1) Entrepreneurship and health care. “You’ve heard of learned helplessness? This is learned corporatism.”
2) Giant stuffed microbes. Just in case you wanted to cuddle up to the swine flu.
3) Want to receive free advance reader copies of Del Rey books to review on your blog? Fill out this form.
4) Limits of human endurance: in the muscles or in the brain? Crazy-interesting, and my wife will love this. via Jay Lake
5) Do you guys like these link roundups? Anything you want less/more of?
First things first: I earned my three-gallon pin today. Folks, if you can give blood, please do so. It saves lives. Plus you get snacks.
Second things second: Child of Fire has a Kindle edition. I’ve seen Kindles on the bus and they aren’t for me, but maybe there’s someone reading this who would love to get a discounted electronic copy of the book.
Third things third: According to the Internet, I read 300 wpm (approx) with 91% comprehension. My Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading says that’s “above average” but only barely. Come on, self-improvement!
Fourth things fourth: I’m willing to let people hate me. Just sayin’.
1) qotd: “I don’t mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.” — James Nicoll
2) Best Fiction Generator Ever.
3) Reverse image search. Pretty cool.
4) What are the effects of killing all the pigs in Egypt? via Jay Lake
5) “Writers want to write short fiction and they’re going to keep finding ways to get them to readers. Writers seem willing to keep writing, even in the face of comparative commercial indifference.” Short fiction as loss-leaders for novels? As hobbyist activity? via matociquala
6) Real estate agent sends listing to sf/f lit agent for two and a half million dollar mountaintop retreat, because of course her millionaire genre writers will want to snap that right up. I wish she’d linked to the listing; I’ll bet Castle would look great perched on a rough wooden bench, staring thoughtfully into the morning mist.
6a) How to get rich as a writer? (geniusofevil, skip this part) Donald Maas’s free e-book has some interesting conclusions about the things writers do and don’t do to make a six-figure salary. I can’t help but wonder if he’d get the same results if he ran that survey again.
7) International Beard and Moustache Championships. Honestly, some of these make me a little sick.
8) Homes with cats 8 times more likely to contain mrsa. Not that it isn’t totally worth the risk!!! More interesting are the things listed that do not increase the germ risk.
I had my interview with Sohaib Awan at http://www.fictionalfrontiers.com today. It went pretty well, I think. I was damn nervous, but I didn’t stammer too much, and I don’t think I did the quiver-breathing thing I sometimes do.
It will probably air next Monday (or the Monday after that) between 5-6 pm, on WNJC 1360AM Philadelphia, simultaneously webcast on http://www.wnjc1360.com/. After that, there’ll be a podcast to listen to, if you can’t catch it live. I’ll post a link when it’s available.
Also, the first thing I did this morning was to give one last read-through of my Big Idea essay for John Scalzi’s blog. Good thing, too, because Christ was that opening paragraph stilted. It’s been sent off now. Hopefully, it’ll be well-received.
Today I mailed out the first batch of books, too. I called Random House to order more, but I’m thinking I need to have some sort of plan targeting where I’m going to send the rest.
And, finally, I had a morning meeting with my director buddy, about the movie we (mostly he–I just wrote it) made, and what the next step for him was going to be. He has another one of my scripts, a vampire script about infidelity and bad marriages, which he’s hoping to set up somewhere, but he first needs to find out what he can get from the walking-dead-on-TV movie we already shot. In any case, it was good to see my friend again.
Here’s something that bugs the hell out of me in books:
Say you have a character who is an experienced bad-guy-fighter. Also say your character is facing bad guys who are desperate or ruthless. Here’s a new rule: Don’t tell me your protagonist is shocked because the villain has done something that “breaks an unwritten rule.” Don’t tell me they’re outraged at the crossing of a line that “everyone knows” shouldn’t be crossed.
It makes them sound sheltered and naive. It makes them sound stupid.
Suppose two characters are fighting in an alley. One thinks the fight should be a fair one, following the rules of a boxing match. The second goes straight for a crotch-kick.
When that first guy is lying on the ground, covering his exploded balls with his hands, should he be griping about the unfairness of ti all? Well, maybe, if you want him to come across as a fool.
Most people are decent, but there are always a few who will do any damn thing at all. They beat their aged parents and steal their money to buy beer. They kidnap little girls off the street and hold them prisoner for decades. They lynch. They rape. They burn your house down.
So if your character is going to be shocked shocked that their drug dealer shows up at their day job for their money, or that the secret vampire arch-duke will try to get at them by biting their delightfully-quirky grandmother, I’m going to think they’re… well, see my comment above about “sheltered and naive.”
There are ways to make that work, of course. If the drug dealer is harassing you at work because your son owes him a lot of money–something you didn’t know about–that might work. If two brothers get into a fight over a woman, and one brother tries to avoid permanent harm right up until the other pulls a knife, that would work, too.
But that’s the context. If you’re writing about a vigilante, a cop, or some kind of hired muscle, they should be expecting their enemies to cross lines and break rules, unwritten or otherwise.
I was planning to take a break from these for a couple days, but the universe has other plans.
1) The Philadelphia Free Library is closing for lack of funding. The city of my birth is about to join southern Oregon as a place I will never, ever live in.
2) On a lighter note, a haiku about the Sub-mariner, in comics form.
3) The Dan Brown sequel generator, which I can’t see at work. Is it funny?
4) Birth of a meme! “Whose responsible this!” via glvalentine
5) Dungeons and Dragons, the sodas! I’m going to be all over Digby’s Crushing Thirst Destroyer.
Is there an urban fantasy series featuring a much-older woman? I have a few UF novels on my to-read pile–and of course I see many in the stores–but the women on the covers seem to be in their thirties or younger.
Is there a Miss Marple (meaning, in her sixties or older) in urban fantasy, even a motorcycle-riding, katana-wielding Miss Marple?
1) MightyGodKing offers an interesting take on secret identities for two of the most iconic superheroes in comics.
2) The browser on my work computer won’t let me comment there, but Genreville’s Josh Jasper draws the line and I am in complete agreement with him. That bullshit should never be tolerated.
3) A review of The Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stable Girl. (Weirdly, the URL has “playbot” instead of “playboy,” which is not a thought I needed to have right now.
It’s true. I have one superpower but it’s a total doozy. Allow me to share it with you:
Whenever I do a cool thing, it stops being cool.
When I was younger, I was like one of those mutants who needed to be forcably recruited to Prof. Xaviers Academy–I used my powers carelessly and caused a lot of grief. I grew sideburns, forcing everyone else to shave theirs off. Whenever I bought a cd by a cool band, they immediately broke up. When a buddy said something I agreed with, I responded by saying “Word.” Within a week, no one was using that expression except my wife, which shows you just how uncool it became. And so on.
Eventually, like one of the professor’s students, I learned to use my powers for good. I’m the one who put an end to people saying “Not!” at the end of sentences. I also put an end to “Chill!” although I regret waiting as long as I did. And, as a sign of my complete dedication to doing right, about ten years ago (before I started shaving my head) I pulled my hair across the top of my head and put a barette in it for an entire day, just to put an end to that horrible fashion trend.
You’re welcome.
And now I’m afraid that I have to use my powers yet again, because the new movie 9 is being called “stitchpunk!” and that’s too damn many “-punks”.
So… (ahem) That new graphic novel series The Boys is really “capepunk!”
There. It’s done. For those who don’t know how this really works, all the old terms are grandfathered in, but it will now be personally embarrassing for anyone to come up with a new “-punk” term.
And that’s fo-rizzle.
Over on his blog, Nathan Bransford is asking people if children’s books should have ratings, the way films and video games do.
Me, I think this misses the point. Books don’t need ratings stating which age groups they are appropriate for. All that does is embarrass readers who are enjoying a well-written adventure that lacks cursing or violence, and makes kids seek out forbidden ratings.
What I want are labels. Here is my suggested list:
Rated S: Contains stereotypes
Rated HP: Contains “helpless princess” characters who must be rescued by a male character.
Rated J: Contains Jingoistic attitudes toward foreign peoples/governments
Rated MN: Contains “Magic Negro” character with no life beyond the assistance character gives to Our Hero
Rated DA: Contains dead animal for purposes of unbearable pathos
Rated DV: Contains characters and plotting that you’re seen a hundred times before, but might be new to an 8-yo.
Rated LM: Lacks Monsters or other supernatural elements.
Rated MBS: Mocks Belief Systems
Rated NF: Not as Funny as it thinks it is.
Any others I should have included?