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Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

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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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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Every Single Thing

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Author Anne Lamott is turning 61 and took the opportunity to write down “every single thing I know, as of today.”

It’s a lovely list, full of the poignant and practical advice for which she’s known. It can be moving and a little sad, as when she touches on the challenges of family and death, but she also brings out useful truths on such topics as the necessity of exercise and writing shitty first drafts, the beauty of life and persistence and the fact that any of us are even here at all.

I especially like #2:
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

The original post was on Facebook, which I don’t use, but you can find the rest of her list and more on her thoughts in this Salon article.

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Creativity in a Cup

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

CreativeCup
Despite the title of this post, it’s not about what you may think. Meet my creative cup.

I pulled it out of the cupboard today because I wanted not only tea but a particular mindset. For that I use a cup.

I can tweak my mental orientation on my own, but like a witch with a familiar I find this task easier with the right tools. I have work cups, I have dessert cups (for chocolate pudding, of course), I have everyday cups and I have fun cups. But this is the original, my first cup with a distinct personality. Also, its own special power.

It may not look like much, at first glance. The surface is a fine textured grey that appears dull in poor light, with an image of pussy willow branches in an understated earthy brown and sky blue. There is a small chip on the lip, just above the handle. It could be any cup.

But it also has a larger-than-normal capacity, good for long days and challenging projects. It has tiny dimples where the layered paint is marginally thicker, enough to provide subconscious grip for tired fingers. The handle is both wide and flat for stability without bulk. It has a thin lip that doesn’t drip no matter how distracted the user. And it was given to me by a high school teacher whose name I can’t remember and whom I’ll never forget.

Many people (and, dare I posit, most writers?) were fortunate enough to have a teacher like this. She helped me explore new challenges, let me design a class when the schedule didn’t offer what I wanted, talked about the world outside of school as if it were a treasure box. She ran at lunch and ate interesting food at a desk by an oversized window, trim and fit with shoulder-length brown hair and a joyfully pragmatic outlook on life. She lent books and awarded class credit for wildcrafting my own dyes, medicines and poisons that would have done a 17th-century physicker proud.

She stayed with our school little more than a year, I think, but that was enough. The night before they left she and her husband arrived at our doorstep, a small wrapped package in hand. A gift, she said, that she hoped would suit. Something to take with me on my path.

I untied the ribbon. I tore the paper. Those are long gone. I still have the cup. When I want invention, when I want off-the-beaten-path imagination, when I need the encouragement to create and the belief that the world is still a wondrous treasure, this is my companion.

I thanked her. I am still thanking her, every time I use this cup.

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Writing Prompt 031615

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2015| 1 Comment »

Today seems like a fine day for another visual writing prompt. The weather here in Ontario is starting to improve but there’s still a great deal of snow outside, and most of what I see is some shade of white. Perhaps that’s why these colorful images appeal to me. Or maybe it is the sense that their surface beauty is a veneer over danger, and a deeper mystery.

Enjoy!

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Sir Terry Pratchett, RIP

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series, dies aged 66

The Guardian reports that Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series and many other books, has died at home “with his cat sleeping on his bed” and surrounded by family. His intellect, creative abilities and incisive sense of humor will be sorely missed.

I think I’ll read Good Omens next, to remind myself of Pratchett’s genius, the power of writing (and humor in the face of the apocalypse), and the pearls we can leave behind if we’re willing to keep pushing ahead.

Addendum: A lot of nice tributes are going up online but I thought I’d direct you to one in particular, Jo Walton’s “Reminiscence” at the Tor.com blog. She says it well: “The writing will live on. Death sucks.”

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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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Take the Map, Leave the Rum

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Gerardus Mercator was born today in 1512. Yes, that Mercator, as in maps, as in one of cartographic history’s groundbreaking creations, the Mercator Atlas. The Mercator projection* displayed latitude and longitude as a grid, which (while causing all sorts of difficulties with pole-proximate object scales that persist to this day**) allowed sailors to plot their courses in straight lines. Sounds like a simple thing? Try calculating where you are, and where you need to go, while tossing up and down on the deck of a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, using hand-held scientific instruments and a flattened, rum-stained ellipse with sea monsters at the edges, then see how you feel;)

In honor of Mercator’s 503rd birthday, I want to point my fellow writers to an article on the right ways (and wrong ways) to build a cartographic history for your fantasy land:
10 Rules For Making Better Fantasy Maps

I particularly like suggestion #3 for urban fantasists; when it comes to understanding city form, it’s hard to go wrong with Kevin Lynch at your side.

Map: a useful distortion of reality.

* For more on Mercator’s process and the social context in which he produced his maps, see this excerpt from Mark Monmonier’s Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, via the University of Chicago Press.

** Check out this interactive puzzle map for a fun demonstration of size distortions.

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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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Writing Prompt

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I have the urge to post a visual writing prompt. If you’re reaching for creative writing ideas, check out this series of three potentially connected images (is it just me, or is there a lot of post-Apocalyptic quest story coming off of these pictures? :):

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