Friday, May 28, 2010

Smart Things

A bunch of people saying smart things about writing.

Lilith Saintcrow on the importance of dreaming, and on persistence.

Scalzi on why attempting to punish a publisher for bad behavior by not buying an author usually hurts the author but doesn't much impact the publisher. Lilith Saintcrow agreeing.

Sarah Monette on craft vs inspiration in art.

Judith Tarr on 10 things writers and others get wrong about horses. Very useful this. Also things horse people take for granted. I'm a bit less sanguine on this one as it kind of elides the difference between horse people in a modern culture where horses are an expensive luxury and people who have to use horses in a pre-machine age culture where there is no reasonable alternative, but it's still got valuable and important insights for the fantasy author.

Stacy-Deanne talking about traditional publishing vs. self-publishing, and how much better off you are in the former.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

things writers and others get wrong

Poor research drives me straight up a wall. I go bonkers, for example, when writers get nurses wrong. I grew up in a family of nurses of just about every stripe and was a CNA myself for a number of years.

I had an issue the other day where I realized I'd made a man a father when he was ten years old. Oops. Took me two days to fix. My husband said, "Don't sweat it. Maybe no one will notice." I wanted to beat him over the head with a board with a nail in it.