Del Rey is offering Betrayal, book one of the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series as a free download for a limited time in order to help launch the final book in the series, "Invincible".

I've never read any of the Star Wars books--I think I've had a mental block against it. Either that, or I just didn't want to give Lucas any more of my money. When I met my wife, we both had VHS copies of the original movies (Episodes 4-6). Then we got a VHS copy of the re-done Episodes 4-6. Then it was the DVD's of the re-done Episodes 4-6. Last, DVD's of Episodes 1-3. After having bought a VHS copy of Episode 1. Oh, and we both saw the original series in the movie theater way back when as kids. I refused to pay to see the re-done Episodes 4-6 (which is why I first bought it on VHS).

Anyway, neither you nor I need to spend any money on Betrayal--go download it for nothing.

Star Wars | Del Rey & Star Wars

This site is about my writing, of course, and my attempt to get published.

The short of it is that It remains a work-in-progress. The long of it? I'm about 65 pages into editing my second book.

This is just the first run-through. The goal at this point is really just general clean-up: tie-up any loose ends I left dangling, clean things up, make sure everything is whole and consistent, and, most important of all, hack and slash anything--anything!!!--that doesn't fit into the main storyline. It's all well and fine to have sub-stories or other plot devices that help build your characters up, but I've got a 135,000 word monster on my hands and, as a new writer, I help my chances of getting published by lessening the door-stop quality.

Anyone differ on that assessment?

The second and subsequent revisions will refine some of those points but it really becomes an iterative (or repetitive?) process at that point as I work closer towards a finished product.

Need to finish up some work, then I'm out of here. Have a good weekend, everyone.

8/3/08 Update: OK, OK. Since having written this post, I think I've "gotten" Twitter. In fact, I'm on it and loving it. Follow me if you want.

I follow a number of professional bloggers who give various forms of advice regarding social interaction, driving people to your site, and just having a presence. Outlets such as MySpace or Facebook (which I don't really use but given how slow and obnoxious MySpace can be I'm thinking of using my account more) are great, but they're fairly static. Sure, they allow you to make comments or write blog entries, but those entries are meant to exist for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years and longer. In the case of blog entries, brevity is not always paramount.

Enter Twitter.

You have just 140 words to tell the world what you're doing, thinking, make a comment on something important or silly, or just about anything else. Though there is a word limit per 'twit', you can make such comments as often as you like throughout any given day. In fact, people do. And others follow. I suppose Twitters have some wonderful conversations, twitting back and forth to their heart's content.

I just have one question: How do so many people have time for such nonsense?

Clearly, I'm not "getting it". I'm more than willing to hear an explanation, though. Convince me otherwise. I would say twitting is a lot of derogatory things, but there's so many notable people doing it I can't help but feel that by not getting it I'm missing out on something big. But like drugs in high school, I never saw the point, thus I never got involved in that scene. Ditto to Twitter.

I did create myself a Twitter account a while back (cause I wanted to see what it was all about), and I've tried twitting a twit or two. But it wasn't doing much for me. Anyway, if you want to 'follow' me, here's the page. Maybe I'll change my mind someday and become a 'professional twit'. Or maybe I'll just continue being just a 'twit'.

9 Ways To Jumpstart Your Writing Goal
Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it's so hurtful to think about writing. ~Heather Armstrong

Fleming letters raise thousands
Letters between James Bond author Ian Fleming and his "Miss Moneypenny" have fetched £14,340 at auction - almost five times more than expected.

Fritz Leiber, master of Shakespearean sci-fi
The colourful alcohol-soaked career of Fritz Leiber began in theatre. His father, Fritz Leiber Sr, was a veteran actor (notable for having his portrait painted every time he took on a new role), and the sometime owner of the Shakespearean theatre company that gave Lieber Jr his first job.

The politics of sci-fi
While awards for speculative fiction may be more democratic than their literary cousins, they are no less a hotbed of political intrigue. With the genre awards season approaching, the shortlists for the Hugos, the Nebulas and the Damon Knight Grandmaster prize reveal some of the dynamics driving contemporary speculative fiction.

A Princess Seeking a Voice
Ursula K. Le Guin began her research for her new book, "Lavinia," by reading Virgil's epic poem "The Aeneid" in the original Latin. "Very, very slowly," she said in an interview. "Ten lines a day."

The fantastic appeal of fantasy
The more rational the world gets, the more we demand the irrational in our fiction, says Mark Chadbourn

Is the Short Fiction Market in Trouble?
Nobody questions the relevance of genre short fiction, but there is some debate about the health of the market itself. From your perspective, is the short fiction market in trouble? If not, why the debate? If so, what is the cause?

Thanks to Al Nyveldt for providing a most useful extension/widget to track my most popular posts.

You can see what it looks like to the right. I had started with just the "Top 5". That quickly changed to the "Top 7" just because I figured why not show a couple more than just 5? Of course, 7 is kind of an odd number. You don't see Letterman doing a "Top 7", after all. So, I bumped it up to the current number that it is now, 10.

The widget is great. It allows me to showcase posts beyond those that show up on my home page while also giving me and my readers a quick look at how many views each post has gotten.

The interesting thing about displaying my popular posts is seeing how they almost jockey for position. Just days after I bumped the display count to 10, one of the posts fell off as newer entries (here and here) overtook it. It seems to be staying fairly consistent now, with several of my various posts about Tor's Free E-book Giveaway scoring the most views. I expect it to continue to change, though, as fresh posts overtake the "stale" ones.

If you have such a feature available via your blogging software, I highly recommend making use of it

This week's Tor Free E-book giveaway features Reiffen’s Choice by S.C. Butler.

Enjoy.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | MOBI

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.