As I sit here and compose my last Inkpunks post for 2013, I find myself reflecting on the past year with an uncomfortable mix of contentment and frustration. It was a very rough year, full of personal and professional setbacks. In the wee, cold hours of these winter nights, my Writer’s Brain precipitates these frustrations […]
Category > Cheerleading
Summer Sabbatical
I know what you’re thinking. It’s mid-October, so why I am I talking about summer? Well, here in Los Angeles, the last of the summer heat has just broken, and proper fall is just now beginning. Everything is pumpkin-spiced and crisp, and the 60-degree overnight lows keep us indoors–so what better time to reflect on […]
Let’s be honest here
I’ve been trying to write the perfect post about revising a novel and failing over and over. One part of my problem stems from the total difficulty of the project. I’ve tried to revise four previous novels and I’m in the middle of revising a fifth, and I still feel like I haven’t nailed the […]
Giving Yourself Permission to Take a Break
I don’t talk much about my day job on this blog. This is partly due to a desire to compartmentalize Andrew Penn Romine, the budding author from Andy Romine, the visual effects & animation artist – two careers that have, in my mind, always been separate and distinct. Two creative paths with their own trajectories […]
drInkpunks: Cheers to You All!
So for the last couple of years, I’ve been putting my amateur mixology skills to use for the good of the Inkpunks. For their birthdays, each Inkpunk got a custom-crafted cocktail from me, along with a card and a recipe. It was a way for me to practice my skills, of course, but more than […]
all quiet like….
Almost two years ago John Remy wrote this post about community building and twitter. It’s one of those “where it all started† posts, nostalgic and wonderful to read. Small connections becoming powerful friendships,  twitter jokes becoming full blown book projects. Creative lives intersecting and growing. My own relationship with twitter has been a shifting, morphing […]
Failure: You’re Doing it Right
We’ve all heard the truism that the best way to learn is to make mistakes. I’d like to go one step further and suggest that our best teacher is often failure. There’s nothing quite so motivating as to fall flat on your face trying a new thing. If you’re like me, sometimes it takes a […]
Invincible Convictions
What are your most deeply held personal beliefs?No, you don’t have to tell me in the comments section below (unless you really want to), but take a moment to think about it. Chances are a few gut reactions will boil up to the surface of your thoughts. “I’m a liberal.†“I’m a conservative.†“I believe […]
The Deep End: My Plunge Into the SFF Community
Maybe I’m feeling sentimental these days, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how freaking awesome the SFF community is, and how lucky I am to be a part of it. Okay, I know there are times when it’s not, and there’ve been lots of posts and discussion about that, but today I want to […]
Why do we write?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about why I write, or why I started writing in the first place, because over time, these two concepts may diverge. An insidious thing can happen: you can lose sight of what you love about the act, and get caught up in the business of writing: wanting to make […]
