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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

This year’s Booker Prize winner is (gasp!) a science fiction novel! How fabulous. M. John Harrison won for The End of Everything. I haven’t read it, but now I want to.

Everything you need to know about The End of Everything by M. John Harrison, winner of the Booker Prize 2026

The End of Everything can be read as a thriller, a mystery, a satire, a dystopia, a road novel, a work of realism; whatever the reader is looking for can be found here, albeit told at a slant and with a twist. The book offers something for everyone!

And here’s a piece by one of the judges on reading the contenders, and the strange and wondrous experience of swimming through this uniquely human sea.

Judging this year’s Booker prize taught me our humanity cannot be captured by algorithms and data

The before times have come and gone, and we seem to be moving towards something new, but do not yet know what. In the meantime, people will continue to write novels that will console and enchant, challenge and provoke. My year of reading has shown what a gift that can be.

To consider for your to-be-read list!

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Feels like a good day to make pie. Chocolate pecan pie, to be exact, something I have never made before. Will it turn out? Wish me luck!

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“The arts aren’t a leisure industry—the arts have always been an imaginative and emotional wrestle with reality—a series of inventions and creations. A capacity to think differently, a willingness to change our understanding of ourselves. To help us to be wiser, more reflective, less frightened people. Artists make something out of nothing every day.” — Jeanette Winterson

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Happy Halloween, everyone! In a nod to the holiday, I’m sharing a story from friend and terrific author Arthur H. Manners:

Song of Marzanna, fromTales to Terrify (episode 764)

“Below, the doomed world Marzanna lay shrouded in scorching sulfur clouds, which obscured the bomb cratered surface. It was difficult to believe that a civilization had once flourished there. After four months working around the clock, our funding was almost dry.”

Is it scary! It is! Very on theme today. Listen to it on the Tales to Terrify site or via your favorite podcast app.

Looking ahead, Arthur’s debut novel In World will be published in March of 2027 by Simon & Schuster. I read an early version of the story and can’t wait for it to come out!

The Three-Body Problem meets Annihilation in this epic science fiction novel by an astrophysicist, following an enclave of humans fighting for survival outside an alien megastructure, struggling to decode a cryptic language that will either return them to Earth or help them endure the savage, uncharted center of the sphere.

Yes, please!

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Today, an interesting bit of writing-related history from Moss & Fog!

Why Are Pencils Yellow? The Surprising History of the No. 2 Pencil

Here’s how a lump of English sheep-marking rock, a French inventor, an Austrian pencil maker and a famous diamond added up to the most familiar object on your desk.

True, pencils aren’t all yellow, but many are. The why can be traced back to a luxury pencil maker who named their version after the Koh-i-Noor diamond and exhibited the fancy yellow writing tool at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, which also showcased the Eiffel Tower.

Just a few of the other interesting facts I did not know before reading this article: Henry David Thoreau’s father ran a pencil business, and young Henry was an innovator in the graphite grinding space. Pencils started as boring, unpainted, round shadows of their current glory. And reassuringly, calling it “lead” is rooted in a centuries-old case of mistaken identity. There has never been any lead in pencils.

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“As the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has written: ‘Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It’s designed to save you from having to think.’ Because the brain is naturally inclined to avoid effortful thinking and to rely instead on familiar patterns, complete freedom tends to lead to unoriginal ideas, simply repeating what is known. Constraints push the brain beyond its default tendencies, forcing it to engage in deeper problem-solving. Total freedom, then, is the enemy of creativity, and constraint its companion.” — David Epstein, Inside the Box

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I ran across a bit of writing advice from C.S. Lewis, from letters he wrote in the 1950s:

Advice to a Young Writer – The C.S. Lewis Official Substack

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “more people died,” don’t say “mortality rose.” …

Click through to the full list to see what resonates. Some of these work for me, some don’t (some days background music is very helpful!), but I find them all interesting as ways to think about how to do better as a writer.

I came to this site for the writing link, but also stumbled across an interesting discussion between Stephen Colbert and Greta Gerwig, who talks about her new adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew. This was never my favorite Narnia book, but maybe that will change? Her take on Barbie was an unexpected pleasure, and I look forward to seeing how she reinvents this Lewis story.

Greta Gerwig on The Magician’s Nephew

She talks about when she first encountered the books, how she tapped into C.S. Lewis’s creative instincts, and how she brought his rich imagery to life on the big screen.

Enjoy!

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Maintaining a daily blog is both fun and sometimes challenging. To make it easier to keep up, I have a document with notes and partial drafts that acts as a pantry for ideas.

Sometimes, bits of those drafts become untethered from their original post and float free, like dandelion fluff on the breeze.

And sometimes, like fluff, they become useful in their own right:

I actually disagree with a lot of this, but that’s a me thing. The important part, I would argue, is to know what works for you specifically, and do that. If your art is powered by olde thyme apothecary candy or chocolate mint ice cream or raspberry lemon cake, do that:)

What original concept did I disagree with? No clue! But I think I stuck the landing.

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On writing in genres that some may not appreciate, from a writer (and archaeologist!) whose work spans urban fantasy, steampunk, mystery, history, humor, and romance:

“It doesn’t really matter what people think (loudly, in public), because as the huge number of romance readers can attest, it will not impact your audience reach. We will survive despite mockery at cocktail parties.

If you leave readers with a sense of community and feeling happy? They will love you forever regardless of label.” — Gail Carriger, The Heroine’s Journey

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It’s October, so of course it’s time for the scary and the thrilling. And what have we here? A piece by John Scalzi, sci-fi author extraordinaire, on some of his favorite tales.

Best Sci-Fi Books With Monsters and Other Creature Features

Monsters are in the DNA of science fiction. Right from the beginning, they have shambled forth to represent the folly of scientists, the terror of the outsider and the sneaking suspicion that the actual monsters might not be who you thought they were. Without these creatures, science fiction would be much less interesting — and a hell of a lot less metaphorical. These are some of the best monster books, from the birth of the genre to one of its newest entries.

If you’re the sort of person who likes the scary stuff, enjoy!

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