Ten Gifts Your Author Friend will Actually Appreciate

So last year I wrote a post about Post Holiday Gifts for Authors. Partially because after the holidays, people have gift cards to run through and partially because… I forgot to do anything with it before that.

Not this year. I’m here with another collection of things you can get for the authors, aspiring authors, and other book-creating people (Editors, formatters, etc.) who might be in your life.

Or, you know, you could get them for your favorite author, too. *cough cough*

(I feel compelled to note this: I link to products on Amazon through this article, and they go through my Affiliate Account. No extra charge for you, but I do make a small percentage of what you spend if you buy them through these links.)

10: Pens

If there’s one thig that authorial types are always lacking, but never getting, it’s pens. It’s an interesting and stubborn approach most authors and editors seem to take to pens. We never have them, because they go missing. We let someone borrow them at some event, we hand one to our friend at a writer’s group because, being an author, they don’t have one either, we use them to stir our coffee (I’m very guilty of this.). Whatever reason, we don’t have them, but we know we just bought two dozen. So we refuse to buy more on principle… even though we’re the only ones paying for it.

These lovely Z-Grip retractable pens would be a good choice. Plus they come in lots of colors, which is always a must for me.

9: Whiteboard

Whiteboards are surprisingly useful little things for anyone who works from home, really. They’re a quick way to have a to-do list every day without running through reams of paper every year. They can be a place for a calendar. Writers can use them for quick plot sketches or brainstorming. Editors can mark down things to come back to without filling up the manuscript with comments that have to be deleted. It’s awesome, and I actually love giving them as gifts to my authorial friends. It’s not something most people get for themselves, but they use the hell out of it once they have it.

This is the one I have. It hangs up in my bedroom so I can add my to-do list first thing when I get up. And, in line with my love of colored pens… a colored marker set. Dry erase markers are also very appreciated if you have a teacher in your life. Trust me on this one. A pack of dry erase markers for a teacher will be received very well.

8: A Mug

Writers, even if they don’t drink coffee, pretty much all have a hot beverage of choice, and we pretty much all have a slightly unhealthy devotion to whatever that beverage is. Me personally, I collect mugs. I have a bit of a problem, actually. I have to be very careful in thrift stores because I’ll just buy all the mugs. But I have one in particular that I, as a writer, adore.

This little number sits on my desk when it’s really time to buckle down. It’s seen the start of books and intense edits and tight deadlines, and it just sits there and holds my java, ready for whatever is to come with its inspiring message.

7: Flash Drive 

This is another one that most authors have—or had—and like. But it’s like pens—they go missing, or we just break them and never buy a new one for whatever reason. Then we kick ourselves—and throw things—when our files corrupt and we don’t have a backup…

… like I don’t because I haven’t used my flash drive in months. Whoops.

This is a nice affordable one with lots of storage. One this size can last an author a long time, since Word documents are so very tiny, so for ten bucks you can get them something they can use for years and year… as long as they don’t lose it in the first week.

6: Timer

One of the hazards anyone working from home faces is time management. Some authors I know (Or have heard of.) are incredibly good at it. Nora Roberts, for example, works four hours, takes an hour lunch, and works for more hours. That’s sort of the ideal for most authors, or something close to it. 6+ hours every day, barring things like holidays and emergencies. However, we tend to be… well, we suck at it, by and large. Sometimes a day of work is 15 hours not moving from the chair because the writing just sounds really good. Other days—and far more often than the former—it’s half an hour staring at blank page before giving up and watching cake decorating tutorials on Youtube.

Not that I would ever… I mean, I wouldn’t… Okay once. Or twice. Or more.

It’s why timers come in handy. Now, Google has a timer that pops up if you just search “Timer.” Most phones and tablets have a timer/stopwatch app, or you can download one. Even my flip phone has one, I think. But there’s something to be said for having an external one. You’re not having to involve the internet for anything, which cuts back the risk of falling into Facebook… or those damned cake tutorials.

It doesn’t need to be fancy. This is a basic model that can either count down (For working specific times.) or count up (Just to keep track.). And that’s all it really needs to be.

5: An Excuse to Read

Authors pretty universally love reading, but we just don’t make the time for it. This is your chance to help us remember the joy of reading. Buy your author or editor or whoever a new book from an author they love. That might just be the spark that convinces them to crack open a book and actually read.

I can’t really recommend a book to you, since I don’t know your friend, but scan their bookshelves, get them talking about books, and see who comes up. Or find out which books they’ve lost over the years. But get them a nice, relatively risk-free book and they might very well take the time to tear the words off the page.

4: A Plant

Your lovely author friend or family member likely spends a lot of time sitting in the same place looking at the same things and breathing the same air that’s been in there with them for the past several months. You’re not going to convince them to stop all that sitting very easily, but you can maybe help clean the air up and get something exciting to look at.

Buy them a plant. I would personally recommend going to your local nursery and getting something that can thrive inside in your area… possibly with minimal care, depending on the temperament of your friend. But if you want to order online, you can get this Peace Lily for under $20.

3: Address Labels

This is especially prevalent if your author runs a lot of giveaways or has one of those publishers that still insists on snail mail (I have one of them. It’s slightly annoying to deal with.). They’re constantly writing addresses on things.

While you can’t fix the whole problem—the address things are being sent to—you can make the return address easy with address labels. Now, you’ll need to know the address they do all their businessy things through, which might not be their home address. This is when asking someone in the know might be good. But you can even get customized labels on Amazon, which was kind of a shock for me. These ones are super-affordable, and should last quite a while.

2: Healthy Snacks

If you love your author enough to buy them a gift in the first place, you probably hope they’re healthy and all that stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of us just aren’t healthy at all. Or not as healthy as we should be. When you’re working a tight deadline, is it easier to make a proper lunch, or throw down half a bag of Cheetos and call it good? It’s the latter, if you couldn’t guess. Snacking works the same way. We grab what’s easy, and that tends to be something shelf stable and about as natural as a drag queen’s breast plate.

Enter this thing that I’ve recently discovered: snack care packages. You can order them on Amazon, and can even get them delivered on a recurring schedule if you want to really shell out the money. They’ve got things like granola bars, dried fruit, and low fat chips, all individually packaged. Most of them are enough to last for an average month.

Now, it’s the most expensive thing on this list, but it’s still not bank-breaking. But maybe save this for an author close to you instead of just an acquaintance. I’m dropping my recommendation for this one in particular, but there are a lot of different options out there. And keep the link so you can send it to them if they want to keep getting it delivered. Or just stick it inside the card with your gift. Easy-peasy.

1: Planner

As authors, we can handle the “putting words together” part. You don’t get into this if you don’t have some kind of grasp on that. What we—and I imagine a lot of other artistic types—struggle with the most is organization and planning. Time management. Motivation. All those pesky things that get in the way of “putting words together.”

There’s a reason this is the number one thing on the list, and a reason that so many of these entries seem to touch on organization and things like that instead of passion. I’ve never met a truly passionless writer. We all love writing. It’s the other crap that kills us.

A yearly planner can really help with that. And there’s even one specifically for authors floating around out there: The 2017 AuthorLife Planner. It’s brilliant and it really lays things out step by step. And it does arrive before Christmas, if you get it today. (That would be 12/9).

So hopefully this is something that can help you out. A little look into the gifts an author will appreciate. And before Christmas this time, which is a pleasant change for me.

I really hope, if nothing else, this was an enjoyable read. Maybe useful. And more than that, I hope you have an awesome rest of your day,

Voss

Top 10: SF/F TV Shows (Part 2)

Hello again! Yesterday, I got started on my top ten spec fic shows to watch, but then I realized that I was on a path to write a ten or twelve page blog post and I shut it down halfway through.

Well, today’s the last half, my top five. As before, these are nothing but my feelings, these aren’t restricted to live action or animation, kids or adults, indie or major studio.

Now, on with the shows!

5: Marble Hornets (2009-2014)

I’m not a big horror fan by any stretch of the imagination. Not because I get scared easily, but mostly because I find myself just laughing at how ridiculous horror movies are. Not that I’m unscareable (totally a word), but I don’t fall for the horror movie tricks easily. I’m more often a victim of unease in horror rather than traditional horror.

Marble Hornets piles on the unease like you couldn’t even imagine. It’s unofficially a Slenderman show, all available for free on Youtube (unofficial because of copyright). Their Slenderman facsimile is simply referenced as The Operator, though never on camera, if memory serves. And Marble Hornets took the internet by storm, along with the companion Youtube Channel, totheark.

What makes this show great is, in part, the fact that it had such low production value. It felt real because things were grainy or somehow off, not in spite of that. Everyone involved knew what they had to work with, and this show takes advantage of that to the fullest possible extent.

But more than that, it’s the fear. I refused to watch Marble Hornets in the dark. I admit, some of it is personal. Slenderman scares the shit out of me. But he scares the shit out of a lot of people. That’s why Slenderman works. Marble Hornets managed to make the fear visceral, make you nervous about turning the corner or looking behind you, make your breath hitch whenever your screen shivered a little bit, because it could be Slender coming for you.

The downsides? Well, there are some. If you’re a stickler for production values, avoid this at all costs. You won’t enjoy it. If you laugh in the face of Slenderman, it probably won’t be that scary. But the biggest drawback to watching this, in my opinion, is that it’s over. The series has ended, which means that you won’t be able to experience the thrill of seeing a new video posted on the channel. Part of the magic of Marble Hornets was the way they uploaded videos. Sporadically, in line with the story’s timeline so that you could believe, just a little bit, that this was actually happening. You lose that watching it now, but I still recommend it without hesitation.

4: Once Upon a Time (2011-)

Back to more current television. I mean, you had to know that this would make the list, right? Once Upon a Time is one of my few stop everything, no, I’m not watching the recorded version shows. When it’s on, that’s what I’m doing. It has my full attention.

It’s not a new concept. Fairy tales and legends are real and they’re in our world. Chaos ensues. But the show comes alive, again, because of characters. The plots go up and down in quality, though they’re never outright horrible, but it’s the characters that make you come back. You care what happens to Emma Swan and Rumpelstiltskin and Regina. And it’s as simple as that. They could be doing almost anything and I would still want to watch this show to see what happens to my favorites.

The negatives are, of course, there. It sometimes feels like the writers put themselves in a corner and then have to scramble to get out of it. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it falls really flat. Never so flat to make me want to stop watching, but a little flat. There’s also a tendency to muck up season finales, just a bit. I don’t ever think the finales are bad, per se, but they sometimes feel overstretched, like there was about half of the plot that could have been cut and have things remain basically the way they are.

But all that aside, Once Upon a Time is one of the best shows currently running on TV, and you won’t convince me otherwise. Nope nope nope.

3: Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)

Oh, Avatar. How I love you. Now, if you’ve seen it, this hardly needs explanation. If you haven’t watched it and assume that I’m adding this show for nostalgia, you’re dead wrong. I was hardly the target audience for this show when it came out. But Avatar is different. Avatar has the ongoing plot lines you see in adult dramas, the aesthetic and story you’re likely to find in an anime, and animation better than I’ve seen from any of the major production companies since (The Legend of Korra notwithstanding, of course.).

In a nutshell, the world is at war because of the Fire Nation. They’re attacking everyone and, to ensure their plot works, they killed off all the Air Nomads, because the next savior of the world (The Avatar) was going to be one of them. Except that the Avatar escaped and basically went into hibernation for 100 years until two members of the Water Tribe found him and freed him.

That’s just the first couple minutes, mind you. But somehow, Avatar manages to not only make this an enjoyable show for adults and teens, but also keeps it accessible to the target audience of kids. It’s a very fine line, but it treads it well, mixing humor and drama, worldbuilding and plot. I have yet to see any other western animation live up to this, and I long for the day that I do. My only complaint is the same as in Gargoyles: sometimes, it got a little too childish, but what can you expect?

If you haven’t yet seen this show, then for real, get off my blog and go watch it

2: The Walking Dead (2010-)

I resisted the call of this show for a long time. I don’t like zombie stories, as a general rule. I think they’re overdone, overrated, and honestly not that terrifying. So this ranking so high is definitely a surprise to me. But I’m willing to admit that I’m a huge fan of The Walking Dead, now. And why? Because it doesn’t have to be zombies. There’s not really a lot of this show that relies on the zombie mechanic. Hell, there are entire episodes without a single zombie spotted. What matters is that there’s a threat out there, something that needs to be killed and avoided. And you never know when it’s going to go wrong.

As with practically everything, it seems, I love this show because of the characters. You see them evolve, and it’s not arbitrary. Every bit of it makes sense. The characters are easy to connect with because they seem like real people really going through hell. Plus it helps that this is a huge, tragic drama. I love tragedy, when it’s done well. I’d take it over any other kind of story without question. So to have this show come up? Now that I’ve finally watched it, I’m in, and I have literally zero bad things to say about The Walking Dead. So why isn’t it the top? Well, it’s honestly just personal preference. Number one and number two on this list are equally good, I would say, but they tell very different stories.

However, before we hit number one, though, I want to give a nod to some shows that I considered, but that didn’t quite make the final cut. No analysis on these, but I would still recommend giving them a watch, if you have the time:

Orphan Black

Charmed

Salem

Eureka

Digimon (any and all of them)

Now, on with the number one spot.

1: Code Geass (2006-2008)

This is a show. This is easily one of my favorite shows of all time, and you’re not allowed to just discount it out of hand because it’s animated. If you never give another single animated show a chance, never watch anything else on this list, never turn on your set for sci-fi fantasy again, watch this show. It’s only two seasons, but I’ve rarely seen a television show that I like so much.

I can’t even give you a basic plot summary. There’s so much going on. Political intrigue, which is tied in with the descent into darkness, which comes with terrorist activity, which joins in with a secret second life. All topped off with a dose of sci-fi… or fantasy. This is another show that doesn’t bother to delineate what it wants to be, and I would never ask it to.

The main character is an asshole. Plain and simple. He’s likable at times, but he’s really not a pleasant person by any stretch of the imagination. But you love him anyway. Lelouch has lived a life that gives him permission to be an asshole. He’s been through Hell and back, and he didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

The other characters are just as dynamic, and the way they connect is, at times, mindblowing. And this show doesn’t pull punches. There’s death. It’s a war, for fuck’s sake. Nothing is sacred to the writers, and that’s what makes this such a delicious, heart-wrenching show to watch.

Also: giant fighting robots.

The only problem with this is that there isn’t more. And when that’s the biggest complaint about a show, you know it’s got something going for it.

So, did I miss any? Have I committed a cardinal sin? Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for stopping by! I had a blast writing this list.

Voss

Top 10: SF/F TV Shows (Part 1)

I talk a lot about books for (hopefully) obvious reasons. But there’s more to speculative fiction than just reading. I think reading is a quintessential part of being a spec-fic fan, but sometimes you just don’t feel like reading. For most people I know, reading is an incredibly exhausting task, no matter how enjoyable it is. Your brain has to work differently when you read. It’s much more intense than other media, but sometimes you don’t want that.

I’m a big TV slut. I like to watch TV while I’m writing, while I’m researching. It’s just something that I can put on in the background. This is why Tivo and Netflix are two of my best friends a lot of the time (Also because I live in the middle of BFE and don’t actually go out and talk to people that often.).

So I figured, why not share what I think are the best spec fic TV shows out there. I should note now that Doctor Who won’t be on this list, so don’t expect it. I’m not a Whovian. I don’t dislike the show, but it’s not my first choice to put on, either.

Don’t beat me too much for that.

Now, this list is, for once, in order. It’s a mix of animations, live action, adult, teen, kids, old, current, whatever. If it made the list, there’s a reason I put it on there.

Now, without any further blithering from me, let’s begin.

(I should note that I can’t guarantee a spoiler-free experience. Continue at your own risk.)

10: Zoo (2015-)

I have no love lost for James Patterson. He admitted himself that he’s not that good at actually writing and is really just an idea man. Which is fine, but he’s always the face of his books. It bothers me that his co-authors, who put in the hours at the keyboard, don’t get their fame.

But that’s not why Zoo is so low. I think Zoo is probably the best show out of the new batch of TV that started this season. It’s so low because it’s brand new and still has plenty of room to disappoint. It made this list because, despite me not wanting to bother with it, I got hooked by the characters, and then the plot really kicked in. In short, animals are turning on humans en masse, and the main characters are trying to figure out what’s going on, because it doesn’t make any sense.

It does help that Billy Burke is one of the leads. He’s brilliant, and he’s especially brilliant in this role. But all of the main characters are incredibly interesting and, more than that, have very well-created connections with each other. The continual jump to a case that doesn’t matter in the middle of an episode is definitely getting old, but it’s not enough to turn me away. I would definitely recommend Zoo if you’re looking for a good drama fix.

9: Warehouse 13 (2009-2014)

This was a bit of a sleeper compared to some of the others on this list, but I was into it from the very beginning. The idea of objects holding power because of their past has always been fascinating to me, and Warehouse 13 certainly delivered that along with a healthy dose of mystery and great chemistry between the characters.

In a nutshell, Warehouse 13 is a government storage space for empowered artifacts, some more dangerous than others. But they all need to be contained because sometimes, things just don’t go right when you give human beings power. Go figure.

The show never defined whether it was science fiction or fantasy, and didn’t even walk the line between the two. It just threw open the windows and said “Fuck it.” At its heart, it’s not science fiction or fantasy. It’s a classic cop pairing we see time and again. Two team members. One stoic, one carefree. It works in Bones, it works in Castle, and it worked for Warehouse 13’s five year run (which is available to stream on Netflix, if this has piqued your interest).

Why not higher? At times, it felt a little disjointed, and some of those moments were never fully resolved.

8: The X-Files (1993-2002)

You had to know this would be on my list, right? Just like Warehouse 13, this uses the stoic/carefree duo, and does so to great effect. It combines government conspiracy with the paranormal, fantastical, and just downright strange, but it does it in such a way that it’s believable. Not to mention that it’s one of the most accessible shows of its type. This comes from the combination of weekly occurrences (the X-file being explored in each episode) with longer running plot arcs.

Of course, it has its problems to be sure. Sometimes, the acting can be a bit questionable, particularly from the side characters. Some of the plots in individual episodes also got to be a bit hard to believe, even for a show where basically everything is on the table as possibly being real. But all in all, this is easily one of the most iconic shows in speculative fiction, and I think it’s one of the best.

7: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

I could have cheated and just put Star Trek, but in my opinion, TNG is the hands-down best iteration. I know a lot of people don’t agree with me, but the American public in the late-eighties to mid-nineties did, which is why TNG is the longest-running version of Star Trek to date.

We could argue back and forth about why one season is better than the other, but no one would end up convinced of anything at the end of that. Why do I think TNG deserves a spot on this list?

The characters. More than anything else, it’s the characters. Even a mundane thing like Data learning to dance becomes something extraordinary because of who Data is, and who Dr. Crusher (his teacher) is. Plus, with Sir Patrick Stewart at the helm, it would be hard to go too far astray with this show. Not to mention that it has some of the most enduring episodes in it. “Darmok” comes immediately to mind, as does “Sarek.” Two powerhouse episodes in an already incredible series, and they’re hardly the only ones.

Were there problems? Of course there were problems. It took them a while to really settle into their characters and this new world, which can make the beginning a bit sketchy. The characters tend to be very polarizing, and if there’s one major character you just can’t stand, it can ruin the whole experience in such a character-drive show. Not to mention that, for fans of the original Star Trek, TNG was far more focused on the drama and the personal relationships than its predecessor. But I personally think that’s what makes it such a good show.

6: Gargoyles (1994-1996)

I did warn you that there would be kids’ shows on here. I’m still a huge fan of Gargoyles. There was no cartoon like it before, and really hasn’t been anything that captured that essence since. Which is why it’s such a damn shame that it went off the air… and that the third season happened at all. I won’t go into the full drama, but essentially, the creator of Gargoyles (Greg Weisman) got screwed out of working on the third season, and of course it was a complete failure without him. So much so that, in the official continuity, Greg Weisman discounts everything after the first episode of season three, which he wrote.

What made Gargoyles so different is hard to pin down. There are a lot of things. Unlike a lot of kid’s shows at the time (and even nowadays), the characters went through lasting changes. Things that happened in past episodes still affected the characters. Hudson’s love of reading, Broadway’s hatred of guns, Lexington’s animosity toward The Pack. These came from earlier episodes and weren’t tossed away, challenged the audience to remember when so many other shows wouldn’t take the risk.

There was also a much more adult tone to Gargoyles than anyone would expect. Goliath is a truly tragic character. His entire clan was basically destroyed, and he was destined to be alone. Then, when he was awoken, it was in a time he didn’t understand at all, with people who feared him even more than he’d been feared before.

I could continue to gush about the good things, because there are a lot of them. But I want to touch on what the biggest problem is, and it’s one that couldn’t really be avoided: it’s still a kids’ show. As great as it is, as mature as it is, there are still plenty of moments when plain-old silly things happen that remind you that it’s not a nice, cohesive adult drama. It’s a 90’s Disney cartoon. But those are so few that it hardly makes a difference, at least to this viewer.

Well, my word counter says I’m already over-budget. So, to keep this from being ridiculously long, I’m going to cut it here. What made the top five? You’ll have to swing back tomorrow and find out.

Voss