Mars Needs Writers - Blog-O-Rama

Parlez-vous français ? ¿Hablas español? Parli italiano?

2/7/2026

Answer “Yes,” to any of the above, you’re one up on us. Renée and I are monoglots, as sexually-suggestive as that sounds, no matter how hard we’ve tried to learn other languages. Frankly, neither of us has tried that much. This doesn’t mean we can’t offer copies of our stories to readers in other countries, though.

And the reason we can do so is because Babelcube exists. Before BC, if a self-published author wanted to see their book in Portuguese, for example, they’d go to a professional translator. A 23,000-word novella like our werewolf-romance-mystery, Twisted Games, would have cost us from $2,300 to $4,140 per language (at the standard $0.10 and $0.18 per word) or more. There aren’t a lot of indie writers who can afford that kind of money.

Babelcube changed the math by creating a royalty-share model. This meant writers didn’t have to pay a translator anything for the work they did as long as both parties share the royalties for any translated book sales. There’s a sliding scale on who gets what, but Babelcube takes 15% of the net whenever a reader buys a book. It’s a long game, played for pennies at a time. With tens of thousands of translations out there, the Babelgang is surviving on volume.

(Cover designs by 1 Rat Studio Graphics.)

That’s my speculation, anyway. BC is famously private about its number of sales.

So, what’s the downside of using Babelcube? There's not a lot of vetting being done. Because anyone can claim to be a translator, story quality can be questionable… or worse. Since there’s no financial penalty for quitting, translators can walk away from a project without finishing it. Also, now that AI has the world in its grip, some of the “translators” are relying on bots to churn out books quickly. AI does many things very well – and many things, not so good – but translating a book requires nuance and skill.

At this moment in time, AI isn’t nearly as good at the subtleties as people. Nuance isn't just about the words; it's about the culture. We learned, for instance, that French readers actually prefer the English title for steamy romances, while Italian titles have their own unique capitalization rules. Which is why we treasure the human translators who’ve worked with us.

This month, Babelcube released our previously-mentioned Twisted Games in French (traduit par Maëva Vervaëck) and Spanish (traducido por Adrian Buenrostro). Both did an outstanding job of capturing the nuance and "heat" of the story. Our science-fiction short stories, After Things Went Bad, came out in Italian (traduzione di Maria Giovanna Polito) this month, as well. Maria Giovanna Polito is excellent at what she does.

AI will probably take over their jobs in time, but we hope not. Until then, buy human.

The Great Bomb Snow Cyclone Flop: A Post-Mortem

1/31/2026

We had every intention of being productive yesterday. We had our topic picked out, a fresh pot of coffee percolating – yes, we’ve gone back to using a percolator – and a block of time set aside to write Friday’s blog.

If you lived where we live, you’d already know why this post is arriving a day late. Friday was supposed to be the day of the Bomb Snow Cyclone. According to the weather apps we trusted, our city was on the brink of a meteorological event of cinematic proportions. Our designated “writing time” was set aside while we fell into a state of mild suburban panic. We placed bags of ice in our freezer, filled a bathtub with water, dripped faucets, set up a bed tent, and made sure we had enough nonrefrigerated goodness to survive a nine-day loss of power while the roads were impassable.

As this is being written, none of the promised badness has come to pass.

The irony is that this all came exactly one week after the Great Ice Storm That Wasn’t. That was last week’s blogpost. Then we were warned that our town’s infrastructure was about to crumble beneath a glistening coat of icy doom. We spent two days obsessing over snow shovels and fallen powerlines, only to wake up the next morning to… a slightly damp driveway.

(The image to the left? How we imagined our struggle against the elements versus the reality of us eating cold beans in a bedroom tent fort. Inspired by the great paperback cover artists of the past.)

Fool Us Twice?

You’d think we’d have learned our lesson. But when the words bomb, snow, and cyclone appear in the same forecast – and you’ve never heard those words combined in a forecast before – rational thought goes sideways. Instead of drafting paragraphs, we were inventorying D batteries. Instead of polishing prose, we were building a tent fort in the house’s smallest bedroom. Gotta keep that heat in, you understand.

And, just like the week before, the sky remained stubbornly—almost insultingly—clear. No blizzard. No cyclone. Not even a courtesy flurry so far. The weather apps still promise wintery whiteness. Later.

It’s always later.

There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from preparing for a disaster that never arrives. It’s part relief, part confusion, and part “Wait… we spent four hours doing that when we could have watched The Night Manager written our blog?” Our corner of North Carolina appears to be sitting inside some sort of weather-shield bubble lately, which is excellent news for th power grid (and viewing The Night Manager) but terrible for our word count.

Going forward, we’re making a pact with each other: unless one of us sees a penguin sliding down street, we stay at the keyboard. Mostly. Because, honestly, it’s kind of fun to read inside the tent fort.

Have you ever watched "The Ice Storm?"

1/23/2026

The 1997 Ang Lee, award-winning film? We haven’t, either. Lee used a historic 1973 ice storm as the backdrop for a drama loaded with actors we enjoy—Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Joan Allen—and directed by a filmmaker with an impeccable reputation. Yet, we never much wanted to see it. The storyline is heavy with infidelity, teenage angst, and suburban ennui. The characters are living lives that feel as brittle as ice-encased trees.

How brittle are ice-encased trees, exactly? Extremely. A half-inch of ice on a branch can increase its weight by thirty times. When the wood reaches its breaking point, it doesn't just bend; it shatters. And when the tree goes, nothing good happens.

(Image generated by Gemini. Even AI knows that a downed limb in a North Carolina suburb looks like a scene from a disaster flick.)

Back in 1979, when we first started dating in San Diego, California, we weren’t exactly looking for "suburban ennui." Even if Ang Lee’s masterpiece had been out then, it wouldn't have been our speed. Our idea of a good time was… well, Alien. A 1979 drama-laden masterpiece with a chest-burster to catch an audience’s attention.

San Diego had suffered through "The Great Freeze" in 1913, but it has never had a true ice storm. Not like the one in the movie, and certainly not like the one coming for us now. To be honest, if The Ice Storm picture had included chest-bursters, we’d have bought tickets to it.

We’re not saying all movies need to have a chest-burster in them. That would be ridiculous. But, be honest now: wouldn’t The Barbie Movie have been more interesting with a chest-burster scene?

Yes. Yes, it would.

All of this comes to mind because there’s a significant winter storm bearing down on about half the states in the USA. In North Carolina, we’re currently under a Winter Storm Watch. In Holly Springs, we’re expected to be in the "freezing zone," where rain falls and freezes instantly on whatever it contacts. Every tree branch, every pine needle, and every power line is expected to soon be covered by a heavy, glass-like shell of ice.

North Carolina’s governor and Duke Energy have both begun using that ominous phrase: “multiday outages.” It’s The Ice Storm movie scenario, minus the wife-swapping.

We’re prepared. We have water, blankets, flashlights, and a battery-powered DVD player. And, as you might expect, the Blu-ray version of Alien. In space, no one can hear you scream. In a North Carolina ice storm, everyone can hear the branches snapping.

We’ll be fine. We hope you’ll get through this, too.

Conan: Mail-Order Cimmerian is on hold

1/16/2026

In last week’s celebration of National Word Nerd Day, Renée chose cimmerian as her new and shiny new word of the day. An adjective, it means “gloomy or shrouded in the deepest darkness.” Putting the word into a sentence, she said, “Troy Manley found himself falling into the cimmerian depths of an ancient cavern.”

That was last Friday. Wrapping up our post, we went on with our day. But for me, Hal -- the guy writing this post -- the word lingered in my memory. Never having used it myself, I knew I’d heard it before.

“Everyone who knows pop culture has heard it before,” Renée said. “Conan? Conan the Cimmerian?”

I knew of Conan, but only from comic books and the movies. (Ah-nuld!) Renee was much more of a fan. She’d read the comics, she’d seen the movies, but she’d been reading the Robert E. Howard Conan paperbacks since before she was a teenager. After she went through everything written by Howard, she devoured the stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. Then Tor Books put out a new series by other authors. Steve Perry, Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts – and many, many others – all wrote new adventures for the famous barbarian.

(The May 1934 issue of Weird Tales is especially prized by collectors because of its title story. Painting by Margaret Brundage.)

So, maybe we could, too. Renée knows everything about the guy and I… well, I would find out if the character of Conan was in the public domain because, let’s be honest, our Amazon royalties could use a boost. But – and stay with me here; I’m coloring outside the lines – what if the next Anne Glynn mail-order bride novel was pitched like this: After a mysterious ritual in the depths of an ancient cavern goes awry, a brooding, battle-hardened warrior finds himself ripped from his Cimmerian homeland and deposited onto the dusty streets of 1868 Missouri. Prepared to fight monsters, he’s completely unarmed against the social expectations of the American West. Through a series of misunderstandings and an unfortunate clerical error, he finds himself wed to a sharp-tongued pioneer woman who has no interest in a husband who speaks to "Crom" more than he speaks to her. He must learn to trade his broadsword for a plowshare -- or find a way back to the Hyborian age -- before Conan Properties International notices he’s missing.

The pitch is a little rough, but it might find an audience. The storyline would get smoothed out and improved once I brought Renée into the conversation. Before I had that talk, though, I needed to know if we could use the muscly brute as our protagonist.

I discovered that we absolutely can, but there’s a chance we’ll regret it if we do.

Robert E. Howard passed away in 1936, so his published original work appears to be solidly in the public domain. Available for any and all to use as they like. His “Queen of the Black Coast” story in the May, 1934 issue of Weird Tales, for example, entered the public domain in 1962 when its copyright lapsed. (Someone saved their $2.00 copyright fee for other business.)

That’s the case in the USA, though; in Mexico and the Ivory Coast, the story is still protected for another decade or so. Would that be an issue for Conan: Mail-Order Barbarian? (The title’s still in flex. Don’t judge.)

There’s a bigger concern, too. Earlier, when I mentioned Conan Properties International? Turns out the corporate brain trust that owns the Conan trademark isn’t rumored to have much of a sense of humor. Lawsuits aren’t a foreign concept to CPI. They sued Conan’s Pizza in Austin, Texas, because – I think we both know why. How long do you think it would take them to chase after the authors of Conan: Mail-Order Muscle?

Yeah, that’s what I think, too.

#RobertEHoward #ConanTheBarbarian #WeirdTales #RobertJordan #PublicDomain #CopyrightLaw #ConansPizza

This won't be a long post

1/9/2026

To begin with, both of us forgot we needed to put a blog up. Secondly—is that the right word to use? It feels like the right word to use—we’re working on a Top-Secret Project (TSP) that we can’t share with anyone at the moment. It’s keeping us busy.

We’ll share the TSP with you, though. Just not yet.

Which left us grasping for something to post about. Then we found out today is National Word Nerd Day and ran with it. It’s twenty-four hours honoring those of us who enjoy the odder corners of our languages; those who have word-a-day apps on their phones, play Scrabble, and hate when they lose at Wordle.

We're not saying we're like that, but, one day last year, we lost at Wordle. We were inches away from a one-year streak when the monsters behind Wordle decided that Kefir was a reasonable solution to their puzzle that hot August morning. A word in the everyday vocabulary of the common man or woman.

If you know what kefir means, then National Word Nerd Day is meant for you. NWND is the perfect opportunity to find and use obscure words, mistakenly believing the use of weird phraseology makes people sound learned.

Hal’s obscure word of the day: Susurrus. A noun, it means a rustling, whispering sound. Asked to use it in a sentence, he said, “With nightfall coming, Troy Manly knew the Troodon would be hunting him soon. Listening intently, all he heard was the soft susurrus of the wind moving through the pines.”

Renée’s obscure word of the day: Cimmerian. An adjective, it means very dark and gloomy. Asked to use it in a sentence, she said, “His crocs sliding over the loose gravel, Troy Manly found himself falling into the cimmerian depths of an ancient cavern. Climbing to his feet, he realized he’d tumbled into a nest of Troodon. Armed only with an outdated vial of pepper spray, Troy was about to become their midnight snack.”

Hal wouldn’t mind if his name was Troy Manly. Renée would mind it very much.

You asked, we answer.

1/2/2026

Yes, Renée completed her “Zombies in Christmas Village” display prior to Halloween. Because zombies and Halloween. Then she brought it out again and put it up for Christmas. Because Christmas Village and candy canes and elves and Santa and… well, what is Mrs. Claus’s first name?

It might be ‘Gertrude’, since James Rees gave her that name in his 1849 book, Mysteries of City Life. This was the first time anyone provided her with a first name. But she could also be called ‘Goody’, from Katherine Lee Bates’s 1889 poem, Santa Claus. Although her name is probably ‘Jessica’ to fans of the stop-motion special, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town or ‘Mary Christmas’ to those who watched the Peanuts special, It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. Or ‘Carol’ (The Santa Clause movies) or ‘Anna’ (the musical, Mrs. Santa Claus) or ‘Margaret’ or ‘Martha' or 'Babs'’… but I’ve let myself get distracted.

(The zombie with the candy cane through his head? That's Kevin, once the manager of the North Pole Staples. Currently on medical leave.)

In this post, per request, I'm sharing some of the photos of the finished Halloween/Christmas decoration. The zombies came from Amazon. Santa and Babs, the elves, the shotgun, candy canes and the bloodshed -- that's Renée's handiwork.

Santa's in bad shape, but Babs is on the clock tower, armed and ready. In the end, it'll all work out because... Christmas magic. And hurray for that.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Buttons

12/26/2025

The options for post-holiday recovery today are endless. Today marks the official kickoff of Kwanzaa—seven days dedicated to community, heritage, and culture. Meanwhile, as Iron John in Ontario reminds us, our friends in the UK and Canada are celebrating Boxing Day. While Boxing Day started out as a tradition of charity and giving, it’s mostly evolved into a high-stakes competitive sport of discount shopping. If you, too, are Boxing this Day, may your deals be legendary.

Here is our game plan for the day: Having spent the previous two days with wonderful people and away from Santa Buttons, we'll drive home in our pajamas with our Christmas stockings within reach. Yes, we do stockings and, yes, they contain candy. Once we're home, there's no real cooking on the menu. Everything gets microwaved today. If there's not enough leftovers to get by, there's definitely more candy.

Then, in the spirit of the holidays, we'll binge the remaining episodes of Murderbot on Apple TV. (Full disclosure: Amazon lured us into Apple streaming by plying us with a free episode of Pluribus. That show is a gateway drug. Well-played, you corporate masterminds.) Whatever your plans for the day are, we hope they bring you comfort and joy. See you next year!

Giving out loans, traveling the world, and a random number generator

12/19/2025

Bob Harris has certainly led an interesting and varied life. According to Bobharris.com, he’s an author, a stand-up comedian, a travel writer, and a frequent contestant on Jeopardy – although, really, who among us hasn’t done many of those things? One of Bob’s notable actions has been financing thousands of micro-loans through Kiva.org.

Traveling the world to meet some of the people who’d received those loans, Bob Harris traveled the world. Then he wrote about his experience in The International Bank of Bob. If you can, you should borrow it from your library. While this won’t increase Bob Harris's royalties this month, he’s got that sweet, sweet Jeopardy money to fall back on. Using the price of his paperback, you can nearly finance a Kiva loan on your own.

Financing a loan through Kiva:

Go to Kiva.org and choose a preference from twenty different categories.
Find a story that resonates with you.
Send in a payment of at least $25.

In the future, your loan will either be repaid... or not. About four percent of Kiva loans aren’t repaid, but we haven't been stiffed yet. Even if our turn comes, it’ll have been worth it.

This month, we went with a random number generator. Usually, we review several requests, then pick one that speaks to us. For a change, we decided to use a random number generator to pick among Kiva’s twenty different category of loans. The generator selected number 15: “Refugees and IDPs".

Neither of us knew what an “IDP” was, which probably should have been embarrassing. It stands for “internally displaced people,” who are folks forced to flee their homes while remaining within their country's borders. Everyone in this Kiva category was from either Palestine or Uganda.

With sixteen applicants available, we returned to the random number generator. It selected number 4, a Ugandan father with two children who needs money to buy more goods for his shop. With one click, our small piece of the $1,150 USD loan was made.

Good luck, Utamukunzi!

Ever wonder what coal tastes like?

12/13/2025

Because you’re sane, your immediate thought is, “Oh, hell, no.” There’s no way to think it would taste good, right? Plus, people who prefer to keep living know better than to have a coal snack. So, you might wonder why Santa would put these nuggets of deadly into bad children’s stockings.

There are people – presumably, with out taste buds or too many brain cells – who’ve tasted anthracite coal, the stuff used for heating. Some claim it’s like holding a dirty rock in their mouths, while others say it tastes like a dirty rock that’s unpleasantly bitter with just a hint of sulfur to remind them to never, ever again taste coal.

This all comes to mind because one half of the Turner writing team put up a Krampus plate for the holiday season. Dollar Store black coal chunks felt like the perfect accessory because Krampus, as you know, has a reputation of focusing on ill-mannered children.

When the other half of the Turner writing team saw these black-wrapped candy nuggets, he wanted to eat one. A bag of these things costs a buck. There’s no way to think any of them would taste good, right?

He unfoiled one, anyway. (Yes, unfoiled IS a word. It's been around since the late 1500s. Which is roughly as long as the male half of this team has been around.) He munched.

"Not bad," he said. "Tastes a little like a subpar Nestlé Crunch Bar."

He didn't mention any smell of sulfur, but he hasn't asked for seconds, either. Be warned.

Vanity and pride are different things

12/5/2025

That’s according to Jane Austen, anyway, and who are we to disagree with the author of Pride and Prejudice? If she speaks the truth, though, then how exactly do we explain Hal’s desire to get our monster of a book, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Complete Saga, into print? Vanity or pride?

Oh, that’s easy. It was vanity, no question.

(For scale, we've positioned a paperback of Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives beside Saga. When Levin was at the top of his game, he was marvelous. Wives is worth your attention. If you’ve never read his first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, you’re missing out.)

We have paper editions of all our other books, but we’d never taken the time to get Saga ready for print. There were reasons, but the largest one (ha!) is that our Moby Dick of a novel is nearly as long as Moby Dick. It’s four times as long as The Stepford Wives.

For its hardcover publications, Amazon has a maximum page count of 550 pages. Throw in the title page, copyright info, and a dedication, and Saga clocked in at… 550 pages. What is the Amazon ask at that length? $29.99 USD for the hardcover, $26.99 for the paperback. As pleased as we are to have a copy, we don't expect anyone to drop thirty bucks for a copy. So, yeah, this was a vanity move.

The book looks great in the bookcase, though.