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Gleeful Exploration

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Apropos of my recent comments about Miss Fisher I feel it only appropriate to link to new fan fiction by the esteemed Mary Robinette Kowal. Her short story is a delightful combination of Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries:
A Study in Serpents

“I’m dreadfully sorry to intrude like this, but we are in need of some particular expertise.” She turned, silk flowing around her and gestured to the Detective Inspector. “Would you mind terribly looking at a specimen, Lady Trent?”

While you’re exploring fanfic, you may also want to enjoy Marie Brennan’s take on Mary’s Glamourist Histories, in which she explores the uses of glamour for representing classical mythology and, well, what else? Genteel (very, nothing explicit to see here) porn, commissioned by none other than Lord Byron:
A Classical Education

“The delicacy is really quite remarkable. Just the faintest hint of a blush across her face and her — ah –” She faltered, then forged ahead, knowing there was more than a faint hint of redness in her own skin. “A student of lesser skill would have left her looking like a tomato.”

Both of these pieces were born with off-hand comments and laughter, followed by quick and gleeful explorations of another world. Delightful, and a good lesson for writers of all stripes.

Have fun if you possibly can:)

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My New Crush: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 10, 2015| 1 Comment »

My new crush: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

What: Australian TV series set in the 1920s, featuring a murder-solving “Lady Detective”… which doesn’t really capture it at all:)

Where: Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Netflix (and elsewhere, including my public library, but Netflix works for me). Season 3 recently aired on Australia’s ABC TV.

Why? Because Reasons!

  • The series is based on the books by Kerry Greenwood, and because each episode (at least those I’ve seen to date) is based on its own book, the plot and character arcs tend to be layered and complex.
  • It features a woman (played by the fabulous Essie Davis, interviewed about the series on NPR) who is not afraid of action, bucking authority, family planning, sex, crossing racial or class boundaries, believes whole-heartedly in nonjudgmental good works, tolerance, and enjoying the hell out of life.
  • Great mix of characters and story lines, plus incisive social commentary incorporated in an interesting way.
  • I’ve seen the series described as “competence porn” and while I think the lead character could benefit from a few lessons on how to hang on to one’s pistol and the downsides of scaling buildings in heels, I’d have to agree. She always solves the case, rescues herself and everyone else, and gets the gun back. Also, her skills with a grappling hook are impressive.
  • The clothing gets talked up a lot in reviews of the show and while I’m not a fashion devotee, it’s true, the outfits provide a beautiful and fascinating glimpse into Jazz-age apparel. In this article at The Australian, designer Marion Boyce discusses the process of outfitting the series. Fun fact: Instead of using vintage items, most of the costumes were made for the show, in part because modern humans are differently proportioned than they were even a hundred years ago.
  • Insanely catchy theme song🙂

 

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Women in Science Fiction

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’ve come across an interesting new project spearheaded by writer/editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch. As a way to spotlight women writers in science fiction, she is building an anthology for Baen Books of classic stories and more contemporary works, all written by women. She proposed this project as a way to preserve excellent but often underexposed work:

I don’t want this volume to look like something you have to read in a college literature class… I want these stories to be by women, yes, but about anything. And I want them to be rip-roaring good reads.

While I agree the anthology’s working title of “Tough Mothers, Great Dames, and Warrior Princesses: Classic Stories by the Women of Science Fiction” is unwieldy at best, this looks to be a great project overall.

Rusch has also started a Women in Science Fiction website linked to the project, as a way to highlight and preserve women’s history in speculative fiction. The site showcases authors by award nominees, female firsts, and genre, among other categories.

The website is brand new and still a work in progress, and she’s open to suggestions. Part of her goal is to supplement the admittedly limited amount of work she’ll be able to include in the anthology. If you’d like to recommend a favorite female author or story for inclusion, feel free to comment on her Suggestions page.

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The Left Hand of Radio

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

BBC Radio 4 is producing a radio drama of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The BBC is known for its adaptations, including Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens last December. I read a lot of Le Guin as a teen but I haven’t revisited this classic novel in a long time, and I’m looking forward to hearing what they do with it.

Adapted for radio by Judith Adams and released one episode per week, the series has just begun. Find it and supporting material, including a documentary with author interview, at BBC Radio 4.

Each episode will be available for 30 days, so if this interests you, don’t wait!

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The Slow Production of Written Things

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2015| 1 Comment »

Back in the fall, The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy interviewed Patrick Rothfuss about his new book, The Slow Regard of Silent Things. In it, he touches on the details of his writing process, the likelihood that he revises “more than anyone else in the genre,” why his prose sounds like “dark chocolate,” role-playing games and many other topics.

… because we have the ability to have fantastic plots and armies clashing and magic and dragons, it’s easy to leave out other things and one of the hardest ones to do is language.

If you’re interested in the process of fiction, in Pat’s writing, or in why he thinks you might not want to buy his new book, check out the full transcript now posted by the good folks over at Lightspeed.

* As an added bonus, the interviewer describes fantasy and science fiction as “the imagination Olympics.” So true!

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In Defense of Fantasy

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Ursula Le Guin has an interesting piece up at the Book View Cafe blog about Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel The Buried Giant. She has issues with specific elements of the book but the part that caught my attention was the reason she felt compelled to write the piece in the first place.

In an interview, Mr. Ishiguro wondered whether his readers would label the book as fantasy. And, as Ms Le Guin says, “It appears that the author takes the word for an insult.” Regardless of Ishiguro’s intentions, this provides Le Guin with a jumping off point for discussion. Her defense of fantasy is concise and compelling.

Fantasy is probably the oldest literary device for talking about reality.

As she lays out the case for fantasy as more than “childish whims,” I am again reminded that the value of imagination lies not in its escape from reality, but in its distillation of significant questions of life and death, purpose and perils, loss and joy. In short, the human experience writ across the universe.

That’s big. I’d better get back to work.

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SFWA Welcomes Self-Published and Small Press Authors

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Interesting news, and a big change for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

SFWA Welcomes Self-Published and Small Press Authors!
…the basic standards are $3,000 for novel, or a total of 10,000 words of short fiction paid at 6 cents a word for Active membership.

More information is included in the linked article, and full details will be posted at the SFWA site in March. Given the shifting landscape of publishing and the multitude of ways authors now have to reach an audience, this is great news. If you write and are paid at a professional level, you will be eligible for SFWA membership regardless of venue. All the more reason to keep at it:)

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From Annihilation to Acceptance

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

This week there’s a fascinating piece in The Atlantic by Jeff VanderMeer, author and editor, on the experience of writing:

From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Writer’s Surreal Journey: The author agreed to publish three novels in one year—and then things got weird.

In it, the author details the terrors, trials and triumphs that went into the making of his latest series. Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance make up the Southern Reach trilogy, about “a dysfunctional secret agency called Southern Reach and its efforts to solve the mysteries behind Area X, a strange pristine wilderness.”

I’ve had this series on my books to read list and now plan to bump them up to the top. For more on the books, including sample chapters and links to retailers, or on the author, check out the links above.

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New Anthology Free From Tor.com

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2015| 2 Comments »

A new anthology is out for free from Tor.com, and it includes twenty-six of their favorite short stories, novelettes, and novellas from 2014. Tor.com does publish its fiction online, of course, but if you prefer a transportable and handy-to-read format for Kindle, Nook or similar device, you can download the full anthology now for the low, low price of nothing, nada, zip, rien, tipota.

Some of the Best from Tor.com

Enjoy! I know I will:)

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We All Start Somewhere

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the wake of NaNoWriMo, I thought it instructive to point out Jim C. Hines’s new book, Rise of the Spider Goddess. This is an annotated version of a novel he wrote in his formative years. In other words, it is a bad book. And he’s sharing it, on purpose, for entertainment, for edification, and to help other writers recognize that we all start somewhere.

So, fair NaNo’ers (and others), as you review your 50,000+ word opus, do not despair if you realize that the draft over which you slaved is actually really very awfully bad;) And as Jim says in his introduction to the book on John Scalzi’s Whatever:

Writing a bad book is nothing to be ashamed of, because dammit, I still wrote a book. Then I wrote more of them. And with each one, I got better.

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