No, they won’t get permission first | Jim Nelson
Is it only considered piracy if the people who do it lack resources and respectability? Apparently so.| Jim Nelson
cafe(友光軒) by voo34oov (CC BY 2.0)| j-nelson.net
"According to Cain" placed #1 on Winter is Coming's "The 10 scariest free interactive fiction games to enjoy this winter."| Jim Nelson
How to find the right writing schedule.| Jim Nelson
A piece of writing advice worth remembering.| Jim Nelson
The audiobook of A Man Named Baskerville is now available at Apple Books, as well as Audible and Amazon.| Jim Nelson
In 2011, I wrote a novella about a Silicon Valley startup that trains its virtual reality software from tourist photos it scrapes off the Internet. Millions of these photos are stitched together to create a virtual cable car ride across San Francisco.| j-nelson.net
Is it only considered piracy if the people who do it lack resources and respectability? Apparently so.| Jim Nelson
The final two books in the Bridge Daughter Cycle, Hagar's Mother and Stranger Son, are now on Kobo.| Jim Nelson
Update on the audiobook of A Man Named Baskerville, and the hardcover edition is about to be released.| Jim Nelson
Bridge Daughter and In My Memory Locked now on Kobo.| Jim Nelson
The audiobook dropped this week on Audible.| Jim Nelson
Why I'm publishing my back catalog to Kobo, and why I've put off doing it for so long.| Jim Nelson
I'm beginning to add more of my back catalog to Kobo, starting with Edward Teller Dreams of Barbecuing People. More titles will follow.| Jim Nelson
Pre-orders for the special hardcover edition of A Man Named Baskerville are now available.| Jim Nelson
What if someone simply made their own version of Neuromancer? Not a movie trailer, but the movie itself?| Jim Nelson
Originally written for a book review contest, here's my take on a revisionist Watergate history that offers wild and fascinating theories on the reasons for the break-in that changed American history.| Jim Nelson
And that's a wrap—MX Publishing's Kickstarter for A Man Named Baskerville closed earlier today with 81 backers pledging £1,842 (USD$2,241) toward the upcoming Special Edition hardback. Learn more about A Man Named Baskerville on my web site.| Jim Nelson
The Kickstarter for A Man Named Baskerville: Special Edition has raised nearly $1,700 in two weeks, and great donor rewards are still available.| Jim Nelson
B. R. Myers asked an emperor-has-no-clothes question: Instead of rewarding authors by who they are or who they know, why not judge their books by story, language, themes, and meanings?| Jim Nelson
Wherein I contemplate a prior post on the significance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."| Jim Nelson
MX Publishing's Kickstarter fundraiser is underway to launch a special hardcover edition of A Man Named Baskerville and an audiobook. Donors can receive rewards like signed copies and exclusive megapacks. Contributions will cover production costs. Please share the campaign!| Jim Nelson
Some time in early 2025, you should expect to see a new hardcover and audiobook of Baskerville. I'm especially excited about the audiobook, as this will be the first one produced for my novels.| Jim Nelson
Last year I wrote about dysfunctional narratives, a type of story that Charles Baxter first identified in the 1990s and which now seems overly prevalent today. He quoted a description of them by poet Marilynne Robinson, who also identified this type of narrative. She called it a “mean little myth”: One is born and in […]| Jim Nelson
Flannery O'Connor Previously: Writer's block The year that was 2020 will most likely go down as one of the most significant years of my life: The COVID-19 pandemic, lock-downs and masking, the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots, all leading up to the most contentious presidential election...| Jim Nelson
My Interactive Fiction Competition entry Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe was reviewed by Justin Kim at The Final Arc. Highlights: On one hand, it’s a game about dealing with the duality of superficial popularity vs meaningful respect as a career writer. On another hand, it’s a mystery about the last days of famed […]| Jim Nelson
Today is the start of the Interactive Fiction (IF) Competition 2024, which includes my latest IF title, Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe. Over 67 titles are entered in the competition this year. The great thing about IF Comp is that anyone can play and be a judge.| Jim Nelson
John Turturro in Barton Fink Previously: An all-too-familiar utopia From a novel-writing perspective, 2018 and 2019 was a creative interregnum. After publishing Hagar's Mother in late 2017, I found myself juggling energy between two books.| Jim Nelson
With the dog days of summer upon us, four of my novels are now available on Amazon for the low price of 99¢. Follow the links below to view sample chapters or purchase: A Man Named Baskerville – Sherlock Holmes classic retold In My Memory Locked – Near-future cyberpunk private eye Man in the M...| Jim Nelson
On the Interactive Fiction Community Forum, author Brian Rushton has been at work completing his series reviewing every game to win the XYZZY and IF Comp awards. He recently posted his review of According to Cain, the most recent game to win the XYZZY: Your game, the player’s, while fraught with occasional physical danger, is […]| Jim Nelson
Previously: A literary eulogy Earlier when I’ve paged through my past blog posts to locate my favorite for a particular year, one usually jumped out at me. For 2018, I find myself torn between two favorites. The tiebreaker in a case like this is: Do I have anything more to say on the subject? On […]| Jim Nelson
Not rethinking realism, as in rethinking philosophy’s single, objective reality, hard as rocks and nails. No, I mean rethinking realism in the sense of questioning the elevation of literary realism over the many other forms of fiction. Realism has long been the go-to form in literature for telling a story a certain way. An entire […]| Jim Nelson
Forgot to mention it here—a couple weeks back, I was interviewed by otistdog (“Mad Scientist”) at the Interactive Fiction Community Forum about According to Cain. Sample from the Q&A: Q: What was it about the Cain and Abel story that attracted you as a subject?JN: Two brothers fighting over the affection of their parents and […]| Jim Nelson
Previously: Portable dreamweaversNext: An all-too-familiar utopia Blogging in 2017 was again marked by another foray into the world of Kindle Scout, this time for my Bridge Daughter sequel Hagar’s Mother. That year I also ran a three-part series discussing the crossover between writing fiction and writing code, and some short entries on how I use […]| Jim Nelson
When I started this blog years ago, I made a private agreement with myself: I would avoid writing topical political content. Substack, social media, and the blogosphere is saturated with political commentary, providing lots of heat but little light. I don’t like trafficking in outrage, which is the fast-track to success in political blogging. However, […]| Jim Nelson
Previously: An unusual parableNext: A literary eulogy 2016 was a busy year for blogging. Amazon accepted Bridge Daughter for their Kindle Scout program, which entailed a month-long nomination process before they agreed to publish it. It was the start of a fairly intense roller coaster ride, most of which I captured in blog posts along […]| Jim Nelson
This slipped by me in February, but today I learned A Man Named Baskerville is reviewed positively at Melisende’s Library: This is the much needed backstory of the character of Stapleton from Conan Doyle’s “Hound of the Baskervilles”. It is exceedingly well done and in keeping with Conan Doyle’s original story. … Heartily recommended for […]| Jim Nelson
Previously: The mysterious B. TravenNext: Portable dreamweavers The year 2015 was more productive than the prior for blogging. I managed to eke out twenty-six blog posts, or about one every two weeks. In the world of blogging this is nothing to crow about. I never intended for this blog to be a daily writing exercise, […]| Jim Nelson
Yesterday, the 2022 XYZZY final awards were announced. If you don’t know, the XYZZY Awards are given yearly for interactive fiction. They’re sometimes called the Academy Awards for interactive fiction. I was blown away to learn that According to Cain won Best Game and Best Implementation for 2022. Cain was also nominated for Best Writing, […]| Jim Nelson
If you’re a NetGalley member, my Sherlock Holmes-inspired novel A Man Named Baskerville is now available for download and review. Baskerville is my take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Told as a journal penned by the original’s villain, it relates his life story from a pauper’s childhood in the Empire of Brazil to life […]| Jim Nelson
Previously: IntroductionNext: An unusual parable This blog launched on the first of August, 2014. It was not a big year blog-wise, but I still managed to put out eleven posts (one of which I’ll return to later this year). Worried I would run out of ideas, I devised “Twenty Writers, Twenty Books,” a series where […]| Jim Nelson
True story: I started blogging before the word “blog” was coined. In 1995, I created a web site known as Ad Nauseam, where I sporadically vented about the software industry, Silicon Valley, and the rise of the World Wide Web. Like most blogging efforts, I ran out of steam after a few years, and set […]| Jim Nelson
Last night, I saw a live performance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” at the San Francisco Symphony. One of the people I went with had never seen the original television cartoon—yes, it’s true. Afterwards, she asked a simple question: “Why did Charlie Brown pick such a bad tree for Christmas?” As we walked, we talked […]| Jim Nelson
The 2022 XYZZY Awards for interactive fiction is now accepting nominations. The XYZZY Awards is one of the oldest video game award on the books. It first started in 1997 and has been held yearly since. It’s often called the Oscars for interactive fiction. If you’ve played even one interactive fiction game first released in […]| Jim Nelson
In November, Amazon opened a beta program for Kindle Direct Publishing authors called Virtual Voice. It may be the biggest upheaval to independent publishing since Amazon launched KDP over a decade ago. Virtual Voice uses synthetic (i.e., computer) voice technology to produce audiobooks. On first blush, that sounds like a pretty crappy experience—who wants to […]| Jim Nelson
See the “Twenty Writers, Twenty Books” home page for more information on this series. A year ago I asked a simple question: Will we finally see Neuromancer on the screen? This turned out to be an example of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the […]| Jim Nelson
Ben Davis of artnet news reports a story that sounds all-too-familiar these days: A little more than a week ago, I wrote a review of an art show by the artist and TikTok sensation Devon Rodriguez, best known for live drawing subway riders. He is, by some measures, the most famous artist in the world, […]| Jim Nelson
I once wrote erotica by accident. Writing and getting the story published is a wild tale. If you know of anything of my output—my novels, my interactive fiction—that might surprise you. You’ve probably never read anything by me that remotely involves the sex act: No kinky sex, no ho-hum sex, not even missionary style. Generally, […]| Jim Nelson
This morning I learned that my interactive fiction game According to Cain was selected for the 2023 Interactive Fiction Top 50. This is a poll run by Victor Gijsbers every four years since 2011, and generally attracts interactive fiction enthusiasts and authors (most of whom gather now at intfiction.org). The goal of the poll is […]| Jim Nelson
Will Blythe at Esquire asks, “In the golden age of magazines, short stories reigned supreme. Has the digital revolution killed their cultural relevance?” Wearily, I started his essay expecting more of the same, and lo, finding it: Computers and the Internet, he contends, has done much to destroy literary fiction. By this point, I’m surprised […]| Jim Nelson
The recorded video of my NarraScope 2023 talk—”According to Cain: From concept to completion”—is now up: Or, watch it on YouTube. Published 29 August 2023. Last updated 28 August 2023.| Jim Nelson
Kat Rosenfield at Unherd claims she knows why men are no longer wild: “Our sense of adventure died with Chris McCandless.” I last wrote about the mythology around Chris McCandless and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild in 2015. Rosenfield’s article motivated me to survey the situation once more. I won’t summarize here Krakauer’s book or […]| Jim Nelson
It’s been awhile. Although the web site has been mostly quiet, I’ve actually been juggling a few projects and staying busy. First, I am working on a new novel, which I hope to have mostly finished before the end of the year. It’s a bit of curveball compared to my past work—an absurdist caper comedy […]| Jim Nelson
My post on the history of Sherlock Holmes' copyright status has been indexed by Google but is not available via search. In other words, Google's servers have seen the post, they've analyzed the content, but they refuse to add it to their search engine for users to discover.| Jim Nelson
