Story on the Brain

My most fun novel, The Nerve , is out now! Read and enjoy! Available on Amazon in ebook and print. 

This week I dig into Connie Willis’s time travel novel Doomsday Book . I love this book so much. The issues with time travel are many, but the issues with omniscient time travel computers that somehow know that someone will change things and refuse to send them through are on another level entirely. So you know it has to be good if I will read it over and over again with a fundamental logic hole in it the size of Antarctica. I also discuss another unnamed novel that has a tremendous betrayal of trust, in that the author lies to the reader. How can that be, when an author’s job is to lie to the reader? Yeah, but authors are supposed to lie in ways that tell the truth, not fake you out then go haha you believed me. I am so mad at this book still, for real. Like the whole premise gets undermined and therefore makes no sense at all. How to make me mad: undermine your own stupid premise. Gaaaaah! As I mentioned in the episode, if you want it, let me know, and I'll mail the hardcover cop...

Hello to everyone I met at the Bangor Authors' Book Fair or whatever its name was! It was fantastic to meet you and talk to you. I have so many great memories from that day. Truly, I can't shut up about it.  I put the books up for sale on the emmaburns.org website under Merch with the same prices I had at the book fair, cheaper than through Amazon. It costs $12 to ship Priority with their envelopes so that's what I used for shipping price. But if you're within about half an hour of the Bangor area, I'll drop books off for free. If the system fights you on that and insists on shipping, just email me and we'll figure it out.  That event was so much fun, but now I am a pale shadow of my former self and can only lie about going "unnnnnh" and doing absolutely nothing. So between that and family events I'm wrecked. Too much GOING PLACES and DOING THINGS yet AGAIN. I did more of that in the past week than in the past year. I'll have to tell you about...

I'm super sick and tottering around all confused. You do not want me to record a podcast right now. Why is everything so confusing? Why are my arms being weird and shaky? Nobody knows. I slept half the day on the world's biggest ottoman (one I built from scratch) in the living room, with the dog cuddled up against me. She loved it. I kind of loved it. Head and shoulders on the purple loveseat. Then I had a fantasy of turning my headboard into a loveseat kind of thing, upholstered and with arms built on. I absolutely could make that happen. Or adapt an existing loveseat to become that.  Well, not right now. Right now I'm baffled by applesauce. I might not make it this week. I apologize. Especially to new listeners, but you probably came from the book fair and know how overwhelming and germ-filled that was (alas, it's true) so you get it better than anyone.  I ate some applesauce and feel like I might shuffle off this mortal coil. I'm sure it's fine. But. Ooooh.  ...

This week's episode will be about Meg Cabot's three modern epistolary romance novels Boy Meets Girl, The Boy Next Door, Every Boy's Got One.

Let there be great rejoicing! Particularly from those who are tired of hearing about this particularly agonizing drafting process, haha. Seriously, I usually write a draft straight through in one or two months. This is not normal for me. It's because it's an old story idea that's been written out a bunch of times. I've been listening back to old episodes precisely to get those insights about the draft that I had while talking it out during the recording, but immediately forgot.  I've been working insanely long hours on this all week. But don't give me too much credit. It's really because my hands hurt too much to keep reupholstering the loveseat. I know! Stop using furniture as a displacement activity from your main displacement activity! Anyway I have a few more things to fix and then have to let it sit before I reread and start the rewrite. I want to fix/finish the novel 40/40 next, but ought to tackle the short story collections and send them out into th...

The entire series of Agents of SHIELD is about identity. No, really. Have a look at episode one, or any other episode, or watch the whole series over and over like I do. It's everything I love about YA and scifi, even though sometimes the season arcs are kind of ludicrous and things seem to go off the rails. Who cares! I love it! Episode posts at 6:00 a.m. Eastern on December 2. How is it December??? They put Thanksgiving too late in November this year. Thanksgiving also makes an appearance in this episode. Hope you had a good one!