The Death of Ray Lilly

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Round two of the Suvudu.com Cage Match is now live!

This time the writeup is a bit long–nearly four thousand words–so you guys know you’re getting your no-money’s worth. But… what’s up with that subject line? Is that pessimism about the outcome of the match? Or is that a spoiler?? Click through to find out the truth!

SEE Tyrion’s deadly plan!

SEE the mysterious, unexpected foe Ray uses his ghost knife against!

SEE a secret from Annalise’s past… and her present!!!

Anyway, the cage match writeups are in third-person so you know they aren’t canon, because that’s a thing I just made up. Publishing is Calvinball, you know. Also, Tyrion Lannister is probably my favorite character from the last 15-some years. I was seriously pleased by the chance to write him (hence the length of the piece) and–admission time–I voted for him, too. Not canon, guys! Seriously!

Finally, if you’re new to the Twenty Palaces books and just dropping by one of my sites for the first time, a warning: the writeup was fun and (hopefully) funny but the books are much darker. Instead of action-comedies, they’re more like action-tragedies. Check out the free sample chapters I link to in my website; I don’t want lovers of light comedy to feel like they’ve been misled.

Have fun, you guys.

Creativity Project part 2

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As a reminder, these posts are a response to this article in Psychology Today: Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking. Not that I think it needs a response, but because it provides a decent jumping off point.

I’m bundling points 2 and 3 together and dispensing with them quickly. Not because they aren’t important, but because they’re easy.

2. Creative thinking is work

What’s this? Coming out in favor of working hard? What a bold position to take!

Not that hard work isn’t important. Of course it is. The author of the article is correct when he says that being creative isn’t a matter of simply having great ideas fall into your lap like flakes of dandruff. So it’s true and it’s easy to say; creativity takes focussed effort.

But what kind? It’s one thing to say: “You must work hard.” That is the easiest thing in the world to type out, because it confirms so many of our own prejudices. It’s the kind of thinking that runs neatly inside the cultural groove and it quickly becomes a “My Favorite Argument” (quick def: an assertion someone feels so comfortable with that they use it to redirect new or unusual discussions toward a dispute where they already feel they have a solid argument).

But how can we manage our creative work so it’s effective and productive? Continue reading

Why yes, I would like an end to time switching

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One thing the video glosses over: how many lives it takes.

Ray Lilly vs Tyrion Lannister

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Yesterday I wrote and turned in the Suvudu.com Cage Match between Tyrion and Ray, and I think you guys will be a little surprised at what I did with it. It was long, though.

Anyway, to my surprise it took me all day. I gave up one of my prime writing days for it, a day when I’m supposed to be finishing 2K words on A Blessing Of Monsters, so that’s bad.

And after this next cage match wraps up, I’m going to be turning off comments on the blog globally. The spam is just wasting my time and having my time wasted drives me crazy.

Randomness for 3/10

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1) Deleted for potential malware. Try this instead: Westeros in Minecraft: Video.

2) Motherfucking Bike: Music video for the lol. My wife and I are/have been bike commuters, but we have never done anything like these guys, I swear.

3) My Little Golden Book About ZOGG

4) LED light gives off more energy in photons than it takes in as electrons. I don’t *really* understand this, but I’m pretty sure it means I’ll be getting a lightsaber soon.

5) Toy Shining “Heeeeerrre’s Woody!” via Keith Brunkard

6) 19 Really Bad Family Feud Answers.

7) Hunger Names.

Ray Lilly survives yet again

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So, the first round of the Suvudu cage match has ended, and Ray Lilly survived. He’ll face Tyrion Lannister, a character so popular his name is in WordPress’s spell check (j/k). To be frank, I’m a huge Song of Ice and Fire fan, and of Tyrion in particular. I’m looking forward to this, and I have an idea or two that I think will be fun. We’ll see.

As for round one, things got contentious early and stayed that way, but that’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is that I think people might have gotten the wrong idea about R. Scott Bakker’s books.

If you skimmed through the comments looking at his fans’ description of the Kellhus character, you might think Bakker has written a munchkin’s wet dream, but the books are more interesting than that.

Check out this review of The Darkness That Comes Before by Victoria Strauss. Here’s her review of book 2, The Warrior-Prophet. At this point, the trilogy is complete and the second trilogy is nearly finished.

Anyway, these Suvudu cage matches are supposed to be an opportunity for readers to try out new books. Here’s the Prince of Nothing series:

The Darkness That Comes Before: The Prince of Nothing, Book One
The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two
The Thousandfold Thought: The Prince of Nothing, Book Three

Check them out.

This blog post will not change your life.

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Ever since I returned home from dealing with my father-in-law’s death my WIP, A Blessing of Monsters, has been sorta stalled out. I’ve been making progress, but it’s been slow going, not nearly as steady as December and January.

Today I’ll be powering up Mac Freedom and going offline for most of the day. I just discovered a plot hole in the story (stupid magic spells) and I can’t just make a note to myself and go back to it later. The change means the relationships between all the characters have to change, and those relationships are what the book is about. So, vomit draft revision, which I hate but end up doing every time.

Not only has my writing been struggling, but the funeral caused a long delay in replacing my son’s eyeglasses. Folks might remember the end of last year when I put Lord of Reavers on sale through my site to help offset the costs. Thank you, everyone who bought a copy; I hope you enjoyed the story. With luck, he’ll have settled on a pair of frames he likes and I can post a pic by the end of the month.

I also have to do that Seattle thing where I wear shorts and an ugly sweater when I go for my walk. The landlord hasn’t gotten the washing machine fixed, and we’re coming up on… what? two weeks since we got back? I’m sure there’s a law stating when a washing machine has to be replaced or whatever, but I’d rather wait for a repair. Whenever we get something new around here, it’s the cheapest possible thing and doesn’t work well. Or it’s smaller. Or it’s just generally not good.

So we’re just looking at laundromats and laundry services, and I’m out of long pants to wear.

Finally, the Cage Match between Ray Lilly and Anasûrimbor Kellhus ends today at 5pm EST. I’ll be offline most of the day and will probably not see the numbers until after it’s over. It would be nice to see Ray vs. Tyrion, but if not I’ll be glad to work on my new book this weekend instead. And I’m glad the comment section has settled down and gotten less nasty.

But if Ray wins, I’ll bring in Annalise for round 2, and I’ll make the writeup lighter in tone.

And now I’m out of here. Hope you guys have a great day.

Cage Match follow up

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The cage match is still ongoing, and while yesterday I mentioned that the comments were getting a bit caustic they’ve since become even more so. I don’t much care if people are nasty to me; I see that sort of thing in Amazon.com reviews or blog reviews all the time and I don’t much care. Truth is, you can’t be raised the way I was raised and still be all delicate when someone tells you how much you suck. I have some thick calluses over those spots.

But now it’s started between commenters, and that sorta sucks. The truth is, there are a lot of readers out there who haven’t been exposed to R. Scott Bakker’s books and would like them, but not if his current readers treat them with condescension and contempt.

Here’s a general guideline I would like people to follow: If you like a particular author’s books and someone unfamiliar with them suggests that the description so far makes them sound kind of dull? Please PLEASE do not start the “… displays an ignorance and shallow judgment that frankly says you’re not worth [author]’s time as a reader anyway” stuff.

If you like a book or book series, do not try to drive away readers you consider unworthy.

Jesus.

Anyway, Ray is losing by a narrow margin. Voting ends on Thursday 5pm EST, so if you want to vote for him please do. I’d like to win the match so he faces Tyrion in round 2–I have a couple of fun ideas for that.

If he doesn’t win, no big. That just means I’ll have more time to put into my new book this weekend.

Finally, I turned comments back on as a trial run, but the spam has been piling up in the spam filter. That’s what it’s supposed to do, obviously, but it’s very time-consuming to search through it for ham, and I’m unlikely to leave comments on for long. Sorry.

In which I am insulted

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Commenters on Ray Lilly’s cage match have gotten pretty hot, calling Ray a “mary sue”, saying my writeup was weak, and a couple of other insults.

I don’t link to it because I want people to rush over to my defense (please don’t). I pretty much expected this and at least one of Bakker’s readers has already backed off and expressed regret at letting things get too serious. Besides, much worse has been said in Amazon.com ratings. No big.

Still: interesting human behavior and it’s cool to see that Bakker has such passionate readers.

Added later: I’ve tried twice to post a comment on that thread to say “No blood no foul” but my comments aren’t showing up. What’s more, the page won’t reload with newer comments, even after I clear my cache. I wonder what’s going on?

Read a short Ray Lilly scene at the Suvudu Cage Match

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The poll is up. Head over there to read the fight scene featuring Ray Lilly, and see him take damage like never before (and of course he has no idea he’s in a cage match).

If he wins I get to write another one, so why not drop a vote for him?

added later: Hey, be aware that this one gets a little… intense. Don’t click through if you don’t want to read a scene that’s very physical and a little over-the-top.