Periscope Depth

make you work hard, make you spend hard

(Part 1 in a series of posts promoting my new novel) One of the surest sparks to creativity is to take a familiar situation, reverse some element, and see if you can still make it work. A few years back, I was reading a lot of thrillers for inspiration – Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Joseph [...]

toward a more perfect build

New post up on Overthinking It: a bit of a rambler about how players use video game builds (statting out your character in an RPG, or, more recently, an FPS) to imprint their personality on the game experience: Builds ultimately owe their existence to the wargame hobby. You can trace a direct line from the [...]

maybe I’m just like my mother; she’s never satisfied

Gina Damico has an entertaining post comparing the five stages of the editing process to the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. It’s funny stuff, and it’s doubtless fresh in her mind since she just wrapped up galley proofs for her debut novel, Croak. So I’d trust her if I were you. I’ve found similar reactions in [...]

when you say good-bye and walk on by

Hardcore video gamers refer to a stack of games they’ve purchased but never played as their “pile of shame.” I think it’s a little silly as a term of art – what’s there to be ashamed of? – but I understand the origin. You recognize the disconnect between what you acquire and what you consume. [...]

the floods is threatening my very life today

A few years ago, Joel linked to a New York Times article on a famous experiment by Dr. Stanley Milgram. And no, not the one you’re thinking of: Quickly, however, the focus turned to the experimenters themselves. The seemingly simple assignment proved to be extremely difficult, even traumatic, for the students to carry out. “It’s [...]

mean old levee, taught me to weep and moan

Went to a great talk by Barry Eisler on Thursday, hosted by Grub Street at the Park Plaza Hotel. Eisler’s a great speaker: not just fun and engaging, but also immensely intelligent on whatever subject comes up. He was a little ragged from having talked at two earlier events that day, but I would still [...]

this is your payback, moneygrabber

Radley Balko is probably the best blogger publishing today. Not only does he write insightful stuff on important issues of criminal justice and civil liberties, he actually goes out and gets shit done. Take a look at his work on the Cory Maye appeal, or shedding light on Mississippi’s questionable medical examiner Steven Hayne. He’s [...]

picking up the pieces of love

Writing continues apace. I knock off just over 1000 words a day, five days a week, which means I’ll probably finish this first draft about 15 weeks after I started. I may take a day to just plow through it and add another 10,000 words to the pile, but that seems unlikely and unnecessary. By [...]

put it to a vote, I’ll vote for it, but what I won’t do is play ball

I’m at brunch with Sylvia and some friends on Saturday and the subject of tipping comes up. I used to tip between 15 and 20% for everything. As I grew older and got to know more people who used to wait tables, I started to round up a little. The consensus now seems to be [...]

all this has happened before and all this will happen again

With the continuing refinement of communications technology (compare the antennaed brick you used in 1991 with the sleek clamshell of 2001 with the plastic wafer of 2011), the advancement of search semiotics and the inescapability of social media, there will soon come a day – and when I say “soon” I mean “before you pay [...]

keep looking »

  • Periscope Depth

    The website of John Perich, author of TOO CLOSE TO MISS and editor for Overthinking It. He's learning about writing, marketing, publishing and promotion, and he encourages you to learn along with him.

    perich@periscopedepth.com

  • TOO CLOSE TO MISS




    "... opens with a bang and never relents ..."
    "... from chapter one, I couldn't put the damn thing down ..."
    "... already looking forward to Perich's next book ..."

    Mara Cunningham knew that sleeping with a married man was a bad idea. But when her lover shows up in the hospital after his wife and son are murdered, the rumors about her turn dangerous. Now she's the prime suspect in a double homicide, and the real killers will stop at nothing to silence her ...

    Buy the book that readers are calling "a great, suspenseful thriller" at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.



  • Tags

    air travel an evening with the professor apartment baltimore ravens barack obama books boston dancing dating davis square drinking driving economics family feminism football friends health hip hop improvboston institutions introvert jiu-jitsu karaoke language mad men marketing meta movies music overthinking it politics poll rant religion rpgs silly the show that never ends the wire tv video games weather wedding work writing