve been recommending it so heartily. The book is short and to the point, focusing on the author’s experience raising her own writing efficiency to (some might say) inhuman levels. 10,000 words a day is massive. It’s more than I write in a good week. And it’s what Rachel Aaron manages daily. Her techniques for achieving that daily feat are not opaque magical rituals, nor do they require ritual sacrifice—much to the possible chagrin of folks hoping for a “secret sauce” to writing lots and lots of words. Rather, she has a three-part plan that she claims can double word counts. I won’t dig into the details

A Pivotal Moment, a Wobbly Boat, and Adventure

August 8, 2017 2 Comments

I’m sitting in a cafe-slash-brewery-slash-eatery on the corner of Frederikinkatu and another long-named street. It’s just about 6pm, and the sun is beaming on a diverse, alive, beautiful city I’m visiting for the first time. Helsinki is breathtaking and relatable. It is ancient and new. Also, it has pulled moose sandwiches, which…like…I mean, moose. To eat. They’ve also got some fantastic vegan options, but that’s neither here nor there. The Writing Excuses Retreat ended on…was that Saturday? It’s hard to say, because time has blurred on this trip, but I’ve been in Helsinki a couple days now, and though I’m not even halfway through processing the wonder that was the writing retreat, I do have something I thought would be fun to share with you. As we were preparing to disembark from our ship—and summarily delayed in that, of course—I began writing a poem, inspired by Dr. Seuss, about my experience. While

New Video: Author Tag!

April 29, 2017 No Comments

My friend Elayna tagged me in a YouTube game/challenge/greeting called “Author Tag,” wherein writers answer ten questions about themselves. A sort of “get to know me” video. My submission, for your viewing pleasure, can be found below.

My First Con! FOGcon 2017

March 16, 2017 No Comments

Last year, I made a decision to commit fully to the “being a writer” thing. So, toward the end of last year, I asked some Bay Area-based writers on Twitter about local conventions. A number got back to me and enthusiastically recommended FOGcon. The Friends Of Genre convention, which I attended this past weekend (March 10–12) in Walnut Creek, brands itself as a literary-themed Science Fiction and Fantasy convention which focuses on bringing together the speculative fiction community for the exchange of ideas and a mutual love for the literature of imagination. An inspiring and smile-inducing description, if you ask me. So here’s my summary of the con experience, day-by-day: Day 1: I took Friday off work and drove to Walnut Creek about an hour-and-a-half before the con started. It took fifteen minutes to get there. I was excited, but nervous about waltzing into the convention space too far in

2015 Year in Review

December 25, 2015 1 Comment

This year has been terrific for the Warbler. I decided—I believe in November of last year—to read and review one book every week. While I haven’t kept to that weekly cadence, I’m proud of what I accomplished as a reviewer and as a reader. I read forty-three books this year. I published thirty-four posts on the blog, and am a couple books behind in my review schedule. 2,197 different people from around the world viewed the Warbler 3,525 times in 2015. It’s marvelous to see how the site has grown—turns out that regular posts bring more viewers. Stats aside, some wonderful things have happened this year: The Warbler is now on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Medium. I’ve developed a working relationship with two publishers, Tachyon and Inkshares Audible.com contacted me and began sending audiobooks for review I’ve begun receiving review galleys from several publishers through NetGalley, including Tor/Forge, Oxford University Press,

Resonance

March 25, 2014 No Comments

Three creatures of average height, each a different shade of blue, smile with kind faces as they walk me down a brightly lit hallway with grey floors. It is a maze branching off in different directions, and from what I can tell, every branch is identical. Bright, flickering lights wash the grey floor and white walls with a uniform sheen, with the walls marked at even intervals by brown rectangles. I assume each is a portal to another path of the maze. We arrive at a portal that is nondescript, save for the triangular symbol on its front with a strange design in its center. The image looks dangerous. The door swings open silently, and the room beyond is full of machines that beep and whirr, screens that flicker with an ominous light, and large windows on either wall showing two rooms with enormous devices within them. There are more

Berkeley Tuolumne Camp / There’s no spot that I would rather be…

August 26, 2013 1 Comment

I’ve been privileged to call many places home in my life. I’ve lived in Israel and in Northern and Southern California, but chief among my many homes is Berkeley Tuolumne Family Camp. No matter where on the planet I lived during the off-season, every year of my life–without fail, and including one year in utero–we would make the trip to Groveland, a stone’s throw away from the West Entrance to Yosemite Valley, down to the South Fork of the Tuolumne river, where families from all over the world have a chance for a quasi-rustic week away from it all. Some 70ish tent-cabins adorn the hillside and straddle the river, with wooden bases painted a forestry-mandated café noir and canvas tarps acting as roofs. A dining-hall-slash-kitchen sits right about in the middle, where the 250-300 campers would sit together (family style) for meals thrice daily, served tasty eats by a cheerful

A Footstool / In Memoriam

March 4, 2013 5 Comments

A boy bounced up a pebbled path between a wall and hedge as tall as he was. During the day, he enjoyed skipping up the path, but at night it scared him. He always ran through it at night. Skipping joyfully, he turned sharply to the left and ran to the door of the bottom-rear apartment in the multi-unit–but homely–building at 47 Sokolov in Nahariya, grabbing the brushed metal handle that always left his hand feeling a little gritty, and turning it until the bolt clicked in a satisfying way and the door swung open. The hallway–it could hardly be called that, he recalls–was tight, with doors on the left and right leading to the bathroom and bedroom respectively. A few feet in front, a large wooden armoire of sorts served as an all-purpose desk, holding the phone, pens and paper, and all manner of knick knacks that may have

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