Mars Needs Writers - Blog-O-Rama

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.

Collaboration can be a challenge

11/15/2025

Collaborations aren’t easy, as this year has reminded us. A Bablecube novella translation has been delayed. Our audiobook that was supposed to come out in September? The voice talent vanished, and we had to prevail upon the Gods of ACX to kill the contract. And there’s this 2026 thing we’re doing… but that’s for another day.

Almost everyone suffers a few emotional bruises when collaborating with others. Everyone except Jonah and Amanda Strassler. Those Strasslers. They make us Turners look like weak sauce.

It started when Jonah had an idea he couldn’t shake. He wanted to create a science-fiction story about three unfortunate interns forced to do the frightening and often illegal actions demanded of them by an evil corporation. A lighthearted adventure story, Jonah thought it would work best in comic book form.

Fortunately, his sister, Amanda, is an artist. In February, he approached her about working with him on the project. By midsummer, they’d completed all fifty-two pages and were selling the published comic at the Garden State Comic Fest. In between, they sat around a campfire, singing “Kumbaya” and eating S’mores. Then they’d hug it out every evening, each of them being ever so grateful for having such an amazing sibling in their lives.

(Okay, we’re making up the campfire thing. Jonah and Amanda had to collaborate through the computer and on the phone, so the hugging it out thing didn’t happen, either. But completing this big of a project in less than six months? That happened and, from what they tell us, with a minimum of bumps and scratches. They’re kind of amazing.)

A few weeks ago, author Aki Liao invited us to talk with the pair for his NoName Storyteller podcast. Aki works with Al McDermid on their Frank Keegan Mysteries, so he knows about collaborations. Alex Sheikman, artist extraordinaire and survivor of multiple collaborations, was in the discussion, too. If you’d like to hear all of us chatting about the creative process and the perils of collaboration, the audio dropped yesterday.

Aki called the episode, "Rising Stars and Veteran Creators: Titans Together Across the Indie Cosmos." If he hadn't run out of space, he'd have called it, "Rising Stars and Veteran Creators: Titans Together Across the Indie Cosmos. Also, the Turners." And he'd have been right to do so. We didn't even know there was an indie cosmos.

This will get you to the right place on Spotify: here.
For Apple Podcasts, try here.
If Star Interns intrigues you, here’s the link.

The Bone Bar is open

11/13/2025

… a couple of weeks behind schedule, but what are you gonna do? Renée submitted her design to the neon light folks well before Halloween. The seller promised delivery in October, but there were some hiccups along the way. The sign just showed up at our door.

So, sadness, we didn’t get a chance to hang it this year. Next year, though, it’s going to look swell behind our Dean the Deathologist.

Also, those white flappy things in the sign’s upper left-hand corner? They’re Honduran white bats. Not seagulls. Don't you dare suggest otherwise.

Joe Rogan loves himself some AI-generated music

11/13/2025

Or so I've heard. There are a couple of AI-generated country hits climbing the charts, and… that sucks. Renée heard one song – although she didn't know the 'artist' was computer-generated – and told me she didn't enjoy it.

"It's missing something," she said. "Nuance?"

Humanity.

(The early AI image on this post? It's from RI, Master of Men, illustrated by Martin Salvador, written by Hal, and published forever ago.)

But it got me to thinking: What if I asked Microsoft's AI companion to help me write today's update? Would it be great? Awful? To find out, I requested it to write a 400-word post for MarsNeedsWriters on how people can recognize when AI has written a 400-word post for MarsNeedsWriters. Or anyone else's website.

The article was completed within seconds. Then, the AI-generated wordsmith asked if I'd like a more SEO-friendly version that could help it rank better on search engines. Well, sure.

How to Spot AI‑Generated Content: Recognizing a Website Post Written by AI

Artificial intelligence is transforming online publishing, and many websites now feature posts created entirely by AI tools. While these articles can be polished and professional, they often carry subtle signs that reveal their machine origins. If you want to improve your skills in AI content detection, here are practical ways to recognize when a 400‑word post has been written by artificial intelligence.

1. Exact Word Count Precision
AI systems excel at meeting strict requirements. If a post is exactly 400 words—without drifting above or below—that's a strong clue. Human writers tend to be less rigid, often producing 380 or 420 words instead of hitting the mark perfectly.
2. Neutral, Generic Tone
AI writing often sounds smooth and grammatically correct but lacks personality. The tone may feel neutral, balanced, and designed to appeal broadly. Human writers usually inject quirks, humor, or strong opinions that make their work stand out.
3. Formulaic Structure
AI‑generated posts frequently follow a predictable pattern: introduction, numbered sections, and a neat conclusion. While this makes them easy to read, it can feel mechanical. Human authors often experiment with flow, add unexpected transitions, or break the mold.
4. Repetition of Common Phrases
Because AI relies on patterns, it may repeat certain phrases like "in conclusion," "overall," or "key indicators." Humans naturally vary their language more, even when covering similar points.
5. Absence of Personal Experience
AI cannot share lived experiences. Posts generated by machines rarely include anecdotes, personal stories, or unique insights. If a piece feels informative but impersonal, it's likely AI‑written.
6. Broad but Shallow Analysis
AI excels at summarizing information quickly but struggles with depth. A 400‑word AI post often touches on multiple points without diving deeply into any one idea. Human writers may linger on a single thought, offering richer detail or stronger opinions.

Conclusion
Learning how to spot AI writing is about noticing what's missing: personality, unpredictability, and lived experience. A perfectly structured, neutral, and impersonal 400‑word post is often the giveaway. As AI tools evolve, these signs may become subtler, but for now, they remain reliable clues for recognizing AI‑generated content.

Zzzzzzz... kind of boring, right? It's probably a good thing since, now that the beans have been spilled, we can never offer an AI-produced post on this site again. You'd spot it immediately. Although Joe Rogan might love it.

Not everyone is into humanity these days.

A bad day for the Elf on the Shelf

11/8/2025

By the time Renée’s done, it’s going to have been a bad day for all the elves at Santa’s Village. Because that’s the way she rolls.

As mentioned before, Halloween is Renée’s favorite holiday. Taking out a box of decorations for the big day, she came across our very sweet Santa’s Village display… and put it with the Halloween stuff.

“You know what this needs?” she asked. “Zombies.” I didn’t ask why. Everyone who knows Renée knows why.

She ordered some tiny plastic zombies, placed them throughout the town, but wasn’t satisfied. “Zombies need victims,” she said because, after all, what is Hall-O-Mass without victims? A few days later, Santa and his favorite elf had been sacrificed to the horde.

Although Halloween has come and gone, she’s continuing the massacre. By Chris-O-Ween, there will be more elf victims scattered throughout the town. But be of good heart: Renée is sculpting a shotgun-wielding Mrs. Claus to straddle one of the village's tallest rooftops. Santa's soulmate is in a mood.

With luck, she'll save Santa's Village.

It's been more than a minute....

11/7/2025

it’s been so long since we've updated this website that neither of us remembers how to create posts for the Blog-O-Rama. Not that this is much of a worry. Weebly’s such an easy build-your-site platform even we’ll figure it out in time.

So, why did we abandon Mars Needs Writers? Life got busy, we lost some people we loved, and we moved across the country to a strange and foreign land: the Southeastern region of the United States. It’s nice here; the people are wonderful, but there’s been a bit of a life adjustment.

Mostly, though, we blame Weebly, the go-to place for easy build-your-site platforms. Once the outfit became a Square-owned service, the new guys wanted to charge us for posting here. “More money” is the American way. It’s the world’s way. Since this website generates views but not income, this felt like a bad deal.

(The picture on the left? That’s from the story “Forever” by Alex Sheikman and Hal Turner, lettered by Renée Turner. You can find it in David Lloyd’s ACES WEEKLY, which is an absolutely aces publication.)

We decided to share our thoughts and prayers on social media instead, where words can be written for free. Although we rarely wrote those words because Facebook and Twitter and Instagram aren’t as much fun as playing on our own website.

So, why did we return now? At this very second, it appears Square isn’t asking for cash for the occasional post. We’re not positive about this, though, so let’s see what happens once this goes live.

Martin Freeman IS The Responder

5/27/2022

I don’t like how much Facebook appears to know about me. Somehow, they’ve discovered that I enjoy Martin Freeman’s work as an actor. To punish me for being a fan, they’ve been plastering my Facebook page with BritBox ads for a television series called The Responder. Starring Mr. Freeman.

I want to tell you, I’m not impressed by the show’s title. The Responder? He’s a responder, not even the first responder? Well, maybe it’s a British thing. Perhaps the show’s producers don’t want to make it sound like Martin is all full of himself. Or maybe the Brits feel that it’s enough that Martin responds to a crisis at all. “It’s nice of him to come by, don’t you think?” Inspector Corbyn asks his men. “Half a day late, half a week late, whatever works for Martin. He’s a jolly chap.”

Do people in England still call other people, “jolly chaps”? Did they ever? If you find out, don’t keep it to yourself. Let me know.

I first noticed Martin Freeman in the British version of The Office, an entertaining show with an adequate title. The Office title doesn’t sizzle, not like Jurassic Park. When I saw Jurassic Park on a theater marquee, I immediately parked my car, then stood in line to see the movie. The Office doesn’t intrigue potential viewers, either, not like Better Off Ted. On the other hand, I may be the only living person who loved that television show, so what does that say about entertainment today? If the Hollywood production factory can only squeeze 26 episodes out of a Better Off Ted, the name of the show isn’t all that critical.

There are two points I’d like to make before escaping the blog today. The first is, Facebook needs to run different ads on my FB page. Unless something more exciting comes along, I won’t be signing up for BritBox. Except for Martin Freeman and his accent, there’s nothing about this new show that makes me want to subscribe to another streamer service. If the program was called Jurassic Detective or Better Off Ted Returns, they’d get my money in a heartbeat. The second thing is that my Vella story, Sharp Teeth, comes out on June 1st. When I'm writing, I struggle with titles, too, but I like this one. The novelette’s subtitle is A Story of Lost Love and Werewolves. Unless I stumble along the way, there will be a new episode every three days until the tale is complete.

If you’d care to take a peek on or after 06/01, Amazon will let you read the first three episodes for free. There’s no Martin Freeman appearance in the first part of the story, but after…?

No, not even after. Martin might be a jolly chap, but he’s likely a jolly chap with lawyers. Lawyers aren’t jolly at all.

Are 'zombies' a genre? If so, it's dead.

3/2/2022

Since you brought the subject up, though, I suppose I need to mention my newest novelette, World War Zayne. If you’re wondering whether the novelette involves zombies, its subtitle is Boys’ Love During the Time of the Zompocalypse. Because it’s not really a new publication, I’m not sending out a newsletter to share this announcement. It’s only you, dear heart, who has to suffer through what I’m about to tell you.

It’s a tight 12,000-word story that involves zombies, biting, the world in chaos, and romance. It’s also kinky. There’s male/female love, which has always been the case with my fiction, and male/male love, which is something new in my writing. Since my romances often have a few twists under the bedcovers, I believe my readers can handle a little something different. If you only know my work through The Runaway Mail-Order Bride, this is not anything like that. Not even close.

But, as I said, it’s not a new publication. Not entirely new, anyway. Back when the zombie genre felt hot, Harrell and I wrote a tight 12,000-word story called World War Zelda. (There’s no underline because Zelda has been pulled from the marketplace.) That tale involved zombies, biting, the world in chaos, and romance. It was kinky. Exactly the type of thing I wanted to read at the time, and exactly the kind of thing I hoped others would want to read, too.

I was so wrong.

It turns out, it takes a certain kind of person to want to read about the collapse of civilization spiced up with a good session of hot shower sex. Not enough of those people wanted to read World War Zelda. Maybe they would have tried it if I’d subtitled the novelette, The Hot Shower Sex Edition.

It wouldn’t have hurt. Almost everything sounds more interesting if you include the words, “the hot shower sex edition.”
“Did the mailman come?” “He sure did. The hot shower sex edition!” “What’s for dinner?” “Bean burritos with a side of rice. The hot shower sex edition!” You say it makes no sense; I say it’s marketing genius.

Zelda came out years ago. Jumping past all of those years to last week, I was sitting on the sofa, reading manga. Boys’ Love manga. I mentioned to my writing partner that I wanted us to plot a Boys’ Love story, not for 2022, but for one distant day in the future. To my surprise, he was paying attention to my rambling and the words, “the future”, triggered something inside of him.

Leaving the sofa, he told me had an idea. (No, it wasn’t hot shower sex.) I reminded him we had no time to spare until 2024. He told me that his idea would only take a dozen hours or so.

Less than two days later, he brought me a print-out for World War Zayne: Boys’ Love During the Time of the Zompocalypse. He’d rewritten W. W. Zelda, of course, but he’d changed enough of the body of the story that it felt fresh to me. One of the first surprises was the way he’d altered our main character’s primary sexual relationship. In Zelda, our heroine loved her slacker-ish boyfriend and wanted to be with him. In Zayne, our hero wasn’t getting along with his driven girlfriend. They stayed together because neither of them was quite unhappy enough to separate. Knowing how things were going to unfold, I realized that this was the approach we should have taken with the first version of the story. It made things more interesting. It made the ending more enjoyable, too.

The only part he didn’t get right was the “Boys’ Love” sections of the manuscript, but he’s not a Boys’ Love reader. That’s my hobby. It cost me the better part of the next day, but it came out nicely. Or so I hope. The question now is whether other readers will enjoy this version, too.

If the novelette struggles to find a readership, you know what I’ll do? I’ll change the title to World War Zayne: The Hot Shower Sex Edition! And, if that works, can The Runaway Mail-Order Bride: The Hot Shower Sex Edition! be far behind?

Do you believe in miracles?

2/15/2022

Now that the show is over, I can share a couple of my gourds that were in the exhibit. “Steampunk Bunny” is to the left, “Trapped” to the right.

Starting Thursday of last week, the Good Witch and I were volunteering at the Wuertz Farm’s 17th Annual Gourd Festival. The Powers That Be held the festival on a weekend that included the Olympics and the Super Bowl. I selfishly worried that this was a mistake. It isn’t as much fun making gourd art if no one sees it.

I shouldn’t have worried if people would show up. Thousands of visitors came through the gates. Not Super Bowl numbers, but pretty good for an event in Casa Grande, Arizona.

Instead of focusing on my words for today’s post, I spent my time chatting with festival goers, selling tickets to the Game of Chance, and holding my breath as the judges evaluated the work I’d submitted into the various competitions. Both the Good Witch and I did okay, each of us bringing home new ribbons to add to our work rooms. We also shared a first-place ribbon for a project we did together.

None of this was miraculous. We’d worked at a gourd festival before, we’d won some ribbons before. Last Saturday, though, something happened that I didn’t believe was possible. Call it Miracle #1. It occurred during the mini-gourdster race, the Grande 500.

My sleek little whale racer, Thar She Rolls, was tagged as Racer #10. My hubby’s wind-resistant behemoth of a snail racer, The Snail Trails, was tagged as Racer #9. There were 2o cars in the big race.

Before the Grande 500, there’s a touch of pomp and a dab of circumstance. Musicians played as the racers and their owners paraded through a large metal shelter to the 32-foot race track. (My partner hated the parade. Being on display is not his idea of fun. “Never again,” he growled.) The parade ended at the track, which was positioned in front of two sets of bleachers and an enthusiastic audience. The cars were timed as they go, two at a time, down the track. The top six finishers were then raced again.

It was a blast. Three of the cars flew off of the track, finishing their run on the concrete floor below. A few of the racers stopped in the middle of the track, their weight or their wheels not up to the challenge. Two of the cars hit the cushion at the end with such force, they knocked the stop aside. The racers were snatched up before they could make it to the bleachers.

Rolling on only three of its four wheels—the fourth refused to make contact with the racetrack, because of course it did—The Snail Trails led the charge. Like I said, that baby had some size to it (relatively speaking). When the smoke cleared, my whale racer, Thar She Rolls, rolled well. It came in first. The even bigger surprise was when the snail racer came in third! It was a miracle. Miracle #1 of this blog.

The second-place finisher was Ice Sled. Although it’s hard to see in this pic, the Penguin-mobile was so cute, children were approaching its owner, telling them they liked it. No one said that about the whale. Or the snail.

For me, Miracle #2 is happening right here. Twelve months ago, on February 15th, I promised to write and post a new blog every seven to ten days for an entire year. I met my goal. It paid off in a couple of ways. Besides forcing me to sit down and write something that wasn’t fiction, these posts drew more people to both of my websites. The audience for MarsNeedsWriters tripled while the readers for AnneGlynn increased over twenty-fold. Considering some of my posts, how can I be anything but pleased?

Gilligan’s Island? Really? Since I had a week to come up with each topic, you’d think I’d scribble something of greater than average interest. I’m sorry this didn’t always happen often enough.

If you’d prefer to try someone who finds something interesting to say regularly, stop by Ken Levine’s blog spot: here. He’s been a novelist, a director, a DJ, a baseball announcer, a cartoonist, a television showrunner; it’s no wonder he has stuff to share. Look at his archives and you’ll see over 10,000 posts to read. If you stop by here and a new blog is missing, go to his place.

Fair warning, though: Ken is opinionated and can be persnickety. A lot of his posts are Hollywood-heavy. Also, when he can’t find an appropriate photo for whatever he’s writing that day, he’ll post a photo of Natalie Wood on his site, instead. I think it’s done because of love or lust, but maybe Natalie drives traffic to his blog. Who knows?

I asked the creator of The Snail Trails if we should start posting photos of Chris Hemsworth to our websites to drive traffic to our blogs, but he wasn’t buying it. I offered to substitute pictures of David Tennant, instead, but he saw through my little ploy.

He knows I’m more of a Dr. Who type of woman than a Thor kind of girl. If I was posting images of Tennant’s Who every week, this blog would never go away. Since I can’t, I’ll be blogging less often. I will be by occasionally, though, so don’t think of this as goodbye. It’s more of a--

I had to use the picture somewhere, didn't I? It’s just too fun.

Until next time, stay well and stay safe.