James Viscosi's Scribblings

The official blog of speculative fiction (and dog blog) writer James Viscosi

Scene-Of-The-Month: “The Wolf”

Posted by jamesviscosi on February 7, 2010

The votes are in and the readers’ choice for the next scene of the month is — wait for it — The Wolf. There really is a werewolf in this book, honest — just not yet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Scene of the Month, Writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Random Rejection: The Eclipse Comics Saga Part II

Posted by jamesviscosi on January 31, 2010

So after getting those encouraging letters from the editor at Eclipse, I had to actually produce the scripts. Fortunately that wasn’t a problem; I was pretty prolific back in the day. However, formatting was an issue. From reading reference books (in 1993, you couldn’t just hop on the Internet to find examples of comic book script layouts), I was aware that when submitting comic book scripts as a writer, you have to format them similarly to a movie script, with the action divided into panels. You have to supply POVs, camera angles, etc., and each line of dialogue is numbered; this is all so the artist will know how to arrange everything on the page.

As you can see from the Eclipse editor’s copious notes, in this early Night Watchman draft, I wasn’t very good at any of that yet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Excerpts, You Suck, horror | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Random Rejection: The Eclipse Comics Saga Part I

Posted by jamesviscosi on January 24, 2010

So this week I pulled something really juicy out of my pile of rejections. I may have mentioned before that a number of my books, including Night Watchman and Dragon Stones, started out as comic book series proposals. I was working with an editor at the now-defunct Eclipse Comics on developing several of these. Unfortunately I’m not a particularly good artist, so I was submitting them as scripts that would be illustrated by others. How did it all work out in the end? Well, let’s just say I’ve lived in the San Diego area for eight years now and have yet to attend a Comic-Con.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Excerpts, horror | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

The Early Years: The Ultimate Reality Show Contestant Lineup?

Posted by jamesviscosi on January 17, 2010

Posted in Miscellaneous, the early years | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Twoview: “Avatar” and “Food Inc.”

Posted by jamesviscosi on January 10, 2010

So in the last week we saw two movies, “Avatar” and “Food Inc.“. I decided to do capsule reviews of them together because they turn out to have a philosophy in common.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Reviews, fantasy, science fiction | Tagged: , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Scene-Of-The-Month: Dragon Stones

Posted by jamesviscosi on January 3, 2010

The votes are in and the readers’ choice for the next scene of the month is Dragon Stones. Flipping randomly through the pages, I stopped at this scene, in which the kidnapped oracle Tolaria makes good her escape.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Excerpts, Scene of the Month, fantasy | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Random Rejection: Zoetrope

Posted by jamesviscosi on December 27, 2009

This week, I reached into the very back of my alphabetically-organized rejection list folder and pulled out this slip, from Francis Ford Coppola’s “Zoetrope” magazine:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Publishing, Short Stories, You Suck | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

The Early Years: You Forgot One

Posted by jamesviscosi on December 20, 2009

It’s never too soon to learn about the “five” senses:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in the early years | Tagged: , , , , , | 9 Comments »

“Long Before Dawn” Now Available For Kindle

Posted by jamesviscosi on December 13, 2009

Not long ago, I announced that Dragon Stones had been ported to the Kindle e-book format. It has now been joined by Long Before Dawn, my vampire novel. Also, both Long Before Dawn and Dragon Stones are now available for Kindle for only 99 cents. Save a tree and a lot of money* and read electronically!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Announcements, Books, Publications, Publishing, horror | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

December Scene Of The Month: Do You Really Need To Ask?

Posted by jamesviscosi on December 6, 2009

The votes are in and for a while it looked like we would have a three-way tie for the next scene of the month, but at the last moment The Wolf pulled out ahead. So here, by popular demand, is the next scene from The Wolf!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Excerpts, Scene of the Month, horror | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »