On Success in Creative Endeavors: How to Write Literary Masterpieces of Sheer Gilded Genius by Dumpster Diving

My alter-ego has a guest blog up on the Penumbra magazine site today that talks about how to succeed at creative endeavors. You know, writing and artwork, music and sculpture. All the good stuff.

And yes, scientific research is very much a creative endeavor as well.

In this short essay I also recount a story that Gary Starkweather, the inventor of the laser printer, used to tell about how he evaluated start-up companies, and I promise you will laugh when you hear how he did it.

I used to frequent the hardware lab where Gary worked before he retired so I consider myself very lucky to have spent a lot of time talking shop with him and enjoying his jokes. And this one is one of my favorite of his stories that he would tell about working in Silicon Valley. Great fun.

How to Write Literary Masterpieces of Sheer Gilded Genius by Dumpster Diving

PS: Gary was also prominently featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s recent essay in the New Yorker about The Creation Myth. Seek it out – it’s a great read on the truth about innovation!

Happy New Year, Fiction Tab, Story Published

Hi Folks and happy new year to you all. The blog has steamrolled past a thousand subscribers now (wow that came fast!) so welcome to all who have joined recently. And definitely feel free to leave a comment, question, or provocation– for me at least, a great post usually requires a great question to spur the dark recesses of my brain, so have at it if there’s a thought burning a hole in your mind.

I have a new post in the works about the remarkable proliferation of devices in my briefcase which will be up soon… quite a fascinating little study in the digital ecology of e-readers and other gadgets that is turning out to be.

In the meantime, I’ve added a Fiction tab to the blog header– I’m a research scientist by day, a writer of offbeat speculative tales and other literary abominations by night. Occasionally I even write stories that other people actually like to read. I’ll post any new publications in my treasury of wayward fictions up there as they come through the pipeline.

I recently made a sale to Penumbra, a new professional-paying speculative fiction magazine from Musa Publishing, and the issue with my short story just went live a few days ago. It speculates on an unlikely bit of direct-input display technology that every guy secretly wishes he had. Check out my funny little tale and all the other great stories in the issue if you want an entertaining read.

“Piss Match,” written as Alistair Ainscott, in Penumbra, Vol. 1 No. 4 (Musa Publishing), January 2012. Professional market (5¢/word). [Kindle]

A high-tech urinal, a pointless workplace confrontation– what could  possibly go wrong?

You can help support a great new speculative fiction magazine by subscribing to Penumbra. Many established authors– as well as newcomers like me– appear in the pages of the magazine.

Thanks and I sincerely hope the new year finds you well.