An Update: Writing Vlogs, Writing, and Appearances

So, I've been told I need to be vlogging, in addition to the sparse blogging I'm doing on this place. And I need to do a better job of giving you all what you want. I think what you want is to hear about what I'm working on and why and how, but also about writing in general.

The Vlog aspect will essentially me being answering your questions about your writing and my work, but to kick that off, I'll begin with some questions I answered for someone else.

At Dragon Con in 2013, Arizona State University's Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing conducted a series of interviews with writers for use in their online creative writing courses and this is the first part of that series. I'll be posting the rest over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, send me questions at bryan (at) bigshinyrobot (dot) com so I'll have plenty of ammunition for the new vlog series.

In the way of a brief update on my writing: First, I'm still toiling away on revisions for The Aeronaut for a release this spring. Second, Apollo's Daughters is coming soon. The eBook is out now. And I have some other stuff in the pipeline that I'm not allowed to talk about (and might not be allowed to talk about until 2016!) but if it happens, it'll be the best news I've ever offered you.

In the short term, I'll be doing a couple of panels on storytelling at SaltCon 2015 in a couple of weeks and I'm still doing the readings at the Salt Lake City Library on the third Thursday of every month.

And don't hesitate to check out any of my other books, drop reviews of them on Amazon or Goodreads, and follow me on twitter!

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The Missed Opportunities of Days Gone By

“Hello?” I said into the phone, accepting the call from a number I didn’t recognize. “Hey,” the feminine voice on the other replied, as though I should know the sound of her voice. At a loss, I said, “Can I help you?” “It’s Brooke.” Her name stopped me. It couldn’t possibly be her. We hadn’t spoken in years, a decade perhaps. “Brooke?” “Yeah, Brooke Baker. This is Mark, right?” Jesus Christ. It was her. “Yeah, it is Mark. Brooke. Wow. How are you? It’s been a long time since… well… since anything.” “I know.” “So, how are you doing?” “Okay, I suppose…” Her voice belied her words, though. Something was up. “I… It’s just been so long and I guess I wanted to hear your voice.” “I don’t think I had a number for you. Ever. I offered a couple of times, but…” “I was a brat back then.” And that’s how a random phone call turned into a two-and-a-half hour catch-up session. We spoke of everything under the sun: people we still knew, how different we were, h

Anatomy of a Scene: The Third Man

It's time again to break down a classic scene. One that's well-written and, in my view, a fine example of excellent craft. I've done some of these articles from books (like The End of the Affair and Starship Troopers ) and other movies (like Citizen Kane , City Lights , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ), but now it's time to take a look at a scene from The Third Man . It blends the best of Orson Welles (as he's in the film and drives this scene) and Graham Greene, who wrote this particular screenplay. Before we get to the scene, we need some context. The Third Man is a tale of the black market in Vienna, just after World War II. It's about a cheap, dime-store Western novelist named Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotton) and his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles.) Lime offered Martins a job in Vienna, so Martins leaves America and arrives, only to find that Harry Lime is dead. Penniless, without a friend or reason to be

Anatomy of a Scene: All the President's Men

All the President's Men is one of those perfect movies. Based on a stunning true story with a brilliant screenplay from William Goldman (we've already gone through one of his scenes here with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ), it's a movie that brings all of the elements of character, plot, and drama together in a way that makes me really love and admire it. The scene I want to go through is one that comes during a particularly trying time in the film. For those unaware, this film tells the tale of Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who cracked the Watergate story. And now, looking back on it, it all feels like one big victory, but it was marked by a number of defeats. This is them reporting to their skeptical editor, Ben Bradlee (played brilliantly by Jason Robards) about where their investigation is at. Immediately preceding Woodward and Bernstein walking in, a salesman is trying to sell Bradlee on features his papers doe

The stories of Bryan Young

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