words

Darkness

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Thanks to everyone who voted in my book poll yesterday. Is it perverse of me that, now that I’ve seen which books are leading in the voting, I want to pack the least popular choices? Yes. Yes I think it is.

One of the weird things about traveling by train is that they let you check three big bags. I almost have too much luggage space for my trip, and I’m tempted to add some extra gifts to make the boy’s holiday super special.

And speaking of extra gifts, I have one more to buy, but I have to buy it online, download it to my desktop, then make a Christmas card for my son so he knows to look for it on that happy morning. Strike that. I have to *remember* to buy it. And it can’t be while he’s awake, either; I’ll have to do it in the groggy early morning hours, when it’s impossible to remember anything. ::shakes fist at mirror::

Anyway, today’s kind of a big day. It’s not my son’s birthday, but it is his birthday party. We’re only having 3 other kids (by his choice) and we’ve reserved time at the local parkour gym. They’ll get a lesson and then some birthday pie. (We’re not People of the Cake.) Then it’s home to eat his favorite dinner food (expensive delivery pizza) and open the rest of his presents.

Unfortunately, we’ve had heavy winds overnight and too many neighborhoods are without power. I’m not sure what will happen if the electricity is out there. It’s not like they have a ton of electrical equipment (more like mats, boxes, and pipes to walk on) but light and heat will be totally necessary.

And, weirdly, I had a horror movie moment this morning. While I was waiting for the bus that would take me and my gigantic bag of library books to the retail core, I looked down the street to see if the bus was coming. It was weirdly dark. Like, Encroaching Shadow of Evil dark.

It gave me a silly thrill and made me determined never to write a scene like it in a book.

Now I have to get the barista to rinse the grounds out of my mug, then refill me so I can get back to work.

Crowd-sourcing my to-read pile

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Which books should I take on my train trip? Vote in my LiveJournal poll.

Download file converter? ::cancel::

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Here’s the thing: I’m not going to be reading Edward Docx’s rant about literary and genre fiction in the Guardian. I’ve skimmed over a couple of other people’s summaries, and it seems he’s not saying anything new, interesting, or specific.

Nevermind the idea of comparing the worst of one group with the best of another. Nevermind the empty fantasy of fat checks for genre writers. Nevermind that the Guardian is just trolling for traffic again.

The truth is that literary history isn’t going to be written by Docx and his little post. He and his opinion don’t matter. I’m glad there are folks out there willing to swat at the ridiculous memes he’s pushing, but his sort of crap is completely useless.

And does he really kick Larsson for translated texts?

Some crap about my life

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While Minnesota is getting socked with snow, we’re getting unusual rainstorms. The radio is not only talking about flood warnings for several counties, but landslides, too. Man, I wish we hadn’t moved into that clifftop mansion.

Yesterday was a good writing day, the first one in a while. I’ve been complaining about what a struggle this book is, but silently. Only to myself. I know there are a lot of writers out there with a lot of despair and frustration to vent, but I try not to do it very much myself. (It’s kinda dull) But what happened? I let myself complain to some friends, and while talking I realized what I was doing wrong. So, yesterday = good. And god forbid that public whining is part of my process.

After writing, the whole family went to see Rudolph, The Next Verse. It was comic improv theater about the difficulties Rudolph had on the night of his famous flight. And of course, those troubles (and other details) were decided by shouting 4-9 year olds. The whole thing was very funny, had a lot of firearms and radiation in it (courtesy of the kids) and a bit of singing, too. My son was one of the kids who got up and danced during the “Radioactive Candy” song. Thanks, Andrew!

After the show, we dropped in on Half-Price Books where I bought an ARE of Child of Fire. I’d given mine away for reviews and whatnot, and I’d always regretted not keeping copies for myself (Posterity!) They had a copy some reviewer had sold them (shelved in Mystery, for some reason) so I snapped it up for my collection. And yeah, I checked for my own signature/inscription, just to see which dear friend had boxed and sold it off for a couple quarters, but surprisingly it was a rare unsigned copy.

And now I’m off again to the local cafe to try to have another good day.

Ari Marmell doesn’t think much of your advice.

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Over on Suvudu, Ari Marmell is pointing out that writing advice which tries to tell you how your own creative process should work is bad writing advice. And he’s right; it’s not cool or helpful.

But what I’d like to see from a writing advice book (assuming I ever had reason to read another one) is an acknowledgement that people have different methods and that learning to write is in part an experimentation with process. It should have a chapter for outliners, with all the different methods for outlining, and a chapter for non-outliners with everything those writers need to know. And readers should be encouraged to study both chapters.

Of course, the best way to learn about writing is not from a writing advice book, but by studying the sort of books you love and want to write. Discover how they work. Create your own theory. Move forward from there.

One more and I’m out of here.

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Amazon.com is giving 4 weeks of free Bookscan numbers to U.S. authors. If you’re signed up for their Author Central, you can see sales not only for the Amazon.com site, but for all booksellers who report to Bookscan. Details here. Amazon.com’s FAQ here.

Anyway, Bookscan says their numbers represent about 75% of all book sales, but the real figures vary wildly from 15% to 75%. It really doesn’t tell you anything, and it isn’t important.

But here’s what it looks like, except you can mouse-over each region for more info. (Click through for full size)

Bookscan Nov

Why no love, Birmingham?

Randomness for 12/8

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1) The Avengers have a change in health care plans. Video. Pretty funny.

2) And, to switch to DC, Batman as life-size puppet stage show on Japanese TV. Video. You know you can’t resist a description like that. Via

3) Quality hate mail.

4) Ten comics-related gifts guaranteed to ruin your Christmas.

5) An alignment chart for DS9. Personally, I would switch lawful evil and neutral evil, but that’s me.

6) Seven horrifying cost-cutting measures.

7) The Penmonkey’s Paean. “I will not sing lamentations to my weakness.” Damn but I needed to read this today. Thanks, JJ.

A Glimpse of Darkness goes on sale today

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Here it is:

Cover

What is it, you ask? For those who missed it the first time through, earlier in the fall Suvudu.com held a round-robin audience-choice story game for several writer, and I was included in the fun. One writer would write a short chapter and at the end would be a poll to allow readers to decide what to do next. Once the readers made their choice, the next writer in queue would create the next section of the story according to their wishes. The authors were Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, Lucy A. Snyder, and me.

Well, it goes on sale today, (for those of you who read ebooks). The novella is available for only 99 cents. You can order through Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and of course, Amazon.com.

I’ll say this: it’s very different from the Twenty Palaces books. There’s a lot more magic in it, for one thing, and many of the characters are non-human folkloric creatures. For another, it’s fantasy alt-history. For a third, I didn’t write most of it.

But I think it’s a fun adventure story. Check it out.

Randomness for 12/4

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1) Every Star Trek episode explained in four panels.

2) “Speedflying” a new extreme sport that freaks me out just watching a clip on YouTube. Video. If I prayed, I’d pray for those dudes.

3) Fictional characters in need of a book deal. With covers!

4) This is why I’m a capitalist at heart.

5) Can’t remember what movie I certain line of dialog comes from? Do a search.

6) “Furthermore, only non-Christians can curse.”

7) If this is what it will take to be a successful writer, I’ll go back to answering phones.

Randomness for 11/27

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1) The 30 most amazingly terrible VHS boxes of all time. Like Chris Sims, the only one of these I’ve seen is HAWK THE SLAYER, and my god it was awful. Still, I’d think anyone could take two of these boxes and come up with a pretty awesome story idea.

2) And as a palate-cleanser, check this huge, beautiful artwork.

3) Reasoning with vampires: Annotated excerpts from the Twilight novels.

4) Archetizer on the top ten libraries in the world. Seattle’s downtown branch makes the list, as well it should. via email from my sister-in-law.

5) Also from my s-i-l, Nathan Sawaya makes art from Legos. More here.

6) TSA agents do not know their own rules. Video. And this description of the event from the victim’s point of view.

7) In the libertarian paradise, “justice” can be hired down at the local bar.