Make a donation
Click the PayPal button to sponsor Doug Sharp:
Excerpt
Time to gently let the laughing gas out of their zeppelin. “Are you guys aware that astronauts like to be inside something airtight? Your computer mockup shows an albino cigar mated to the Energia. Can I assume that’s a place holder graphic until you pick up a refurbished Soyuz capsule on eBay?”
Chin beams at his precocious whelp. “Tell Mick what your clever friends have cooked up, dear.”
Heloise flourishes another print. Her eyes do this cute little flicker as they engage the picture. Heloise Chin sure does love her tech. I bend close to see what makes her smile.
from Hel’s Bet
Bio
I live in a remote lakeshore cabin in deepest Wisconsin with two dogs. I pull a supply sledge to the cabin in winter but I’ve got rock solid DSL. Been having problems with bears recently.
While I was a fifth-grade teacher I taught myself programming with Apple IIs borrowed from school. I wrote two hit games in the mid-1980s: ChipWits (named eighth-best game ever written for Apple or Macintosh by Maclife -- so at least one reviewer liked it a lot ;^)) and Cinemaware's King of Chicago. I coded and managed in Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group in the mid-1990s –- Microsoft’s first open source project, and cool tech. We built a precursor of Second Life.
My life has been punctuated by years of downtime due to a recurrent epilepsy/pain syndrome. I am an involuntary hermit, but the quiet of the North Woods allows me to work. After five years of healing in my cabin and the practice of neuroplastic pain control techniques, I am emerging from my decade-long bout of brainrot.
I am a proud ex-inmate of Clarion West 2002. Our class performed my Flying Squids of Zondor for Joe and Gay Haldeman.
Publications
Writing Description
My short stories tend to squirt out onto the page and startle bystanders. My novel Hel's Bet is a fast-paced adventure -- fun characters doing cool stuff with plenty of plot, twisted tech (Zombie Meatnet scares me because I think it’s doable), and well-researched astronautics.
Goals
I am going to finish over half of my rewrite of Hel's Bet. I am going to reach page 400 and finally launch HB’s plucky crew into space!
Website
Walden 3.0 is where I blog, mostly about living in my cabin and trying to wring art and joy from my wonky brain.
My beautiful but criminally insane daughter Margaret Sharp is the creator of a webcomic called Space Explorer. “Don’t mind me, I’m from the future.”
Margaret and I are partners in an art byproducts syndicate called Channel Zilch.
