Hello! It's time for another monthly newsletter, but instead of making it all about me, me, me... I'm giving you a few recommendations on what to read in 2025. Some of my friends have launched newsletters, some established tech nerds already have theirs running, and despite
"We gave everything to the machines. Our calendars. Our email. We let them listen in on our conversations with customers and take notes. They wrote marketing posts that other machines summarized for us. We all believed the lie. Nobody wanted to be left behind. The ROI was too attractive.
They built a new HEB on the edge of our neighborhood and we’ve been going every few days just for funsies. They’ve got these tiny indoctrinating shopping carts to help teach Rainbow how to be a good consumer. It was fun watching her push the cart until she
Ain’t that Santa over there? That old man with the red coat on? Yeah, that’s that fool. Roll up on side of him, man. Roll your window down. Hand me my Glock give me another clip. ‘cause I’m gonna smoke this fool. There he go. You Santa?
House of Nepenthe (2025)When Kenneth Barnes takes a business trip to his old hometown, he finds himself on the wrong end of a gun. Now in the hospital in a coma, Kenneth’s life begins to flash before his eyes in the form of the House of Nepenthe, an
Wellity, wellity, wellity… if it isn’t the bridge I said I’d cross when I came to it. Admittedly not my joke, but it is one of the three funniest things I read on the World Wide Web this year. The other two were: 🤣 “I can count on one
I always thought the BlueSky usernames were a little strange, and recently, I've thought about running my own instance just so I can have a more custom username. But then I tagged Novlr in a post and noticed they had novlr.org as their username! What was this?
The year was 2004, and the book was Xronixle. Fresh out of the gate as a hopeful cyberpunk novelist, I reached out to Dalton Publishing, a local Austin publisher, with a query for my cyberpunk thriller about a boy who copies his girlfriend's mind in virtual reality. To
Social media has been a double-edged sword for self-published authors for a while now. On one hand, it’s a place where writers can connect, share tips, and support each other. On the other, it often devolves into a noisy marketplace where everyone is shouting about their latest book, hoping
I've always struggled with pitching my books, whether to literary agents or my mom, mostly because my stories are multi-POV. From Por Vida on, my novels have always had four main points of view. I won't get into why I prefer that structure here, but it
Many real people often inquire whether I think about writing while running. Is that where I come up with all this insane tech? Is mile 2 reserved for working out a diatribe against the advancement of artificial intelligence? Is my cooldown dedicated to figuring out how and where I can
In a time when everything is a service (including this website!), it's rare to come across a piece of software that is A) free and B) so valuable that you actually want to pay for it. This year, two apps have met that criteria for me. The first
Deleted Scenes
"The old man is dying." Banks says this to me when I walk into his office in lieu of a greeting. No time for them, he once told me. As overseer of the second largest feed on the west coast, I couldn't blame him for being
For My Homeowners
Sometimes, when you're between jobs, paralyzed by anxiety, and staring down the barrel of yet another election season, you just need a distraction. Something productive. Something that keeps your mind off existential dread and the growing certainty that your career prospects might have better luck running as an
Newsletters
Howdy, Carl! Have I ever told you that sometimes, when I'm writing and a little stuck, I like to imagine writing directly to one of my readers sitting in their easy chair at home with a cute little pug in their lap? It's true! And since
Last month, as I was tending the grounds (walking in my yard), I noticed a shiny cylinder standing upright on the stylish concrete block that holds my air conditioning unit. Upon further inspection, I realized it came from a small valve on the AC itself. When I tried to replace
In February 2021, like many Texans, I learned that our statewide power grid is not connected to either of the national grids. So when Winter Storm Uri hit, and temperatures plunged, we were unprepared for the surge in demand and how the extreme cold would affect the energy infrastructure, leading
Flashes From the Verse
It was a mess the next morning. Muriel and I watched some of it from our balcony, behind the safety of some bamboo shades that her parents had bought us for Christmas. At first it was just the odd apartment dweller out for a morning amble, walking like a half-drunk
In today's rapidly evolving World Wide Web, protecting intellectual property has become more challenging–and more important–than ever, especially for authors. Generative AI is promising to write your resume, respond to your emails, and help you come up with an assortment of social media posts that are
Flashes From the Verse
The advertisements for Metro Futurology featured a cavernous lobby full of glass and metal in a building that resembled the Tower of Babel stretched too thinly toward the sky. The sleek videos boasted finely appointed rooms with climate control, memory foam mattresses on the bed, and enough square footage to
For Readers
In no particular order except for Replay, which is my favorite all-time. * Replay, Ken Grimwood * Neuromancer, William Gibson * Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan * House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski * The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger * A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick * Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov * The Martian Chronicles, Ray
For Writers
I don't have a very high opinion of the so-called "AI" that has come to dominate every aspect of our lives, from regurgitated content on social media to AI-first initiatives from every CEO with a Fortune subscription. Furthermore, as a writer, I'm firmly against
For Readers
I never joined a hacker collective when I was younger, mostly because I wasn't a hacker. But I did have a dope-ass handle... XRISIS. Unpronounceable like my last name, Xrisis became my mask of anonymity on the World Wide Web. And then social media came along and destroyed
For Writers
When did this: I recently spoke with the CEO of a large energy company (that will remain nameless) about the value of generative AI in business. My opinions have always been very black and white: either generative AI is good, or it's the devil. After much discussion and