professional science fiction and dark fantasy writer
DC's Showcase: Enemy Ace , written by Robert Kanigher and penciled by the legendary Joe Kubert, is the most unrelentingly nihilistic comic I've ever read. It presents the face of war from the side of the enemy. In this case it's Hans Von Hammer, a WWI fighter pilot modeled after Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, better …
Continue reading "“The sky is the killer of us all.” Enemy Ace – A Review"
“Lost in Space and Lost in Time: The Consequences of Temporal Dispersion for Exosolar Technological Civilizations" by Dave Moore, Centauri Dreams. Mark here. This is an excellent article. I have always believed the problem lies more with our human-centralized impatience to "find idealized Star Trek aliens" rather than the simple fact we A.) are alone, …
I used to read everywhere. Lying on the floor, in bed, in the tub, under a tree, in a tree, on the ground, in the car, at the dinner table, in the living room while everyone else was watching TV, late at night, under the stars, on a train, walking to and from school, in …
I love silent film. I'm not a huge fan of movies per se, but I do love film. I have seen one several times which I would like to recommend for you. It is F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. This is a silent film from 1927 with a great score. It's the …
Thinking about going camping this weekend. A couple of reasons. It's getting late in the year and if I wait much longer it's going to get cold. I don't like the cold. I can deal with the heat much better. Just me. 😛 There are also the buffalo. I'd like to follow them around for …
Continue reading "Planning another camping trip…with writing a novel on the side!"
When I was little, oh, I guess about ten or eleven, I had a big poster thumbtacked to the wall above my bed. If I'm not mistaken I got it from a local library, but I can't remember. It was a poster I bet a lot of kids didn't have in their rooms, now or …
Continue reading "Dreams of a Young Writer: A Personal Post"
Just letting my readers know I added a Haxan web page to this blog. You can link to it from the side under "Pages" or click on the badge below, haha. It includes stuff like how I created the series, inspiration, and some character biographies. Hope you enjoy the extra content. Thanks, guys. 🙂
I have not been sleeping well. This is due to one thing: I have a story on the brain. I hate it when that happens, don't you? Part of the contract we make when we write, though, I guess. You get these ideas that start to flower and suddenly they are putting out new shoots …
I must admit I am sometimes taken aback by how writing at its most fundamental core is so insane. Think about it. You sit down and write a story. Okay, fine. You make it the best story you can with the tools you have available. All right, nothing wrong so far. But there are absolutely …
Continue reading "In Writing, Like Life, There Are No Guarantees"
My earlier post about writing got me to thinking off the typewriters I have used down through the years. What's that you say? Yes, we used to have typewriters. With ink ribbons that you had to change. I know, it was prehistoric! The first typewriter I ever owned was a manual Royal machine. I got …
Hey, I can tweet with the best of them. Follow me @kmarkhoover 😛
I remember the first real story I ever wrote. I was living in South Texas and I was in seventh grade. I think we were living in Kenedy at the time. It was a one-horse town surrounded by weeds and cactus, tortoises and horned toads. It was there I got chased by a red wasp …
Mark here. I wrote this essay years back. I think the things I said are as true today as then. We all have walls we must climb. I maintain there is NO other profession like writing. None. It is internal and solitary. I mean, even a painter gets to look at a bowl of fruit …
I have often said Haxan is my own little corner of the universe where I can play with matches. That much is certainly true, but I don't think it would be as much fun if it weren't for the fact Haxan is a series. Maybe it's somewhat surprising, but working in a series appears to …
Continue reading "Haxan is My Corner of the Universe – You Need One Too"
The guys finished working on the foundation. They did a pretty good job, I think. The crack in the garage floor is all but gone and the crack between the wood and brick on the side of the garage is much better now. They patched everything up and now we are back to normal. Or …
Continue reading "Foundation Repair Part 2: Hey, it didn’t leave a mark!"
I came across this quote many years back which speaks to the seeming futility of writing. And how wrong we are when we have that opinion. Whenever I am especially down about some aspect of writing, or doubting myself, I think of this quote. I think it captures a philosophical truth about perseverance, and why …
Continue reading "Lighthouses and Stories Guide Us Through Darkness"
Hoo boy. And this is minor. I was talking to the foreman and he said they are so busy they are working 16 hour days. He said where we live isn't so bad but you go east toward the lake and there are huge cracks in the ground. He said homes are in really bad …
Continue reading "Foundation Repair Part 1: This Will Leave a Mark"
Many of my writer friends who are starting out sometimes ask if I have any rules they should follow. Now, I’m not one who believes there’s a magic bullet to get your work published or attain literary success. In fact, when I hear someone say there is only one way to write I immediately put …
I don't think I have many stories rejected anymore because of the writing per se. (Although I am capable of writing the occasional sentence that makes the reader stop and say, "Wha?") No, I think the reasons I get rejected now is due to length: too short or too long, the editor having a bad …
Here are my top first lines from books I've read. These books have had an impact on my maturity and growth as a writer. But they aren't arranged in any particular order. I've tried to include lines that weren't selected a while back by American Book Review, though there are one or two I couldn't …
Hoover's Corner 