Locus Magazine

Free advice: Subscribe to Locus Magazine.

It's the closest thing to an industry trade journal we have. If you are into comics, then you might want to get Wizard as well.

Financiers get The Wall Street Journal, Firefighters subscribe to Firehouse (and Fire Engineering).

There are a number of fantasy, sci-fi and horror magazines out there, but a good deal of them are primarily for the fan. Locus has features for fans, authors, convention goers.

Check out the website. See if you don't agree with me. I'm not trying to sell Locus. To me, it sells itself. I'm just offering some advice.

Riddick

Is it just me or is Riddick, the anti hero featured in "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick", just a great example of a superhero set in a sci-fi setting? He has speed and strength, but he also has the ability to dislocate his joints upon command and (of course) see perfectly in the dark. He makes the best use of these abilities and really kicks butt. As I may have mentioned before, GGE loves mixed genres and the Chronicles of Riddick really pull it off well. I still need to see Dark Fury, and I haven't played any of the video games but if the storytelling is of the same high quality (and I expect that it is) then David Twohy has really put together something great here.
Check it out!

Benefits of a vacation

Hey there,
I am on vacation this week. Of course, I will still be writing. That's the beauty of GGE. I love writing and creating sci-fi/fantasy stuff. I guess the term is quickly becoming "speculative fiction". Like Confuscious said, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life". Did Confuscious say that? Anyway...you get the point.
Even when you love what you do, vacations are important. Those of us who are creatives and those of us who love the worlds of speculative fiction have a benefit over everybody else. What's our benefit? It is not our resistance to scorn after being made fun of in High School. Our benefit is imagination. In the "real world" imagination can be kind of ground out of a person. In our daily grind, it can get squashed. Vacations can change all that.
I know when I have been off a few days, I get this profound feeling of remembering just who I am. It's worth taking a few days off for. Go somewhere with a salt breeze, boat drinks and no responsibility and see what happens. Make sure to take your notebook so you can record the magic!

Genre

The great thing about genre is it leads to some built-in expectations. For example, if you read a western, you expect a gunfight or two. If you read a horror novel you expect some chilling scenes and possibly some gore. In sci-fi you'll probably see some spaceships and some faster than light travel. Fantasy of course and you expect to see some sword and sorcery.
So, the great thing about picking a genre is you can fit right in. Louis Lamour, in many ways defines the western. Of course there are other giants in that genre (Zane Grey, et al). Stephen King is horror. R.A. Salvatore is fantasy. If you write like these people, then are you going to automatically succeed in the chosen genre? Maybe not. I would say probably not. The best thing in the world to do is to pick a genre and include all the formulaic pieces, but also to have something uniquely yours. What's a great example? JK Rowling. Clearly fantasy. Wizards, swords, trolls, dragons, wyverns all that jazz, but it is quite a bit different as well. And JK Rowling has birthed a whole new industry of young adult fiction.
So, find your genre...be an expert in it...and then put your uniqueness to work and watch what happens!