Here are ten quick and easy things you can do to suck really hard at Twitter. Want to create a social network that absolutely loathes your presence? Follow this simple guide and you’ll have alienated your entire fan base in the span of just a few tweets, unfollows, and DMs! 1) Post your follow/unfollow stats…
Read MoreAll articles filed in Amira K.
Writer, explorer, and keeper of Alder the dog.
Winter Dreams (Reprise)
I always love going back and re-reading some of my early works, before I ever would have dreamed of calling myself a writer. I wrote the following paragraph in 2008, when I was a sophomore in college. It appeared in an early version of this blog when I was still on Blogger. There is something precariously…
Read MoreBook Review: Infinite Jest, Truly
Infinite Jest is, no joke, a work of near-infinity and plentiful jest. Weighing in at 981 pages, not to mention another 98 of microscopic-font-size footnotes, at the beginning the book was a hassle to read just because of the challenge of balancing it on my chest as I was reading in bed. I quickly relegated it…
Read MoreOn The Block
No, I’m not talking about heads. Thank goodness. That would be gruesome. No, my subject today is worse, my friends, worse by half. I’m talking about good old fashioned writer’s block, that fearsome dragon whose ugly head rears at the best of times and the worst of times, forcing you to resort to trite cliches…
Read MoreNaNoWriMo: Seven Things To Avoid When Writing A Novel
In honor of NaNoWriMo, here are seven lessons I learned when writing The Sowing about what NOT to do when you’re writing the first draft of a novel. These are rules I’m trying (and sometimes failing) to keep in mind as I write The Reaping as well, so this post is partially to remind myself…
Read MoreThe Day of the Dead: Deliverance
None of them are easy. Scooping up a soul just as it leaves the body is never a task I relish; it’s just the task I was assigned. Some are reluctant but accepting; some kick and scream as I cut the strings; some relish the deep sleep of Death as they throw themselves willingly into…
Read MoreWhere I’ve Been
I know, I’m sorry. I disappeared and I didn’t tell any of you where I was going. I left without warning and I haven’t posted anything in far too long. But I have an excuse, I promise. I’ve been off on another adventure, and this was one of the best I’ve had so far. In…
Read MoreDreams of Fire and Death
This is a bit of ‘extra’ material to go along with the SEEDS trilogy. It’s a character-building exercise I did to get in the head of one of our characters, though I won’t say who – that might give away plot points from the books! It’s a very dark scene from the head of a…
Read MoreA Rebuttal to Jonathan Franzen’s “What’s Wrong With The Modern World”
I’ve recently been challenged to do two new blog posts, one on the theme of friends (not the TV show, but the relationships) and one on the theme of does Twitter make you a better writer? Interestingly enough, both of these fit neatly into my thoughts regarding a recent article that appeared and was propagated throughout the blogosphere.…
Read MoreAdventures in Greece: Helios, Sparta, and The Land Of The Gods
On Saturday of this past week I traveled to Gythio, the port city of Sparta. Gythio is an integral part of the Mani region, a part of larger Lakonia, which in Classical times was famed for the militaristic brutality of the Spartan warriors. “Come home with your shield or on it,” is the famous saying…
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The Z-Axis 