Ever wonder what “25 or 6 to 4” meant?

You almost certainly know the song, but in case you don’t, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLiuMkGCOC4

The title refers to that time in the morning when you’re staring at the ceiling, wondering when your brain will stop stop STOP RUNNING AT SUPER SPEED because you have to get up to work early because the freeway is under construction and you have to take local roads and you have to pick up donuts in the morning for that big meeting and you can’t remember if Susan likes jelly donuts or if you just remember her talking about jelly one day and you’re wondering if she was talking about prOH GOD WHY AM I NOT ASLEEP???

3:35 in the morning. Twenty-five (or six) to four.

There aren’t many feelings worse than that, at that time of the night. You can literally hear your hair growing as you lie there, wondering how other people can possibly be sleeping happily when you can feel every piece of dust on your skin.

And sooner or later, you start thinking about death. Continue reading

We keep getting asked this question over and over again: “Why do you call yourself Crazy 8 Press when there are only seven of you?”

There’s a reason. And we’re actually kind of surprised a smart person like you hasn’t figured it out.

It’s you, silly.

You’re the eighth person. You, yes little ol’ you, are the reason we do all of this.

Yes, we enjoy writing and telling stories, but what good is a storyteller without an audience? We can make stories that span galaxies, bridge eons, but it’s nothing if we don’t touch someone’s heart with it.

You make it all possible. You give us feedback. You laugh. You cry. You argue. You get angry. And you give us money for what we do.

As authors, we are very lucky people. We have found that there’s someone out there who likes the way we think, who enjoys hearing what we have to say. All you ask from us is a simple request: Entertain me. Make me happy to spend time with you.

And we love you for it. Continue reading

But seriously, folks.

My New’s Years resolution is to stop procrastinating and finish what I

So the question of the day, “Hey, Glenn, who inspires your writing?”

First off, I’m lucky to say that I’ve never been inspired by the writer of “Pay To The Order Of…”  I’ve never written for need of money, though I’ve certainly written for want of it. I’ve always found myself unable to write anything with any poetry in the words if I need funds, it saps a certain spark out of the language. Oh sure, I can craft words and make serviceable prose, but the magic isn’t there.

That said, who inspires me? Let me tell you a story…

I grew up, as so many of my contemporaries did, in a sort of Golden Age of science fiction– Star Trek was in reruns on channel 11, Star Wars was in the movie theaters, and new sf and near-sf shows were coming up all over the place like Space:1999 and Ark II and Star Blazers, and I could read the Legion of Super Heroes and Green Lantern and Guardians Of The Galaxy. And my father got me reading books early, reading the Foundation Trilogy when I was seven and back when it was still a trilogy. Continue reading

As I lounge here in the Crazy 8 Press Secret Headquarters, located in an inactive volcano, I am moved to write on the minions who make our lives so much easier. The lackeys, hunchbacks, and flunkies. You know– the little people.

Yes, I know I’m 6’6 and that makes almost everybody a little person to me. Well, of course. You can’t sit in a high back leather chair, swirling a snifter of cognac, stroking my cat and laughing maniacally without a healthy dose of megalomania.

And so, I raise my glass to the toadies who make my existence bearable.

There’s Alyosha, who keeps the shark tank scrubbed and stocked with chum. Or former chums. (My cat is meowing loudly again. Perhaps I should drop him in the shark tank. It might be the only way to get a decent night’s sleep around here.)

There’s Serena… ah, lovely Serena. She keeps the paperwork going. Actually, she doesn’t do much more than sharpen pencils and pick up paper clips, but she looks so fetching when she bends over to do it. Continue reading