Making Light Indices Jan-Apr 2005

Making Light Indices updated to Jan-Apr 2005

Writing and genre

Writing Advice. Teresa discuss the bad to some extent and points to some of the good, including a link to stuff she wrote and sent to Neil Gaiman about the getting of agents. I feel compelled to note that there is one thing that I disagree with in the latter, and I would welcome Teresa or someone else explaining to me why I am wrong, because it would reassure me enormously if I was. The advice I don't buy is this: "If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get." I think that 10 years ago, and maybe even 5 this was great advice. But the number of places that will look at unagented manuscripts has plummeted since then and with it your odds of being able to work this trick. 149 comments Jan, 2005.

Excerpt from on Onion post on copyediting the great American novel and Teresa's reaction to same. Fun stuff. 49 comments Jan, 2005.

Publish America and Atlanta Nights. For those unfamiliar with Atlanta Nights, it's an intentionally awful novel written in collaboration by a bunch of SF and fantasy writers as a sting operation aimed at PublishAmerica. According to Teresa "...it’s also a meditation on the many ways a novel can be bad." 227 comments Jan, 2005. There is a follow up post on the topic here. 193 comments Jan, 2005. And another, including Teresa admitting to chapter 15. 81 comments Feb, 2005.

More Atlanta Nights including Free homework on same. Oh my. 82 comments Apr, 2005.

"Jeff VanderMeer dreams of Tor" Literally. And yes, it's as strange as it sounds. 51 comments Mar, 2005.

General Index stuff

Internet Discourse

Teresa discoursing on online moderation. Lots of very smart stuff for bloggers and others involved in internet discussion. 159 comments Jan, 2005.

Linky bits

A round up of April Fools stories involving F&SF and a zillion other places, much of it hysterically funny. 60 comments Apr, 2005.

LOTR

The Tolkien sarcasm page does your homework for you...free term papers and anyone who uses them deserves what they get. 170 comments Apr, 2005.

Misc

Wrong dosages and narcolepsy. 172 comments Feb, 2005. With meds and neurology update here .97 comments Apr, 2005.

Drive-by mothering, the worst sort of unasked for advice on how to handle one's children. 260 comments Feb, 2005.

"A seedweight of strong old speech" history of the English language geeking. 50 comments Apr, 2005.

Book burning in the Indian state of Manipur including some ancient and irreplaceable texts. Argh!!! 55 comments Apr, 2005.

Poetry

Anglo Saxon poetry tidbits. 127 comments Mar, 2005.

Follow up to a post on Thomas Friedman's effect on other writers, in which the truth of the theory is demonstrated in good poetry. 25 comments Apr, 2005.

Politics

The Red Lake school shooing, Terry Schiavo, Republican action figure and how they reflect on the species. 234 comments Mar, 2005.

Terry Schiavo. 193 comments Apr, 2005.

Thomas Friedman, a bad writer and thinker who inspires good ones to rebut him. 69 comments Apr, 2005. Follow up in which the truth of the theory is demonstrated in good poetry. 25 comments Apr, 2005.'

Recipes

Sole in a panicky green sauce. A http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrecipe with a digression in why not to eat squid when dining with squidlike aliens. V silly. 82 comments Apr, 2005.

Religion

"Cult vs. church: a proposed rule of thumb". Religion and humor, two great tastes that taste great together...or something like that. 433 comments Mar, 2005.

Cardinal Ratzinger becomes pope. 335 comments Apr, 2005.

Writing Combat Update

Wyrdsmith Doug Hulick will now be joining S. N. Arly and I for the writing combat discussion at the Twin Cities area F&SF writers meetup on November 18th at noon. Attendance is free and there are still open seats. Sign-up and details here. It should be a fun discussion.

Books I Have Written (or tried to write)

I saw a list like this posted by Joshua Palmatier and found it entertaining to read and to think about. This is essentially my book writing history, starting with my first attempt at writing a novel, when I was in fourth grade. Fortunately, that notebook is long gone, so I can't humiliate myself Lyda-style by posting an excerpt. I'm going to just post what I remember. I worked on all of these long enough to consider them novel attempts, but everything before #9 is unfinished unless otherwise noted.

1. Justin, The Horse With Blue Eyes

I wrote this in fourth grade and never, alas, made it all the way to the ending. It involved a mute child and a helpful friend and a talking white horse that was clearly borrowed from the same part of the universal subconscious as the Companions from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar. The plot was loosely based on the TV version of Puff, the Magic Dragon. If I still had it and showed it to Molly, I'd bet $10 she'd think it was AWESOME and would nag me to finish it, probably for months.

Useful take-home lesson from this writing project: if you revise before you finish the way the helpful adults tell you to, you may never actually finish.

2. The Jail Story

So, at my school, starting in middle school, we got to read our creative writing out loud to the group. One of the other students discovered that the best way to keep everyone's attention and establish an enthusiastic fan base was to use your classmates as characters. His story shifted the entire classroom, including the teachers, to an oppressive orphanage. I decided this was a good idea, but went for marginally more realism by having our entire class somehow winding up locked in Juvie and then breaking out. I was 11 or 12 when I wrote this. It had an ending!

Useful take-home lesson: have characters that your target audience can easily identify with. And when you're twelve, no one will object to straight-up pandering.

3. The Random Assorted Adventures of Sara aka Ruth

I wrote this on my own (by which I mean, not for school) starting at age 13 and continuing through at least my freshman year of high school. I do still have this. At some point I ripped it all out of the Mead notebooks and stuck it in chronological order in three-ring binders and then counted pages, and there were hundreds of pages here.

Sara/Ruth was a Jewish teenager who lived in a variety of usually Polish cities and was born sometime around 1925. In various episodes, she participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; was deported from the Lodz ghetto to Auschwitz, from which she later escaped; used false papers to fake being a gentile and get a job as a secretary for some high-ranked Nazi, on whom she spied; and lived in the woods with the Jewish Partisans. After liberation by the Soviets, she tried to emigrate to Palestine but through a serious of incredibly contrived and wildly unlikely events, she found herself packed off to a British boarding school where she hung around for a year being angstful and mysterious. She did ultimately succeed in getting to Palestine, where she joined one of the less-violent resistence group (the Haganah? am I remembering my pre-Israeli-Independence resistence groups correctly? or was the Haganah something else?), married, and had children. I took her all the way up to the present day, writing only the big, climactic, emotional scenes because those were the fun bits.

Ruth's adventures were heavily influenced by the Leon Uris novel Exodus along with the movie, which I saw on video with my family at some point.

Useful lesson: write in order or you'll never go back and fill in the "boring" bits. Also, writing can be fun and satisfying even when you're not showing it anyone.

4. Lady/Warrior/Princess

I worked on this for a while in high school. I don't remember much beyond the title, except I'm pretty sure the lead character was captured by the Bad Guys on page one and was going to be sacrificed to a Dark God. Or something. Maybe I shouldn't list this, but I wrote at least twenty pages and it was the first attempt that involved a word processor. This may exist somewhere on my father's hard drive. It's definitely not on mine.

Useful lesson: print stuff out if you want to keep it. Today's electronic media will be as useless someday as the 5 1/4 inch disk where this is probably saved.

5. The Water Beads

This story was inspired by a visit to the Badlands in high school and involved a society that had been subjugated by a group that had magically bound up their water in a necklace. It involved a lost princess who was the prophesied chosen one, or something along those lines, and cool warrior women who practiced their sword-fighting in the desert sun. I wrote it while we drove across the Dakotas. My brother and sister read over my shoulder and begged for more.

Useful lesson: never throw ideas away.

6. Oh look, I've been mysteriously transported to a fantasy universe with all my high school friends!

OK, this was actually a short story. As such, it even had an ending.

Useful lesson: high school sucks. As coping techniques go, fantasizing about living in an alternate reality is a pretty good one.

7. Oh look, I've been mysteriously transported to a fantasy universe with all my college friends!

This was intended as a novel but wound up shorter than the short story, since college was actually pretty time-consuming. Also, in college, I discovered RPGs.

Useful lesson: don't play RPGs or you will never write again.

7b. Oh look, it's a story in a fantasy universe with my alter-ego and the alter-egoes of all my college friends, and everyone has come to play. This is awesome, I may never do homework again. had a print copy for years and years, but I think he finally tossed it. There are at least a half-dozen people on my friendslist who participated in this.

Useful lesson: story conflict is key to moving things along. Ramp up the conflict; don't resolve it too fast.

8. The Planet of the Lost Catholics

This was the actual working title. I wrote almost none of this, but tried repeatedly and spent a ton of time brainstorming, researching, etc. The premise involved a lost colony. The colony has a society where people would marry their platonic best friend and have a celibate home life -- they could screw anyone BUT the person they were married to. The colony was cut off long enough to forget that this was not the norm back on earth. Then recontact is made.

I still think this is kind of a fun idea for a society, but there was absolutely no plot here. I tried and tried to write this one before I figured that out.

Useful lesson: scenario is not enough. You need a conflict and a plot or all you've got is a travel guide.

9. Magefire

While I was in college, I wrote a short story about this girl at a music conservatory who gets a mysterious, angstful roommate with a dark secret. It got rejected by both MZB and Weird Tales with a note saying that it read more like chapters 1 and 36 of a novel. So I decided to turn it into a novel, figuring that I knew how it started and how it ended. Then I went through about 20 false starts in which I tried to use the short story as a first chapter. That did not work. When I finally started from page 1, it flowed surprisingly well.

When I finished it, I called it Turning the Storm. I rewrote it a bunch of times, and finally sold it to Bantam, who split it into two pieces. The title I came up with for the first bit was Fires of the Faithful.

Useful lesson: You really can write a whole novel just by sitting down and writing a little bit every single day. Plus many more, too many to enumerate here.

10. Widening Gyre

This was an SF/mystery novel. I wrote it while my agent was shopping Turning the Storm around. It's finished, but I never revised it past the beta draft because TTS sold shortly after I finished it. Bantam was not interested in buying SF from me, so I trunked it until I had time. I have time now, but I've been more interested in other projects. Maybe I'll take another whack at it when I'm ready to send out Castaways.

Useful lesson: experimenting with style and genre is a good thing. You may not sell it, but you'll learn and grow as a writer.

11. Freedom's Gate, 12. Freedom's Apprentice, 13. Freedom's Sisters

I wanted to write more fantasy after writing Widening Gyre anyway, and I wanted to write something with the theme of redemption. Mulling it over on a walk with Ed, I started thinking about using the water bead story. It changed a hell of a lot, of course. The bitchy lost princess was replaced by Tamar, and the righteous bad-ass warrior woman was replaced by Lauria. Who is bad-ass and a warrior woman but starts off as a bad guy.

Useful lesson: You can write a novel in a year while pregnant and parenting a two-year-old. You can write a novel in a year while caring for a newborn and a three-year-old. You can write a novel in a year while caring for a one-year-old and a four-year-old. But holy shit, is it ever a lot of work.

14. Holy Week

Wiccan woman living in Minneapolis unexpectedly inherits Ark of the Covenant. My agent is shopping this around.

Useful lesson: it takes longer to write a book when you don't have a deadline.

15. Castaways

Juvenile SF with girl protagonist. Molly LOVED this and thinks I am BRILLIANT and the best writer in the WORLD. Of course, she depends on me to buy her art supplies, so her opinions may be suspect.

Useful lesson: it is really fun to have your kid bugging you for more pages to read. In fact, this whole novel was really fun to write.

(For all the useful lessons, the "you" would in fact be "me." You know, that sort of "you." The you sort of you might in fact be able to combine writing and RPGs just fine or might not need to write in order or whatever. Whatever works for you, by which I mean either one of us, is fine.)

Small Mind Hobgoblins

My high school English teacher used to have a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson hanging on the bulletin board that baffled me for years. It read: “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (Apparently, there’s more to it.) I’m reminded of it, however, every time I receive a copy edited manuscript from my publisher.

That may sound like a dis on copy editors, but it’s not meant as one. I say thank goodness for copy editors or my readers would have to spend all their time writing me angry letters complaining about all the little inconsistencies that riddle my work. No, it’s my mind that doesn’t suffer details very well. I apparently (mis)took Emerson’s quote to heart and now my brain jettisons “little” consistencies. Ask my writers’ group if you doubt me, but I’m lucky if I manage to spell my main character’s name the same way throughout a five hundred page manuscript.

Even though I’ve always written books that are part of a series, I rely on my brain to keep track of the world-building details. I realize exactly how foolish this is, but I almost never re-read a novel once it’s gone to press. Part of that decision is the fact that I’m usually deeply sick of the book during the process of getting it to publication. I’ve read and re-read the damn thing so many times (in draft, final draft, editorial revision, final revision, copy edited manuscript, page proofs, etc.) that the thought of looking at it again for even a second makes me cringe.

One of the reasons I don’t look back at my earlier work in the same series is that I like the freedom that not-knowing-I’m-screwing-up affords. I should say that I’ve never violated a character’s history with my cavalier attitude toward consistency, but I have messed up the time-line in the AngeLINK universe because a copy editor had corrected a date (to make it consistent with a presidential election year) and my brain had never made the “final edit,” as it were. So the books following Archangel Protocol are actually off by two years. Only one reader noticed the mistake and she did because she was re-reading the books on the line-by-line level in order to write fanfic. Even so, I hope I get a chance to fix that at some point because it now bothers me.

You’d think, then, I’d learn, right? Not so. Since that mistake, I’m slightly more willing to do a quick word search through the electronic version of my final draft to check certain details, but I’m still fairly adamant about not letting a little thing like accuracy stop me from writing. I should clarify, however, that I’m only talking about little, harmless details. We all know that if a writer isn’t careful and consistent with the important details, you can lose your readers. I even try to be pretty careful with what I call “blocking,” which is to say whether or not a character is sitting or standing and what color shoes they’re wearing — although I have a copy editor to thank for noticing a character’s switch from combat boots to high heels.

God forbid something like that actually make it into print, but I rarely let those things worry me at the start. I write to get the story out and then sweat the details.

Or, later, thank the higher powers that a copy editor catches them.

Writing Combat Seminar

S. N. Arly and I are going to be talking about writing combat at the Twin Cities area F&SF writers meetup on November 18th at noon. Attendance is free and there are still open seats. Sign-up and details here.

The Great Short Story Angst Fest

The major magazine markets for short F&SF are dying. Pretty much everybody agrees on that. The reactions range from please help save them (slushmaster) to so what (Scalzi). People have talked about causes, among them: the writers aren't stretching enough (VannderMeer) and the short markets have become a bunch of writers writing for other writers who edit and put out stories for writers who read writerly stuff--see point four here (Bear). I tend to favor the club scene theory Bear is talking about plus a dash of the idea that the internet has really changed the way people digest small chunks of content, i.e. substituting blogs for shorts.

I give you all of that as a sort of background to what I really want to talk about, which is why I write short stories and I why I think any F&SF writer who can write shorts should. Sarah Monette talks about some of the same things here in terms of why she writes them, and that's definitely worth a read. One place where I disagree with both her and Scalzi is in terms of what shorts can do for a career, so I'll start there.

Both Scalzi and Monette mention that there are better ways to raise your profile for readers–blogging is mentioned–and I agree on that. The thing that shorts can do for you career-wise that blogs and many other venues don't do, is establish you as someone who has been vetted by some sort of serious professional editorial process. While that may not sound like much, it means a lot in terms of bona-fides for agent queries. And getting an agent is becoming ever more critical in breaking into the novel biz, which necessity is something I'm going to talk about in its own post later. Beyond that, Monette's point about learning how to be a professional writer through the short story markets is a great one.

Monette also talks in brief about the risk-taking element, the fact that you can try things in a short that you wouldn't dare try in a novel. I'd go beyond that to say that short stories are one of the best venues a new F&SF writer has for learning the craft, because in addition to being daring you can afford to be mundane–to practice the simple things.

You can write ten or dozen shorts where you focus on mastering a single aspect of craft like plot or character and let the rest of the stuff go hang. The brevity of the form allows for a lot more of the try/fail cycles an artist need to master the craft.

A short also forces the writer to pay attention to things they might not have to in a longer piece. If you've got a 5,000 word cap on how long the story can go, you have to make the hard choices about what elements of the story are important enough to keep on the page. You have to go for late entry and early exit. You have to make damn sure that every single word is important. You can't have extraneous scenes that don't advance the core of the story. In a short a writer knows that they must catch the reader's attention right now and hold onto it–there's no time to do anything else.

And, guess what? Those things are all true for novels as well. Sure, in the longer form you can get away with earlier entry and later exit and longer chunks that don't do anything more than show off some cool side bits, but the question is: Should you? The answer: Maybe, but you should never do it unawares or unweighted. Short story writing helps teach the balancing skills a writer needs to decide when and where to go long.

Questions? Comments? Vigorous disagreement?

Making Light Indices–Oct-Dec 2004 Update

Freshly added to the Making Light Indices–posts from the Oct-Dec 2004 archives:

Writing and Publishing

TOR and the IRC heap. That's International Reply Coupons, and what happens to them if they aren't dealt with regularly and promptly. If you've ever snail-mailed a submission to a foreign publisher this is worth a read. 62 comments Nov, 2004.

The intersection of Publishing and Politics streets. On George Bush, the culture of motivation, and doubt. Observations rooted in seeing a lot of writer responses to rejection. 222 comments Oct, 2004.

Fanwriting and prowriting, slash and squick and squee. A link to and discursion on a livejournal post on the resonance of slash--"sex, power issues, identity issues, physical or emotional violence, revelation, transformation, transcendence, violent catharsis..."etc. Much useful discussion of writing to be had here. 278 comments Dec, 2004.

Politics

Bush Jokes, both in the post and the thread. 147 comments Oct, 2004.

Election 2004 and grieving. It was a very dark week. 219 comments Nov, 2004. With Adam Felber concession speech bonus for a bit of leavening. 171 comments Nov, 2004.

Stupider than dirt. Gerald Allen, an Alabama Republican demonstrates stupidity above and beyond the call in the matter of homosexuality and literature. 134 comments Dec, 2004.

"Common Good" and their flowchart of what it takes to suspend a disruptive student in the NYC school system...or not. Teresa disassembles the chart in detail. 204 comments Dec, 2004.

"We never knew" A site dedicated to deflating the claims of pre-Hitler ignorance on the part of the German people. Plus applying those principles to the reaction of people to the September 11th attacks.

Medicine

The first of Jim McDonald's emergency preparedness and medicine posts. Emergency kits. 110 comments Nov, 2004.

WWI

Ghosts of the great war 2004. #3 in an ongoing series. 42 comments Nov 11, 2004.

Ghosts of the great war 2002. #1 in an ongoing series. 11 comments Nov 11, 2002.

Misc cool stuff

"Salwar kameez" Buying traditional Indian and Pakastani tailored clothes via eBay. 719 comments Nov, 2004. Follow up with Teresa interviewed by South Asia World TV. 53 comments Apr, 2005.

Which holiday songs would you remove from the playlist? 207 comments Dec, 2004.

SantaCon. A con for Santas, not a fan con in Santa Barbara. 29 comments Dec, 2004.

Rice pudding, house-elves, and Scandinavian Christmas tradition. 88 comments Dec, 2004.

Religion

Otherkin and Jesus, a site spreading the gospel to those they were born the wrong species. Really. Dead link. 166 comments Nov, 2004.

John M. Ford on the usage of "Fundamentalist" to describe holy book literalists. He feels it's a misnomer. 160 comments Nov, 2004.

Grammar Geeking

On the futility of computerized grammar checkers for English. 79 comments Nov, 2004.

Animal hording )and( death masks

More on animal hording. Plus administrative bits and more on Death masks. 58 comments Nov, 2004

"Death masks". 35 comments Nov, 2004. (More here)

Scams

Grants scam phone call. 70 comments Nov, 2004.

Profitable Publishing, or not. Vanity press smackdown. 141 comments Dec, 2004.

Spotting phishing scams, a discussion and quiz. 64 comments Dec, 2004.

Poetry

A Kit Marlowe/Big Sleep pastiche. V funny. 369 comments Dec, 2004.

Recipes

Chatham County Artillery Punch. 50 comments Dec, 2004.

Event reminder

I'll be reading and signing at Dreamhaven books in Minneapolis (the Lake Street store) tonight-Friday October 26th starting at 6:30.

Also, Tate Hallaway/Lyda Morehouse, and I will be signing with Lois Greiman and Michele Hauf at the Northtown Waldenbooks from 1:00 to 3:00 tomorrow, Saturday, October 27.

Welcome Back, Harry!

Founding member Harry LeBlanc, writting as H. Courreges LeBlanc, is back in Wyrdsmiths after a two year hiatus to attend graduate school. Welcome back, Harry! By way of introduction, this is what Harry wrote about himself for his Strange Horizon's bio for the short story he had published there in 2002, "Quink.":

H. Courreges LeBlanc expatriated from New Orleans in 1980, and underwent Clarion in 1996. He has sold stories (several of which explore his Cajun heritage) to Terra Incognita, Tales of the Unanticipated, and Darkling Plain. He is a founding member of both the Wyrdsmiths and Eight Minutes to Wapner. He lives in Minneapolis.

You can check out his full biblography at http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2007/08/wyrdsmiths-bibliography.html

Author/Reader Interaction and Dumbledore's Sexuality

Much ink has been spilled in the past couple of days over J.K. Rowling's revelation that Dumbledore was gay. I'm personally glad she said it for a number of reasons, one of which is a writing reason.

She showed respect for her readers. Giving an honest answer to an honest reader question is a matter of simple authorial courtesy. As an author, my default response to reader questions is to answer them to the best of my ability unless answering them will create spoilers for later books.

Quite a number of people seem to disagree for various reasons political and literary. Of the former I will simply say that I disagree vigorously. On the latter however I am going to go into a little more detail as it is relevant to the core reasons for this blog's existence.

The essentials of the argument are that the text is everything and authors should simply shut up about anything beyond what is on the pages in black and white because many readers don't want the author messing around with their version of the empty pages beyond its borders.

My biggest problem with this it that it gives more weight to the readers who don't want to know the author's thoughts on something than to those who do at a disproportionate cost to the curious.

J.K.Rowling was asked a direct question by a reader who really wanted to know Rowling's answer. If Rowling had the answer in her head, should she really deprive those who are interested so that those who aren't don't have to hear about it?

It seems to me that if an author doesn't answer questions, it penalizes those who want to know the answers far more than answering penalizes those who don't want to know them. With the exception of a few very big names it is astronomically easier to avoid author answers to reader questions than it is to divine those same answers if they're never given. If they stay in the author's head, no one will ever know the author's opinion but the author.

Thoughts? Comments? Does anyone else find the idea of yelling, in essence, "shut up, I'm not listening and I don't want anyone else to either!" at authors more than a bit disturbing?

Reading Beyond Yourself

At a local Barnes & Noble in the children’s section, I overheard a mother tell her children, “Remember what we talked about! Pick something in your reading level!”

Now, I admit that I didn’t know what was going on there, and it’s entirely possible that this parent was admonishing her children not to chose a book that was below their abilities. She could have been worried about adult content, but, as I said, I was in the children’s section. Whatever the case, my impression was that this mother wanted her children to stick to those artifical age ranges that are printed on the back of picture books and YA novels, and, frankly, I was horrified.

I find this distressing if only because I read LOTS of books that were well beyond my reading “ability” when I was young, which is how the heck I got better ability, you know? I have never, ever told my son Mason that there was a book he couldn’t try to read. As far as I’m concerned, unless there’s graphic violence, sex, or swear words, it’s all good. (Actually, he’s already read some swear words over my shoulder. Luckily, he doesn’t have all the rules of pronunciation down and so he thinks a** is said “iss.”)

This desire to protect young readers baffles me. And it seems to be prevalent. We were once at Red Balloon, a children’s book store here in Saint Paul, and the sales person tried to take a chapter book away from us. She nearly snatched it from Mason’s hands because she didn’t think it was appropriate for my then three year-old. When I asked her why, she said, “Well, the stories are too long. He won’t have the patience.” At that age, I’d already read all of Charolette’s Web and much of Bambi to Mason, so I just looked at her with a stunned expression. “How would you know?” I asked. Then I said to Mason, “Never let anyone tell you what you can or can’t read.”

And anyway, at that point, I was still reading to him. It’s not like there would be words he couldn’t ask me what they meant, you know? More to the point, the last time I checked there’s no rule that says you have to finish a story you start. We’ve still never finished Bambi because we get to the chapter where Bambi’s mom is killed and Mason wants to start over. So we do. I figure he needs time to process. Processing what you’ve read is part of learning, IMHO.

Mason’s grade school also seems to have a “reading level” restriction they enforce. Everyone’s library card is color coded for the level they’re supposed to be reading at. I overheard a librarian ask someone to take a “Goosebumps” book back because it wasn’t at their reading level. This was a seriously disappointed looking kid. Again, this may be done in order to make sure that children are challenging themselves appropriately, however, I don’t really get that either. Who doesn’t love the comfort of a “simpler” book occasionally? I know that I didn’t discover Leo, the Late Bloomer until I was a teen, and it was still extremely meaningful to me. Plus I have to ask, what adult doesn’t love a certain YA about a young wizard in training?

But, as for reading beyond yourself, the last time I checked no one has ever been seriously injured by reading a hard book. Well, okay, there was that one time I was so excited to start a book I’d checked out from the library that I was reading it while riding my bike on the way home. I ran into a parked car. That’s my only reading injury to date.

There are books that scared the crap out of me as a kid. I read Amityville Horrorat a tender age and now the name “Jody” sends me into screaming heeby-geebies even as an adult. However, I learned an important lesson: you can close a book. If a book is beyond you on an emotional level, you can wait and pick it up later. There are several books I attempted that I just didn’t get all of until much, much later. I’d heard that there was SEX in Lady Chatterly’s Lover, but damned if I “got” it the first time I read it. When I came back to it as a young adult, I understood.

In fact, my partner and I have bonded over the fact that we both remember the day we got to go to the “adult” section in the public library on our own. Both Shawn’s folks and mine never hesitated to check out books from that section for us, if we were interested… but there was a thrilling sense of wonder the moment it was okay for us to have ANY book in the entire library for ourselves alone. I think that reading beyond your ability is what makes readers out of people, you know? If I hadn’t tried The Hobbit in sixth grade, where would I be now?

I didn’t “get” a lot of it, but I was AWED.

And I still am.

Making Light Indices Jul-Sep 2004 Update

Added to the Making Light Indices today–posts from the July-September 2004 archives:

Writing and Fandom

Absolutely fantastic advice for both the seasoned and novice con-goer. 326 comments Aug, 2004. With bonus Nielsen Hayden World-Con schedule content from Patrick plus thread discussion of how that sort of thing works. 147 comments Aug, 2004.

Manucript on ebay. First time author meet AuthorHouse. Scammers who prey on the dreams of writers make me want to throw things. 372 comments Sep, 2004.

Linguistic markers for publishing scams. A thorough dissection of advertising language and how to spot a scam publisher. 290 comments Sep, 2004. Round two, more linguistic markers. 79 comments Sep, 2004.

Making Light wins a Wooden Rocket award. Basically it's an award for best online fanzine. 23 comments Jul, 2004.

Politics

USA Today pulls Anne Coulter from coverage of the Democratic convention. Smart decision. Post includes a sample from the editorial on why they did it and shows some of their editorial queries to the alleged writer. 95 comments Jul, 2004.

"Extraordinary rendition" Once again the Bush administration brings shame on the American people. 80 comments Sep, 2004.

The Bush administration as Cthulu Mythos. 50 comments Sep, 2004.

Recipes

Peppered nectarine salad. 63 comments Aug, 2004.

Misc

The great color conspiracy. A nice look at how the Color Marketing Group drives color fashions. 199 comments Jul, 2004.

Because it Can't be Overemphasized

Writers write.

I want to put that all alone because it is the central point of this blog. It's all about the writing. Everything else is fundamentally by way of amplification or refinement.

I'm teaching an advanced class on writing fantasy at the moment, one aimed at people who've completed at least one novel and who are serious about pursuing publication and I've told them several times that if they only take one thing away from my class it is this:

Write.

On the broader stage, I am trying to teach them techniques of craft, ways to think critically about their work, and how to form alliances with other writers to help them move forward. I'm showing them how to put together synopses and to see and talk about the hooks in their work. I am exposing the realities of the hard slog that is the norm in the quest for publication. I want them to understand the realities so that 50 or 100 rejections become a mark of honor, a sign of things written and submitted instead of a soul-crushing obstacle. But amongst all the lecture and critique and questions asked and answered I keep repeating two things.

1. Take everything I say as a tool to be used or discarded as it suits your needs. If something I tell you helps you to write, use it. If it stops you, discard it and find something that gets you writing.

2. There are 1,000 and 1 ways to write a book and every one of them is right. Find what works for you and use it to write.

Are you seeing a theme?

Write more. Write again. Revise. Send out. Write more. All of those things are predicated on the initial writing. You achieve success in this business by the expedient of writing, improving your writing, and not giving up. The formula is a simple one to lay out but it can be awfully hard to follow, especially the not giving up part.

Being published takes time and effort and deep down-in-the-bone stubborn. It takes craft and talent and luck and more than a little blood sweat and tears to boot. But mostly it takes this:

Writing.

Quick Re-Direct: Dear Author

Our very own Kelly McCullough gets nicely pitched by his editor here: Dear Author: Hot Books for Fall Roc/Ace Check it out.

Reading at Dreamhaven

I've decided to read from Castaways, the juvenile SF novel I'm almost done writing. 6:30 p.m. at Dreamhaven bookstore, if anyone is interested.

Making Light Indices

If you turn your eyes to the top right corner you will see a couple of new links in the Writers' Resources section. The Making Light Indices are an ongoing project of mine and will be added to and updated regularly over the next few months as I continue my pass through the archive. So, you may want to keep an eye on them, particularly the Writer's Index as it contains links to numerous posts of interest to writers and others in the industry. The General Index is of less direct utility to writers but Making Light is a lovely place to hang out on the web and many of the folks in our industry pass through on a regular basis. There is much to be learned there.

Fall Writing Rituals

I took down my summer office today-a second floor screen porch. It always makes me a bit melancholy when I do that, and this year even more so. It's the edge of winter and that means that under normal circumstances there'd be no more writing in my mostly-out-of-doors office for five months, but these are not normal circumstances.

This year it is quite possible I won't be back in my beloved office for 8-9 months because I will be spending a good bit of next spring and summer in Scotland. Yeah, I know, nobody feels sorry for me and nobody should. I just wanted to observe that there's a special poignancy to the end of the fall writing season this year.

Do you have seasons of writing? Times of year that are better or worse? Seasonal rituals?

Dinosaur Moment

When I first started breaking into the business of writing F&SF I was fortunate enough to meet and by mentored by a number of Big Name Authors. I am eternally grateful to those folks and that's part of why I'm here with the other Wyrdsmiths doing this writing blog thing. There's not a whole lot I can do for the BNAs who helped me out, but I can pass on that help to the folks who are climbing the mountain behind me.

Those BNAs gave me a huge amount of good advice on the craft of writing, and a great deal of good advice on the business of writing post-first novel offer. The one place where I had to carefully filter the advice I was getting was in the area of landing that first sale. This is because the world of publishing has been changing at astonishing speed over the last thirty years or so, and advice that was stellar then (whenever then may be) is sometimes simply invalid for the newbie unpublished writer of today. I will occasionally (and entirely goodheartedly) call this stuff dinosaur advice-magnificent in its time, but not such a great idea now that all these nimble little mammals have started cluttering up the scene.

In my class last night someone asked me a question about getting a start in writing by publishing with small presses. In that instant I knew that I had just had my first dinosaur moment–I'm sure I'll have more. I know that small press is changing the face of the industry and I'm pretty certain that it's going to change it much more radically in the very near future. There are quite a number of small presses that are doing great work, getting books in distribution channels, winning awards, and giving their authors exposure they just couldn't get elsewhere. So far so good. But in terms of submitting to small presses, their relationships with agents, and even where to find that kind of information I am totally clueless. In short those darn whipper-snapper mammals are changing the face of publishing and me–big old dinosaur that I am–I don't understand the rules of the new game.

Fortunately, I've got a start on learning those things all lined up. Catherynne M. Valente is going to be guest blogging here on the 5th of November and talking about the move from small press to big New York house, which will help give me some insight into the process.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Pointers to great small press info?

A Writer by Any Other Name

Kelly’s open call for questions/comments generated some interesting questions. For instance, Michael asked: When did you feel comfortable calling yourself a writer to others?

Sometimes I still don't.

A friend of mine bought me a great ball cap that says "writer" on it from Writers Store. I was a little nervous about wearing it in public because I knew what was going to happen.

Stranger: Hey, nice hat.
Me: Uh, yeah. Thanks.
Stranger: So are you a writer then?
Me: Yeah, I am. (Internally bracing for the follow-up)
Stranger: Anything published?

Maybe if I lived in New York or, really, anywhere other than taciturn Minnesota, I would probably see this conversation for what it could be: a chance to pitch myself and my work to people I meet on the street. Instead, I find myself blushing because I know what I'm about to say is a great big brag (a no-no in Minnesotan): "Yes," I say. "I've had six books published."

Either people are suitably impressed at this point, or suddenly very suspicious. "Really?" They ask, "Anything I would have heard of?" This is where I start regretting my fashion choices. Yet, at the same time I understand what people are really asking, and what I think is at the heart of Michael's question.

Society only values proved success, not process.

I'm only a writer to the majority of strangers I meet on the street ONLY if I meet certain conditions: 1) I've published, 2) I've had my book published by a credible (in the case of the stranger this means THEY'VE heard of them) New York publisher, and/or 3) I can show success via awards won that they've heard of or best seller lists they know of.

However, I think that waiting until you can meet all of that criteria before calling yourself a writer is selling yourself (and the process) short. When I teach, I tell my students that they are writers the moment they finish their first short story or novel. If you're sending stories out and collecting rejections, you're a working writer.

Still, it's hard to answer when you meet someone for the first time and they ask you what you do. When you say, "I'm a writer," and you have another job, no one believes you. (Oh, they're thinking: it's the whole -- I'm your waiter, but I'm REALLY an actor syndrome.) I don't think that this assumption is necessarily malicious (though it can feel that way), instead I think people understand on a gut level that "making it" in our profession is really difficult. But, because it _is_ so difficult, I think the earlier we embrace the title writer, the better we can cope with "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" which is the writing life.

For me, it took joining the National Writers' Union before I could tell people I was a writer. For one, going to meetings of the local chapter meant that everyone I met was also a writer. I didn't have to explain myself or all the ins-and-outs of the writing life about which the majority of the public has so many misconceptions. Once I got comfortable saying, "Hi, I'm Lyda Morehouse. I'm a fiction writer," with my _own_ kind, I found I had less trouble "educating" strangers who turned their noses up the second I said, "No, I'm not published yet."

I wish I hadn't waited so long, but sometimes you have to believe the truth yourself before you can explain it to someone else.

Open Thread

Hello, out there. Anybody home? Anyone have any writing questions they'd like one of us to take a swing at? Any observations or comments? I've got a couple of things waiting in the wings but no time to write them today, and so I thought I'd hang this up here for the moment and see if it collected any interest.

Event!

I'm going to be reading at Dreamhaven on Monday, October 22nd, at 6:30 p.m.

I'm trying to decide what to read. I could read an excerpt from Holy Week, or an excerpt from Castaways, the juvenile SF book I'm writing. (I'm almost done with the first draft. Yay!) Or, I could read a short story. What do people prefer to hear when they go to readings? If you're coming, or might be coming, what would you like to hear?

And anyone who will not be coming but wants to order a signed copy of one or more of my books should visit the Dreamhaven website and let them know, as they can have me personalize it while I'm there.

Inch by Inch

This morning at a ridiculously early hour my four year-old son Mason threw a tantrum. He was working on a 231 connect-the-dot of some castle in Germany and his fingers, which have only just learned to properly grip a pencil, slipped and he drew a line where he didn't intend to. He started weeping uncontrollably, punctuated with angry shouts of, "I can't do this. It's too hard. I should just throw all my dot-to-dots away!"

To be perfectly honest, I've heard this tantrum many times before and at quarter to six in the morning my first response is likely to be to position the pillow tighter over my head and mutter, "Sounds great, honey. Five more minutes." This morning, however, I had a parenting break through. I sat up, bleary-eyed and comforted my child. I told him that it was perfectly natural to be frustrated because when you look at the whole page of unconnected dots it _does_ look insurmountable. Instead, I told him, it might be helpful to break the puzzle down into smaller parts. Just connect a line from one to two. Stop. Then, find three and connect two to three. When you do it like that, it's not such a big job. It becomes do-able.

After a few more tears, he started to believe me. I showed him how I did it -- and if there's one thing Mason can't stand is if someone else is doing something he wants -- so he took it from me, and finished the whole thing.

A novel is a lot like that. When you sit down, as I am, near the beginning the whole thing seems so HUGE. How can I possibly write 500 manuscript pages in seven months? Like the construction of Rome, it takes time. One scene at a time. Inch by inch.

Eventually the dots connect and you're finished and wondering what all the fuss was about.

Quick Hit--Free Books

Kat Richardson, Jackie Kessler, Richelle Mead and some other Urban Fantasy types are having a scavenger hunt. Readers look at all the sites for the answers to the questions posted. Whoever gets them all right (or whoever wins the draw from among those who get them all right) gets signed copies of ALL their books.

King Lear, Ian McKellen, and Character

Last night (as I'm writing this) I was fortunate enough to see The Royal Shakespeare Company's King Lear with Ian McKellen (major props to my aunt Lee for scoring the tickets). W. O. W.!

I have seen many great performances of Shakespeare including several other Royal Shakespeare productions. None of them was in the same league as this one. Lear, Goneril, Edmund, and Kent were beyond extraordinary. Regan, Gloucester, and the Fool were merely astonishing. Everyone else turned in the kind of performance that would have made a scene-steeling star turn in any other company. It was the playgoing experience of a lifetime and the small touches were every bit as telling and smart as the big ones. I'm only going to touch briefly on a few things so as to get to the part where this becomes a writing post.

In two seconds of side business in the opening scene, side business that managed to be the center of attention just for those two seconds without distracting from the main action, Regan established herself as an alcoholic and set up her own poisoning at the end of the play. Ian McKellen somehow managed to give Lear enormous dignity while naked from knees to armpits and wrestling with his clothes in the storm scene. The fool did quite a number of his pieces as singsong while playing a pair of spoons and managed both terribly funny and terribly tragic simultaneously. Kent's exit at the end of the play to go commit suicide was so right and so poignant at the same time that it hurt.

And all of it was in some cases despite the writing. Yes, you read that right. Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers ever to have walked the earth, and in every other performance I have seen, the writing has transcended the acting. Where there have been moments that fell short it was always because the actors couldn't quite live up to the play. In this case, the acting was so good that it exposed the weak spots in the writing. Despite the fact that it was Lear, despite the fact that it is one of the great plays, despite Shakespeare's phenomenal pen, he was outperformed.

Cordelia's performance in particular was positively heroic in a way that exposed the weakness of the part. The actress' Cordelia was outstanding, Shakespeare's not nearly so much. Likewise Edgar, who put into face and gesture things that Shakespeare did not put into the text.

And that is exactly what you want your characters to do in your books. To transcend your writing of them. This is why you want to leave some gaps in description and to sometimes choose to imply things about motivation instead of spelling them out absolutely. So that your actors and set–provided in a novel by the imagination of the reader–have room to do more than you can make them do on your own.

The writer who spells out absolutely everything leaves no room for the reader to make the book their own, and that investment of reader interest and effort is priceless. Of course, you can't make them do too much of the work or you will lose them on the other end. As with everything in writing it is a matter of balance.

Comments? Questions? Rotten fruit?

Smart Things-Copyedits Edition

Deanna Hoak saying smart things on the copyediting process from the point of view of the copyeditor is splendid. It's an older post that I only just now discovered.

Stephanie Zvan's Very Smart Writer's Spreadsheet

My friend and fellow writer, Stephanie Zvan, built a really useful novelist's spreadsheet quite some time ago and I've been meaning to talk it up for ages–with her permission of course. It's a very smart tool for looking at story on a scene by scene basis. Across the top are a series of categories, each with it's own column and description.

The top row looks like this-reading from left to right:

1. Blank
2. Scene Functions:
3. Scene Plot
4. Story Plot
5. Character
6. Emotion
7. Senses
8. Info/Worldbuilding
9. Going Beyond/Literature
10. Blank

The second row has corresponding descriptions for each column. So:

1. Blank.
Scene

2. Scene Functions:
Description (of scene function)

3. Scene Plot
What are characters' immediate goals? What conflicts are set up or resolved?

4. Story Plot
How does this scene advance or hinder characters' long-term goals?

5. Character
What's revealed or demonstrated about characters? Do they grow or change?

6. Emotion
What emotions is this scene intended to elicit?

7. Senses
What senses have you engaged?

8. Info/Worldbuilding
What necessary or cool information is given to the reader?

9. Going Beyond/Literature
What elevates this above narrative? Illuminating metaphor, wicked description, elaboration on theme(s), etc.

10. To Do

The first column then has a list of scenes by chapter running from top to bottom, 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, for however many chapters and scenes are appropriate.

This allows the writer to look at each scene and how many of the goals it meets in an eyeblink and also to do a more in depth analysis of the piece on a topic by topic or scene by scene basis. As a spreadsheet it also allows for the writer to easily expand the number of topics covered.

One could add a column listing all the characters who appear in each scene as a tool to see whether some characters could be merged or eliminated. Or in a novel with many points of view, a column that says who is the POV character for each scene might allow for tying some sense or tag to each character to make sure that is engaged in each scene from their POV.

Please feel free to ask questions about the thing in comments. I'll take a swing at some of them and I imagine Steph will stop in periodically to answer as well.

Upcoming Wyrdo Events

Just a quick note for the local folk:

It looks like fellow Wyrdsmith Kelly McCullough and I will be joining Lois Greiman and Michele Hauf at the Northtown Waldenbooks on Saturday, October 27 from 1:00 - 3:00 pm. The Waldenbooks is located at 212 Northtown Drive NE, Blaine, Minnesota 55434. For directions or more information call: (763) 780-1264.

Going Down That Same Old New Path

I recently started a new novel, so I figured I would put down a few thoughts here at the early stages to go over what I am doing.

As Kelly has said many times on this blog, there are innumerable ways to write a book, and all of them are right. The trick is not only figuring out what is right, but what is right this time around.

I am an impatient writer, which means my inclination is to compose first and ask questions later. Those questions can often be pretty fundamental ones, like, "Who is this character?", "What are his motivations?", "How will he change?", "What is the main conflict?" - you know, niggling little detail stuff. :) I think this is mainly because I write from character. I get a couple of people in my head, see them in an interesting situation or two, and jump in from there. Oh, I have general idea of where things are going, but or the most part I don't see much of the road beyond the next bend in the tale.

This book has been coming to me differently. I had two characters, each originating from a different short story concept, who really seemed to want to be in the same story from different ends. Problem was, they really weren't the kind who would connect with one another, at least as I initially saw them. Furthermore, they were different enough that I had to figure out just what the heck they were doing wandering around, getting in one another's way.

Trying to figure out "why" led to "where" - world building. Before I knew it, I - the character guy - was tinkering with magic systems, multiversal relationships, mythology, forestry, and all sorts of things. This is all stuff I've done before, but usually more on the fly, or at least piece-meal as is comes up in the story, because the characters were busy doing things and I wanted to watch! Not so this time. This time, both of them were waiting patiently in the wings for me to assemble the stage for them, get the lighting right, and start recruiting bit players.

I've gotten a good amount of the "where" down now, but there is still more to do. I have also written the first two chapters because I wanted to get a better feel for each of these fellows. Even though I have been busy with scaffolding and paint (to continue the metaphor), I still needed to see them on the stage and try their lines, if nothing else to better see where they need to go. That is done, which means I can again step back, this time to figure out the "how" (plot) in more detail. Which is also interesting, because I have much of the final scene and last chapter in my head as well - another first for the most part.

Clearly, my process has changed in this latest book (some of it, I admit, consciously on my part). I'm finding it rather intriguing and exciting so far.

So, how do things change from book to book or story to story for you? What stays constant? Does it bother you if you suddenly find that that "constant" needs to go out the window?

Late Entry

In his wonderful screenwriting book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman spends more than a little bit of time talking about Late Entry, by which he means starting the camera as late as possible in any given scene. This, like much of the advice in Goldman's two books on screenwriting–the other is Adventures in the Screen Trade–is absolutely dead on for novels and short stories as well.

Every scene in a story has a beginning and an end. It starts when a character comes into the setting and ends when they leave. This can be made more complex by the fact that most scenes have multiple characters that may or may not enter and leave all at the same time, but is at root the basic structure of scene. But not every scene does or should appear in the story from beginning to end.

A simple example for why this is true might go like this: Character A enters a room. They then spend forty minutes peacefully reading a magazine before character B comes along and starts a dialogue. Several minutes might then go into them exchanging pleasantries about their extended family before a troublesome memory of A doing something stupid at B's wedding comes up. A fight ensues and eventually B pulls out a gun and shoots A dead, then flees the scene.

In a movie, with it's limited time budget, it is obvious why most if not all of the waiting and initial family discussion will not and should not end up being filmed. It's boring and it wastes half of the two hours you have to tell the entire story. The question is where exactly do you start the camera rolling? The answer is and should always be as late as possible for the scene to make sense and show the audience what they need to see. Depending on the story, you might put in snippets of the wait and pleasantries or you might not. You will almost certainly put in parts of the argument (though those might be better brought it in flashback) and you must put in the shooting.

The question of when to leave a scene is a mirror of the Late Entry principle. How soon can you get out while still giving the audience what they need? The answer is: As soon as possible. And the same principle applies to writing a novel or short story. Any part of a scene that doesn't cover something the reader needs to know about should go.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Psst, Reading for Fun is Fine

Today I'm blogging over at SFNovelists on reading and writing for the sheer joy of it. Go have a peek.

The Glorious Life of the Writer

A report from the front lines of the writing life.

So, I was recently part of a booksigning at one the nation's most famous malls, a signing arranged by a major bookstore and including many authors and stacks and stacks of books. Well, stacks of everyone's books but mine that is. As sometimes happens there was a miscommunication in the chain of email. So, for about half of the signing time I was sitting in a corner with no books and no name card.

I did a fair amount of signing anyway because I had folks who'd bought books elsewhere show up and I had a pen. The store did eventually get the copies of WebMage and Cybermancy they had on the shelves and bring them over--we were a long way from the store so this is not as easy as it sounds--and I sold and signed 2/3 of those in the half hour remaining. I ultimately ended up signing 12 books-which is actually pretty good for a signing. It would have been nice to do a bunch of stock signing as most of the other authors did, but stuff happens.

The bookstore was really nice and really apologetic about the whole thing--great folks. It was clearly an honest mistake and I will happily return for next year's version of the event. I was actually more amused by events than anything since at least one signing per book is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster--last year it was golf ball sized hail and a tornado warning. Oh, and we got a Scooba at a 33 percent discount so the shopping part of the trip to the mall was a glorious success and we now have robo-mopped floors in several rooms.

P.S. I'm genuinely grateful to have exchanged the old pre-publication set of writerly problems for this one, but it still wears me down sometimes.

Thoughts on writerly glamour? Snafus? Trading up to a better set of problems? Mopping robots?

Sunday Morning Funnies

Obviously, I spaced yesterday, so I thought I'd post my usual bit of embarassing story starts today instead.

There are a number of story ideas that I've struggled to hang a plot on. One of them is this one. I've always wanted to write a story that would illustrate just how god-awful it would really be to be an empath (particualarly in response to the whole Star Trek thing where the empaths are all counselors who tell you stupid things like: right after you've thrown a plate at their head, they say, "I sense hostility.")

There was nothing worse than being an empath at a time like this, Darcy thought, looking into the smiling eyes of his lover. The noise of the coffee house drifted around them. The loud gush of the espresso machine clashed with the sudden bursts of laughter from another table. The sun streamed in from the floor-length windows and touched Alonzo's olive skin in a way that made Darcy's heart ache.

He knew things were over between them. In fact, he'd known for months. But, what ever it was that kept 'Lonzo coming back was the same thing that kept Darcy in tow. Sipping his coffee, he wished like hell he were a telepath so he would at least know why things were falling apart.

In way, he despised Alonzo for bringing them here. The Café always had a sexual overtone to it because so many of the guys came here after the bars closed specifically to cruise. The palatable lust in the air made Darcy uncomfortable. Despite the distance he tried to keep, he couldn't shield himself completely from the waves of emotion crashing around him. Watching the taut muscles of Alonzo's forearm twich as he stirred his coffee, Darcy sighed.

"Why don't you just take me home?" Darcy said over the rim of the porcelin cup, "Let's turn this serious talk into pillow talk, eh?"

Darcy didn't need to see the look in Alonzo's eyes to know his comments had not had their intended effect. "You always get this way whenever I bring you here," he growled.

Smart Things

Over at SFNovelists Alma Alexander is saying smart things about the getting and keeping of agents.

Don't Drown the Reader in Strange

So in my class last night I talked a little bit about this and thought I'd expand and expound on it here. F&SF is the genre of the fantastic. It is defined by the idea of world not like our own. This can be a world of the future, of the past, of a now that is somehow different from the one we live in, or a world that never has been. We include elves and dragons, cyborgs and starships, magic and technology - indistinguishable - from - magic, and we mostly start doing it on page one. This is what our readers expect and demand and yet....

You still have to give your reader banisters–ideas and terms they can hold onto as they ease into the story. Every time you introduce a strange magical beast or a polysyllabic alien name you need to give the reader context, let them know that a gobbledygook is really basically a dragon with the serial numbers filed off, or that Svbuewioboie is really an engineer on a starship not all that different from starships they've seen in the past. To make a work original and to draw in the reader you have to have gobbledygooks and Svbuewioboie, and whozits and Xzasdxssa as well, but you probably don't want to introduce them all on page one because the contextualization you have to do for the reader is going to kill the pacing.

Spacing out the weirdness is one of the things you can do to help the reader ease into the strange and hopefully come to love it. One other thing you can do is make certain that there's a good reason that your calling a dragon a gobbledygook or a cell phone a WAA (weird-ass acronym) and not do it if you don't have to. "Dragon" is a fine word with all sorts of wonderful history and built-in associations. A phone is an entirely comprehensible piece of technology and unless the specific nature of the phone is really really important to the story there's not much point in calling it a WAA.

Like everything in writing it's a balancing act. You have to decide what strangeness really serves the story and what strangeness is there because it's really cool, and what strangeness should probably be sidelined in favor of making it easier for the reader. At root it's learning how to decide whether the glorious history of the gobbledygook species is more important than not calling a dragon a dragon.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Strategies for how to decide on the necessary strange?

Author Appearance News

So, Lyda/Tate and I will be at MOA on Saturday signing books and hanging out.

Date: October 6, 2007
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Place: Macy's Court, Mall of America

Booksigning and fundraiser.

Midwest Fiction Writers and Barnes & Noble come together to raise money for The Minnesota Literacy Council.

You'll want to take advantage of this rare opportunity to meet so many local authors and purchase autographed books with a portion of the sales going to The Minnesota Literacy Council. Join us on Saturday, October 6 at 5:30 in the Macy's Court of the Mall of America for this once-a-year event. Hear authors read excerpts from their books. Visit favorite authors and discover new authors. Signing will be Midwest Fiction Writers authors Judy Baer, Helen Brenna, Kathleen Eagle, Anne Frasier, Jay Gilbertson, Lois Greiman, Tate Hallaway, Michele Hauf, Emma Holly, Patti O'Shea. Joining them in this event will be local authors Sujata Massey and Kelly McCullough as well as author and creativity coach Eric Maisel.

For directions or for more information call the Mall of America's Barnes & Noble at: 952-854-1455.

Quick Hit-A Different Kind of Interview

Over at Jackie Kessler's blog, Jezebel (yes, that Jezebel) is interviewing Ravirn, the lead character of WebMage and Cybermancy. Jezebel is the star of Jackie's Hell’s Belles. It's fun and silly and it made me decide I need to read Jackie's stuff.

It's Time for Me to Make Production

and write another post, so I will put my thoughts on Lyda's romance post here. I haven't read the discussions Lyda mentions, so I may be off the wall.

There are obvious overlaps between romance and SF, maybe more than between SF and mystery. All three come out of the Gothic tradition. SF shares a love of logic and problem solving with the mystery and shares a liking for the romantic (in its old meaning) with romance. The original name for SF, which I still like, is "scientific romance."

In addition, a fair amount of SF and fantasy is pretty obviously romantic in the modern meaning of the word. I think at once of a lot of Lois Bujold, especially Komarr, A Civil Campaign, The Curse of Challion and its sequel. Bujold has tied some fancy knots in the standard romance plot, but the power of many of her books is romantic.

The same is true of Cherryh's Foreigner series. The emotional power comes from the story of a many times tested romance, though Bren Cameron is in love with an entire species, as well as specific members of the species, especially his two bodyguards, one female and one male. Talk about a tall, dark and handsome love object! Bren has millions!

Catherine Asaro has set out very deliberately to write SF with classic romance plots. My favorite book by her is The Last Hawk, which puts her hero through four or five classic romance plots in a row, only he's in the female role. She does the same thing in Ascendant Sun, a book I find more problematic.

In general, SF romances are written by women, which is hardly surprising, given what many -- possibly most -- women read as they are growing up. I read mostly SF as a kid, but I also read Jane Eyre more times than I can remember and every book by Georgette Heyer I could find.

I am talking here about novels that belong firmly to the SF tradition, by authors with good SF creds.

In addition, it's obvious that a fair number of romance readers are interested in SF and fantasy themes. Romantic Times is reviewing SF; and there are romance sub genres that deal with vampires and time travel and what have you.

I'm not a fan of genre romance, so I can't comment on it. I would not be surprised to find that romance writers make mistakes when they try to write SF. There is often a problem when people outside the field write SF. They haven't read enough; they don't know the rules; they don't know when they need good science and when they can make do with handwaving.

However, a kind of literature that has so many readers must be saying something important. What is it? And should SF writers be exploring this topic or group of topics?

This is pretty clearly a male vs. female issue. In general, it's women who write and read genre romance. I won't go into why women like this kind of story so much, except to note that marriage is an important decision, and in many societies it's made for women. The classic romance is about a woman making her own choice about who she will marry, which is not a bad idea.

Why aren't men interested in finding their soul mate in a society where marriage is by law monogamous and where all the studies indicate that men do much better married than they do single? Who you marry is a huge life decision, much more important than the decisions in male action fiction, which are mostly imaginary decisions, since most men are not professional soldiers or CIA agents or whatever.

What we are seeing here is a response to two facts. There are a lot of women in SF these days, and they are writing what they like to read; and men in general don't read as much as they used to. The male genres -- war stories, westerns, male action of every kind -- are a small part of the market now, though science fiction still manages to produce and sell a lot of male action.

Complaining about romance in SF is ultimately complaining that there are too many women in SF. Too bad. I will get bent out of shape about romance in SF, when men get bent out of shape about military space opera, also known as crypto fascist military bullshit.

P.S. I reread Lyda's post, and it looks as if the complainers are complaining about SF in the romance genre, not romance in the SF genre. I'm going to leave my post as is, except to remark that I see no reason to worry about what happens in romance, unless you are threatened by the size of the romance market. It's not our field.

Knotty Words

In response to Naomi's post:

I find it interesting that while Naomi argues that Spanish is a readily accessible language and should be no different in terms of using the swear when writing, that she does, in fact, differentiate in her post--she wrote "sh*thead" and "sh*t", but then also wrote "chinga(s) tu madre" (sic), not "ch*ngas tu madre". To me, that looks like there's some implied value differentiation being made about the "realness" of the swear to the readership--as if people here might not know (or figure out) that the Spanish phrase means "fuck your mother". From the use of "sh*t", I would guess that in English she would type "f- your mother", or "f*ck your mother", so why not treat the two languages equally?

I note this because I think we pussyfoot around language a little too often, and because, as she notes, there are certain languages (and, inherently, their language communities) that are way too common and present to treat as if they are "other"; Spanish is just one example. But why are we uncomfortable typing the swear in English, but free to do so in another language? Or, more to the point--why are we uncomfortable typing them in English?

No right or wrong answers, just an interesting question for thought.

Thoughts on Interviews

One of the best things about going to the Writers of the Future workshop a few years back was when they brought in one of the country's leading PR guys. He taught us how to write a press release (see notes here).

He also taught us how to manage interviews. The single most important thing is, know what you want the interviewer to take back to their readers. Now, it may just be that you want to add to your public persona by just being the professional you and answering the questions in a straightforward manner. But in general, if you're having an interview it's probably because you have a book coming out or something of that nature.

If that's the case, you want to make sure that early in the interview, and preferably more than once, you get those details into play. This is called steering the question. So an answer to a question like "How about those Dodgers?" you might say "Well, in my new book, Cybermancy, I have a scene with Tisiphone and Cerice arguing their favorite baseball teams." The problem with that example is that it's: A. not true. B. heavy handed. C. not terribly funny. Still, it illustrates the point. There are things that you want to get into the transcript early and it's important to have them in your head from the get-go so that you can slide them in as appropriate and mostly more than once.

Beyond that, you should always remember that as an author you are public figure (possibly only semi-public but the difference is one of degree). What do you want your public persona to look like? Are you funny? Modest? Shy? Bombastic? Do you start fires or put them out? Unless you're a very good actor you want to keep these as close to the core you as you're comfortable with, but you do want to think about them and reinforce the face you want the world to see.

It's really just another type of storytelling and if you know that going in and keep it somewhere in your head, it'll make things easier.

Personally, I'm genuinely snarky and sarcastic and also utterly in love with writing. Fortunately, this is a good persona for a writer and I work to reinforce it in appearances. Lots of jokes, mostly at my own expense, but real intensity and love when I talk about writing.

How about you? Any tips or tricks? Violent disagreement with managing your persona? Thoughts on what you'd want an interviewer to take away from a conversation?

A Writer's Index to Making Light

A Writers Index to Making Light (To date: 2001-December 2006)

Not to be mistaken for The Making Light General Index a non-comprehensive topical index of Making Light posts. Nor for James D Macdonald's Excellent Index of Medical Posts. BTW, though there is some material that's gone into both of my indices, there is stuff in the Writers Index that is not in the general index and vice-versa, so the completest would be advised to check both.

This is an ongoing project and readers are welcome to suggest additions (ideally set up in the same format as the rest of the index with link info included) and corrections in comments. At this point I have not put in pointers to particularly useful comments in the threads, though it would be lovely to have them, as the threads are a vital and important source of information and entertainment. As I move forward through time I will continue to update the index, so please stop back from time to time to check and see what has been added. Also, at some point I'd like to add Elctrolite to the mix.

All posts from before May 22nd 2005 are by Teresa except where otherwise mentioned.

The current categories are as follows but are open to suggestions and to change as the project's needs dictate:

Agents
Bad Advice for Writers
Conventions
Copyright
Fanfic
F&SF As A Genre
Grammar, Punctuation and the Copyeditor
Lawsuits
Literary Scams
Misc
Plagiarism
Publishing Industry
Submission, Rejection and the Slushpile
Vanity Press
Whining About Publishing
Writing Craft

Agents

"On the getting of agents". 179 comments Feb, 2004.

Writing Advice. Teresa discuss the bad to some extent and points to some of the good, including a link to stuff she wrote and sent to Neil Gaiman about the getting of agents. I feel compelled to note that there is one thing that I disagree with in the latter, and I would welcome Teresa or someone else explaining to me why I am wrong, because it would reassure me enormously if I was. The advice I don't buy is this: "If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get." I think that 10 years ago, and maybe even 5 this was great advice. But the number of places that will look at unagented manuscripts has plummeted since then and with it your odds of being able to work this trick. 149 comments Jan, 2005.

Bad Advice for Writers

A couple of book on writing F&SF by a bunch of folks who haven't actually sold much...with predictable results. Sigh. 162 comments May, 2005.

Conventions

Absolutely fantastic advice for both the seasoned and novice con-goer. 326 comments Aug, 2004. With bonus Nielsen Hayden World-Con schedule content from Patrick plus thread discussion of how that sort of thing works. 147 comments Aug, 2004.

Publish America does actual service, by generating this thread wherin there is much of use to writers on how not to behave at cons. 133 comments Nov, 2005.

"How to throw a large room party at a science fiction convention." Teresa's manual for same. Indispensable tool for the pro or fan looking to run a room party. 253 comments Aug, 2006.

Copyright

A whimsical take on poor man's copyright (mailing a copy to yourself and leaving it unopened) and it's pretty much complete lack of effectiveness beyond the strictures of copyright already provided from the minute you set stuff down on the page. 36 comments Sep, 2005.

"The life expectancies of books. An essay on shelf life, afterlife, immortal prose, and how that interacts with extension of copyright to ludicrous lengths. Immortal books are very very very rare, and not a good model for law. 235 comments Jan, 2006.

Perpetual copyright, a perpetually bad idea. 348 comments Feb, 2006.

Fanfic

Star Wars fanfic writer makes grave copyright error and publishes and attempts to sell unauthorized novel-length Star Wars fic. 211 comments Apr, 2006.

Teresa commenting on the nature and (very long) history of fanfic. Very smart stuff. 893 comments Apr, 2006.

F&SF As A Genre

Defining Speculative Fiction and other genre thoughts. 0 comments Dec, 2001.

Science Fiction Experience being built in Seattle or SF goes respectable. 39 comments Apr, 2003.

Michael Berube lays the smackdown on Harold Bloom in re: Harry Potter and literary snobbery. Heh. 168 comments Jun, 2004.

An F&SF primer for beginners–Yes Mr. literary reviewer, those zombies really are zombies. No, not metaphors, zombies. really. It's not that hard to figure out. Oh, come on. 399 comments Aug, 2005. And as a bonus follow-up post in the same vein, Teresa's introduction to New Magics: An Anthology of Today’s Fantasy. 98 comments Aug, 2005.

"The Visual Index of SF Cover Art" Just what it sounds like. Go look. 41 comments Nov, 2005.

The tension between the fantastic and the quantifiable in F&SF. 232 comments.

John M. Ford on the non-predictive nature of SF. 113 comments Aug, 2006.

The Common Fantasy Tongue is created. 50 comments Nov, 2006.

Grammar, Punctuation and the Copyeditor

Don't blame the copyeditor. "inter-ballistic missile" and other follies. 89 comments Jan, 2003.

Diagramming Sentences, or Visible Grammer. 26, comments Jan, 2003.

Copyediting post. Teresa on a not very good copyeditor's blog. Much of interest in the thread that follows. 167 comments Aug, 2003.

Excerpt from on Onion post on copyediting the great American novel and Teresa's reaction to same. Fun stuff. 49 comments Jan, 2005.

Better bad sentences, a Bulwar Lytonesque contest that better reflects an editor's sense of the disasters in the slush pile. 103 comments Aug, 2005.

"Phonetic near-misses" a long list of things like "passed history not with standing." 464 comments May, 2006.

Lawsuits

"Shameless rights grab by Marvel and DC" "trying to push the idea that they’re joint owners of the term super hero." 54 comments Feb, 2004.

"Harlan and the pirates" The AOL case. 58 comments Jun, 2004.

Literary Scams

The Quest: "to write a poem so awful that that perennial scam, the International Library of Poetry contest, will turn it down." The result "Wocky Jivvy, Wergle Flomp" or it's just not possible to be too bad for these people to take your money. 28 comments Jun, 2003.

When you've been scammed by a phony publisher...what can you do about taking back your publishing rights or some facsimile thereof...It might go a little like this, or so says Teresa's anonymous correspondent. Built out of a PublishAmerica flap. 64 comments Jun, 2003.

A new variety of vanity press publishing scam. Simple version: expensive books and low production costs = writer buying copies of their own work for a big markup. There's a lot more to it. Worth a look. 286 comments Jul, 2003.

A literary scammer busted by the Mounties. "Prose and Cons". Links to several useful sites for authors looking to not get conned. 64 comments Nov, 2003.

Manucript on ebay. First time author meet AuthorHouse. Scammers who prey on the dreams of writers make me want to throw things. 372 comments Sep, 2004.

Linguistic markers for publishing scams. A thorough dissection of advertising language and how to spot a scam publisher. 290 comments Sep, 2004. Round two, more linguistic markers. 79 comments Sep, 2004.

Publish America and Atlanta Nights. For those unfamiliar with Atlanta Nights, it's an intentionally awful novel written in collaboration by a bunch of SF and fantasy writers as a sting operation aimed at PublishAmerica. According to Teresa "...it’s also a meditation on the many ways a novel can be bad." 227 comments Jan, 2005. There is a follow up post on the topic here. 193 comments Jan, 2005. And another, including Teresa admitting to chapter 15. 81 comments Feb, 2005.

More Atlanta Nights including Free homework on same. Oh my. 82 comments Apr, 2005.

By the careful application of one scam as club with which to slug another over the head Teresa has concocted a poem that passes the Wocky Jivvy, Wergle Flomp test for failing to be picked up be the International Library of Poetry. Wow. Go Teresa! Hysterically funny riffing on the Nigerian email scam. 314 comments Jun, 2005.

Martha Ivery goes to jail and the world is slightly better place. Who is Martha Ivery? One of the worst lit agency scammers in recent history. 25 comments Dec, 2005.

The Screenplay Agency and fee charging scams, an analysis. 94 comments Feb, 2006.

"The perfect uselessness of Warren Whitlock" A truly dizzying mix of literary and general scammer and purveyor of bad advice for authors is taken apart in detail. 261 comments Mar, 2006.

Teresa singles out Barbara Bauer as the "Dumbest of the Twenty Worst" agents when BB starts throwing around legal threats. Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware posted WB’s list of the 20 Worst (literary) Agents, one of whom (BB)decided to stop into various venues on the web, which has the side effect of drawing all kinds of google juice to her place on said list. 124 comments Apr, 2006. The action continues when BB mistakes Making Light for an official Tor website and threatens legal action against Tor's parent company. 75 comments Apr, 2006.

"Tina Adams wants to sell you something"...bad advice on writing romance. A selling the sekrit formula for success scheme. As usual with these things Tina hasn't ever actually had any of the success she claims to sell. 133 comments Apr, 2006.

Absolute Write, a leading site for information on writing and publishing, is temporarily shut down by complaints from Barbara Bauer about her place on the 20 worst agents list–see posts above for details on BB and the 20 worst. 898 comments May, 2006. With follow up on salvaging data from the old site for the new one. 239 comments May, 2006.

Airleaf Publishing. The latest incarnation of Bookman Marketing a scam publisher that preys on author hopes. 263 comments Nov, 2006.

Teresa posts on new YADS* website which is an online forum ostensibly designed to bring new writers to the attention of editors, but really a content generation machine that uses aspiring writers as fuel. Amateur writer will critique other writers--which is actually a great way to get started and publishing professionals won't get anywhere near it. *For more info see writer beware on manuscript display sites. 123 comments Dec, 2006.

Misc

Aboriginal Magic and Movies. A set of "rules" for how it will affect plot, etc. 26 comments Nov, 2002.

Collective and collaborative art a discussion centered on Japanese prints--ukiyo-e. 12 comments Jan, 2003.

A Mary Sue generator. Oy. Also found in "Mary Sue" 9 comments Mar, 2003.

"Varieties of insanity known to affect authors" Hilarious list of author neuroses. 197 comments Dec, 2003.

Teresa finds out that the 3rd edition of Making Book got made from the wrong copy. A painful reminder that bad things happen to good books. 87 comments Feb, 2004.

Literary Life Cartoon Links from the Guardian. Very funny stuff. 18 comments Apr, 2004.

The intersection of Publishing and Politics streets. On George Bush, the culture of motivation, and doubt. Observations rooted in seeing a lot of writer responses to rejection. 222 comments Oct, 2004.

"Jeff VanderMeer dreams of Tor" Literally. And yes, it's as strange as it sounds. 51 comments Mar, 2005.
The birth of a new SF movement via David Moles: Infernokrusher! 156 comments Jun, 2005.

Book Expo America and the Tor Giant Weenie Suit. A publicist's work is never done. 75 comments Jun, 2005.

Some notes on the PR industry as a driver of news and culture. Interesting from both a general cultural perspective and from the point of view of a writer interested in publicizing their own work. 77 comments Jun, 2005.

"Fiction scientifique" The 2005 Hugo awards scrip. Fun stuff. 10 coments Aug, 2005.

On Tim Clare, and “Everyone Does Not Have A Novel Inside Them” 164 comments Aug, 2005.

Life is a really strange place. Teresa comments on the "Bay Area public access cable show called Fantasy Bedtime Hour. Each episode is the same: two bubbleheaded and ostensibly naked girls, Juliana and Heatherly, lie in bed and read a four-page selection from Stephen R. Donaldson’s Lord Foul’s Bane, then try to figure it out." I'm dumbfounded. 90 comments Sep, 2005.

Everything I need to know about survival in a fantasy landscape I learned from traditional folk songs, or something like that. 400 comments Sep, 2005.

Plagiarism

A couple of posts on the plagiary of a student at the University of Kent: Part one. 112 comments Jun, 2004. Part two. 93 comments Jun, 2004.

Publishing Industry

From the annals of a Harry Potter infringement case. Has lots of stuff on obscure corners of the publishing industry. 11 comments Sep, 2002.

Four Theories. See #3 on the neverending flow of people who don't understand publishing but believe that they do. Precious for the phrase "editorial ronin" among other things. 63 comments Feb, 2003.

Teresa talks about Back Yard Publisher, and "interesting misinformation" and in the process gives much genuine information on publishing, printing, etc. 71 comments May, 2003.

A link to an article and discussion of self publishing and vanity publishing with discussion of same. 35 comments May, 2003.

Absolutely fabulous post on how books sell. Halo effects, Harry Potter, and books as advertisements for other books, among other things. 87 comments Jul, 2003.

A history of typesetting post. Cool stuff. 68 comments Jun, 2004.

Teresa talking about what "may be the single most staggeringly wrongheaded essay about typography I’ve ever seen" The democratization of the font making process-the horror, the horror. 43 comments Jun, 2005.

Epublishing, Cory Doctorow's creative commons experiment and Patrick speaking on same. Interesting stuff. 33 comments Jun, 2005.

In publishing non-fiction/=true, an industry oriented discussion in light of the James Frey mess. 242 comments Jan, 2006.

F&SF models and the ever changing world of style. From the Tor art department, don't forget to update your models. 106 comments Jul, 2006.

Amazon allows comments on reviews, or, as Patrick puts it "The End of Author Productivity In Our Lifetime" What a really bad idea. 103 comments Sep, 2006.

In response to the WSJ Teresa talks about the non-bestsellers part of the book biz. In which she coins the term okaysellers and dispenses much wisdom on publishing. If you are a writer you should read this. 129 comments Oct, 2006. You should also read the follow up post which continues the discussion. 64 comments Oct, 2006.

"“Doctor Who” Explains Modern Media Consolidation To You". Satellite Five episode. Woot. 115 comments Nov, 2006.

Submission, Rejection and the Slushpile

Cover Letters. The good, the bad, the bizarrely misguided. 60 comments, Oct 2002.

Random _blank_ generators and a note on catching the eye on the slushpile. 16 comments Mar, 2003.

A quite charming "what ever happened to my book" note. 67 comments Feb, 2004.

"Slushkiller". Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the slushpile and rejections. Indispensable reading for the would-be publishing professional with tons of useful commentary in the comments. 750 comments Feb, 2004.

"Bad Advice on Cover Letters. Really bad advice thoroughly dissected. 129 comments May, 2004. with a follow up in which the man giving the bad advice attempts to defend himself–rather painful to watch but quite instructive on subjects such as threatening lawsuits without legal grounding. 411 comments May, 2004.

TOR and the IRC heap. That's International Reply Coupons, and what happens to them if they aren't dealt with regularly and promptly. If you've ever snail-mailed a submission to a foreign publisher this is worth a read. 62 comments Nov, 2004.

Slushpiles and the naming of names. Short form: Be careful what you call things. 216 comments Jun, 2005.

A decisive takedown of the the old standard “test,” where someone retypes a published book and sends it around to various publishers and agents. To what should be no one’s surprise, it’s rejected all over town. 151 comments Jan, 2006.

Vanity Press

The Writers' Collective–just another vanity press. 386 comments Jun, 2004.

PQN (Print Quality Needed) as the latest iteration of attempts to make vanity publishing sound like it's something else. 61 comments Dec, 2005.

Author House guilty of publishing libelous material. This is what comes of not actually reading your vanity press material before publishing. 22 comments Aug, 2006.

Whining about Publishing

The death of the independant bookstore an installment of National Whine about Publishing Month. 238 comments Mar, 2004.

Link to a Salon article in which much whining about publishing happens despite the fact that the author's doing a hell of a lot better than average. Color me appalled. Live link. 153 comments Mar, 2004.

Writing Craft

Plot tricks...or the evil overlord devises a plot. Silly/useful plotting exercise. With follow up plot generator post. 49 comments June, 2002.

Reviewing Fiction. 22 comments Jul, 2002.

On writing Genre fantasy. 147 comments Oct, 2003.

"Elmore Leonard’s ten rules" Teresa says "If there’s a better set of rules for writers, I don’t know it. Read this, it’s good for you." Her link was broken here's a current link. 147 comments Feb, 2004.

Advice from Stephen King's National Book Awards acceptance. Truth in writing and a defense of genre among other things. 75 comments Feb, 2004.

Scalzi on writing. Lots of good, acerbic advice. 83 comments Mar, 2004.

Fanwriting and prowriting, slash and squick and squee. A link to and discursion on a livejournal post on the resonance of slash--"sex, power issues, identity issues, physical or emotional violence, revelation, transformation, transcendence, violent catharsis..."etc. Much useful discussion of writing to be had here. 278 comments Dec, 2004.

When suspension of disbelief fails. A note on losing your passion for a book. Good stuff for both writer and readers. 240 comments May, 2005.

Art and dogma. Writing to a manifesto, maybe not such a good idea. 62 comments May, 2005.

Writing Advice. Teresa discuss the bad to some extent and points to some of the good, including a link to stuff she wrote and sent to Neil Gaiman about the getting of agents. I feel compelled to note that there is one thing that I disagree with in the latter, and I would welcome Teresa or someone else explaining to me why I am wrong, because it would reassure me enormously if I was. The advice I don't buy is this: "If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get." I think that 10 years ago, and maybe even 5 this was great advice. But the number of places that will look at unagented manuscripts has plummeted since then and with it your odds of being able to work this trick. 149 comments Jan, 2005.

Michael Swanwick Clarion Stories as retold by Teresa. "writing is a matter of finding the appropriate balance of dinosaurs and sodomy." A trick played on Gardener Dozois who taught after him? Or valuable writing advice? Your decision. Go read it. 116 comments Oct, 2005.

"The Defence of Duffer’s Drift" Patrick links to an online copy of same. Excellent introduction to the basics of combat and tactics for writers. 15 comments Nov, 2005.

Fantastic post linking to an article on “Economy and efficiency as motivations in fiction”. In essence it talks about the problem of the evil overlord and the really inefficient mechanism for achieving his plans, and applies the argument much more broadly. Teresa adds a great discussion of why this happens. Go, read the whole thing. It's really useful. 388 comments Jan, 2006.

Teresa highlights "Keith Snyder on Novels in Progress" an absolutely priceless post on how to write and revise a novel. Must read. 87 comments Dec, 2006.