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Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

Went Fishing

Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Had fun fishing. Thought up lots of story ideas while trolling the lake. Did not fall in.

Non-typical wildlife observed on this trip:
— a black bear galloping across the road
— loons and loon chicks
— Merganser ducks
— one heron, Great
— two Trumpeter swans and their four signets
— deer, grazing
— a fox, sprinting
— lake trout, swimming
— terns and/or gulls, I can’t tell them apart
— a bald eagle nest, but the parents were away and the chick was having a bit of a snooze

Also, I learned that reeling in 550 feet of steel fishing line takes ages and is not for the weak of arm!

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Gone Fishing…

Posted in Holidays, tagged , , , , , on July 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Literally. Time in the great outdoors will be good for all sorts of reasons, and we’ve even had reports of bald eagles nesting near the fishing spot. Have a great weekend!

 

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Museum of Lost Things

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on July 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Ah, Friday! I am coming to the end of this week’s work and so have the time for efforts of a less, shall we say, prosaic nature. My project for this weekend will be to build a Museum of Lost Things.

I imagine it will be just as difficult and interesting as one might expect:)

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Quick Week

Posted in Entertainment, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Canada Day was July 1st and American Independence Day is July 4th, neatly bookending the week with parties and fireworks and associated festivities. Yay. That said, work must be done and so I am a wee bit crunched for time. In lieu of a long essay on the state of the world and/or gracing you with my recipe for meringue, say, allow me to direct you to “The New Provisions,” a story by Adam-Troy Castro fresh out at Lightspeed.

It’s not true, but it’s not all false, either. Enjoy!

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Building Better Strong Female Characters

Posted in Entertainment, Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We’re losing all our Strong Female Characters to Trinity Syndrome

This excellent piece by Tasha Robinson sums up a lot of the problems mainstream storytelling has with “Strong Female Characters.”

For the ordinary dude to be triumphant, the Strong Female Character has to entirely disappear into Subservient Trophy Character mode. This is Trinity Syndrome à la The Matrix: the hugely capable woman who never once becomes as independent, significant, and exciting as she is in her introductory scene.

If you are interested in learning how not to bury your SFC’s light under a bushel, I recommend this article. It highlights on-point questions creatives should ask themselves, like:

03. Could your Strong Female Character be seamlessly replaced with a floor lamp with some useful information written on it to help a male hero?

:p

In many instances, what starts out as an interesting character is hobbled in order to provide the male hero with whatever thing he needs (knowledge, motivation, etc.) to make it to the finish line. There are exceptions, of course, and I’m pleased to say that Emily Blunt’s character in Edge of Tomorrow was one such.

So maybe all the questions can boil down to this: Looking at a so-called Strong Female Character, would you—the writer, the director, the actor, the viewer—want to be her?

Like Tasha Robinson, I loved Cate Blanchett’s character in How to Train Your Dragon 2 and was as disappointed when the role for this supremely kick-ass woman who was willing to live in exile for twenty years to uphold her principles just sort of… fizzled out. I hope to see more from her in a third installment. In fact, I hope to see more Strong Female Characters across the board.

Who knows, one day we might even just call them, oh, I don’t know, “Female Characters.”

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Planet Boredom?

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Planet boredom
On Mars I learned that boredom has two sides – it can either rot the mind or rocket it to new places…

This essay provides a fascinating look at the HI-SEAS (Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) Mars training mission from the inside. Written by Kate Greene, a science and technology journalist (i.e. not an astronaut), the piece gives a great inside look at what a trip to Mars might be like. For speculative fiction writers, this sort of research provides terrific insight into what life in space would actually feel like to those living it.

Short answer? Boring. Longer answer? Sometimes boring can be a good thing…

Find the full essay at aeon Magazine. For more on the pitfalls of life on Mars, you could also check out Andy Weir’s recent novel The Martian.

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On Practice

Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This may be the best advice I’ve given myself all week:

Don’t worry about being good – worry about getting better.

 

P.S. More good advice – don’t run barefoot over these sand dunes in the middle of summer. Ask me how I know!
 

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Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2014| 2 Comments »

Maya Angelou, Poet, Activist And Singular Storyteller, Dies At 86

This is such a loss. And yet…

I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
― Maya Angelou

I still remember finding a battered, much-read copy of Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on my parents’ bookshelf, and meeting her singular voice. That woman knew how to live.

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Nebula Awards Announced

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In case you missed it over the weekend, the SFWA has announced the winners of this year’s Nebula Awards. (You may remember the winner for best novel from an earlier post here at this site.) Congratulations to all!

AncillaryJustice

 

Novel

Winner: Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Nominees:
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

Novella

Winner: ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise,’’ Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s 2/13)
Nominees:
‘‘Wakulla Springs,’’ Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
‘‘Annabel Lee,’’ Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
‘‘Burning Girls,’’ Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/19/13)
‘‘Trial of the Century,’’ Lawrence M. Schoen (www.lawrencemschoen.com; World Jumping)
Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

Novelette

Winner: ‘‘The Waiting Stars,’’ Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
Nominees:
‘‘Paranormal Romance,’’ Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
‘‘They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,’’ Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
‘‘Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,’’ Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
‘‘The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,’’ Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/13)
‘‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’’ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 – 7/8/13)

Short Story

Winner: ‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,’’ Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
Nominees:
‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth,’’ Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers,’’ Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons 1/7/13)
‘‘Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,’’ Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
‘‘Alive, Alive Oh,’’ Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Winner: Gravity
Nominees:
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’
Europa Report
Her
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Pacific Rim

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book

Winner: Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
Nominees:
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
When We Wake, Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Hero, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
September Girls, Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)

Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award: Michael Armstrong

2013 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: Samuel R. Delany  

2013 Special Honoree: Frank M. Robinson

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The Shape of Stories

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on May 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I’m work, work, working this week, getting lots done and I hope you are too. Today I bring you Kurt Vonnegut’s ideas on the shapes of stories, posted by Aerogramme Writers’ Studio with a terrific infographic designed by Maya Eilam. If you are a visual person, like to shore up your understanding of concepts with images, or just enjoy seeing how a great storyteller conceptualizes his work, you may find this useful.

The Shapes of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
― Kurt Vonnegut

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