BooksofJobe.com

Coastal Transmissions From an Oregon Transplant

  • Sonder, or: Everyone Has a Story

    NaNoWriMo in T minus 10 days and counting…those of you participating, are you ready? Personally, I’m *almost* right where I want to be on November 1st. I want to be prepared, but not too prepared. I like having a little wiggle room in my plot and my outline, because one thing a lot of you… Read more

  • Writing Residencies: Who’s Done Them?

    So here we are, three and a half weeks until November and the kickoff to NaNoWriMo. If you’re participating, are you ready? If it were beginning tomorrow I’d be in okay shape to start on my project, but I’m really trying to get everything laid out storywise so that when the time comes I can… Read more

  • Calling All Worldbuilders

    I don’t know how some of you do it. Worldbuilding is really something else, and I’m having a little trouble with it. I’m sitting here, “working” on one of my projects (staring at the screen and thinking a lot) before NaNoWriMo is upon us, and it’s my first story that requires any real worldbuilding. All… Read more

  • NaNoWriMo, Who’s With Me?

    I’ve got a secret. I’ve never done NaNoWriMo. I did it in spirit one year, but it wasn’t “official”. But first, let’s back up a step—just what the heck is NanoWrimo, anyway? If you’re reading this, you’re probably a writer. As such, you may already know, but if you don’t, NanoWriMo is the official shorthand… Read more

  • You Think You Know Anxiety? Get Blurbs for Your Book

    A couple of posts ago, I casually declared that the rewrites/edits for my upcoming novel would be done “in the next couple weeks!” Fool. Moron. Idiot. Buffoon. Finishing those edits took longer than I anticipated (luckily my editor is beyond patient and told me to take my time, so as to ensure quality), but they… Read more

  • The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir [Netflix, 2014]

    One of my favorite things is discovering a band that is already established, and you get to immerse yourself in their entire catalog, seeing the choices they made from one album to the next, etc. It’s been a while since there’s been a band I dove headlong into like that, but here I am with… Read more

  • What’s the Big Idea?

    A quick aside before I get to the topic at hand: It’s cold, y’all. I’m aware that the majority of the country is facing unprecedented low temperatures this week, so it’s not like I’m telling you something you don’t already know, but just damn. As I sit typing this, it’s -14° outside with a wind… Read more

  • Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet [Apple TV+, 2020]

    Here we go again, so let me say: I apologize to anyone who doesn’t have Apple TV+, for talking about a show you can’t watch. I did it a while back with the disarming optimism of Ted Lasso, and I’m back to talk about a different comedy with at least one familiar face: Mythic Quest:… Read more

  • Hating What You Love

    Netflix alert: There’s a highly entertaining limited series out now, called Pretend It’s a City. It features author/humorist Fran Lebowitz chatting with Martin Scorcese, giving her opinions on an array of topics. If you’re not familiar with her, Lebowitz is incredibly smart and almost unbelievably funny. The show is broken into half hour episodes so… Read more

  • What’s in a Name?

    I’ve been thinking about names a lot lately. Names of fictional people, specifically. I typically put a great deal of thought into what I name the characters in my stuff. My (hopefully) soon-to-be-published novel, The End of Jimmy Ray Day, features some names I just love: Sam Sneed, ‘Big’ Bill Byrd, and, of course, the… Read more