Category: Way of the Pen
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Going Bright
This world is a dark world. Open a newspaper and see for yourself. Murder, genocide, civil war, assaults, rapes, kidnapping, sex trafficking, corruption, on and on, and endless litany of crimes high and petty. Any outrage, if any, will last until the moment a celebrity opens her mouth or the media moves on to the…
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The Music of Babylon Blues
BABYLON BLUES, my current cyberpunk horror saga, holds a most unusual distinction: it is the first story I wrote that was inspired by music. The first time I heard ‘Babylon’, it was in Leonard Cohen’s ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’. One line goes like this: Oh let me see your beauty when the…
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The Way of the Pulps
A few days ago, I had the privilege of reading the synopsis of a trilogy being written by a fellow Singaporean. It was an honest-to-goodness Sword and Planet story, like Star Wars crossed with Final Fantasy. Holy warrior maidens, mind-altering magics, political intrigue, interstellar travel and warfare, it was like reading a revival of an…
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The Fighting-Man of a Hundred Faces
The fighting-man is the quintessential pulp hero. He has graced pages and screens since the dawn of the pulp age, driving stories through relentless action and raw vitality. He is an enduring archetype, and for good reason. As Bradford Walker discusses: To succeed as a fighting-man, you have to have the very qualities of character that…
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The Pulp Speed Transformation
NaNoWriMo challenges participants to write 50,000 words in a month. An enormous undertaking for any writer, especially hobbyists and newcomers. But having written at Pulp Speed for the last two months, the NaNo challenge suddenly seems diminished. In September I wrote about 75000 words. In October I clocked 108000. In the past 4 days, 17000…
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5 Lessons from the Slush Pile
Over the past couple of months, I volunteered as a slush reader for the PulpRev Sampler Anthology. With a submissions window of just seven days, writers had to produce punchy pulpy pieces of 750 to 1500 words. For a project with little fanfare and such a short reading period, the response was phenomenal. With submissions…