Posted in Writing, tagged artists, creativity, Fiction, fun, inspiration, Motivation, storytelling, TED talks, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
—Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Perhaps your weekend will be spent climbing Everest or solving cold fusion, but if you plan to spend at least some time facing down a blank page in an effort to write, the following TED talks may be of some use. This collection comes to us via Aerogramme Writers’ Studio and includes a variety of topics and speakers:
I featured #9 in a previous post but there are a dozen other talks too. A baker’s dozen. … Hmm, baking… Perhaps I’ll make something tasty to go along with the above educational material. Because, cookies. Butterscotch ripple cookies, even:)
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged Ann Leckie, awesome, books, Fiction, genre fiction, recommendations, science fiction, sff, spaceships, speculative fiction, writing on February 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
I don’t post book reviews per se but I’m all for recommendations. I’ve just finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and enjoyed it thoroughly. This space opera follows the humanoid remnants of a self-aware starship on a quest for justice. Well-written and beautifully developed, it was an entertaining and unexpected read. Worth reading for the reprogramming of your neural pathways around gender alone, and it’s so much more than that.
Recommended.
Posted in Writing, tagged artists, Chuck Wendig, creativity, Fiction, finishing, Kameron Hurley, Motivation, rejection, sff, work, Writers, writing on January 22, 2014| 1 Comment »
“Persistence.” That’s what my father told me when I asked what it took to succeed in graduate school. Smart helps, yes, but there’s no beating the commitment and perhaps sheer bloody stubbornness that comes with persistence. That advice served me well in academia and elsewhere, particularly when it came to writing.
There are a lot of challenges around writing: the difficulty of learning a skill so complex that the greatest achievement is to make it look simple, the often solitary pursuit of improvement, and “overnight success” that is usually anything but. Kameron Hurley, author of God’s War, has an essay about this topic today on Chuck Wendig’s site. She sums it up well:
Persistence, I realized, was not the end goal. It was the actual game.
Now, I argue for a balanced approach to writing or whatever your project may be, and I’m too attached to my family and my health to sacrifice them in the hopes that will make me a better writer. For me, the opposite is true; strength in one area translates into strength in others. If, as my ever-wise father says, you are willing to persist. That note rings loud and true.
For more on Kameron’s experiences and her long journey to (and eventual redefinition of) “success,” read the full essay here.
Then whatever it is you are working on, finish it.
Posted in Writing, tagged artists, creativity, Fiction, john scalzi, Motivation, sff, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 20, 2014|
John Scalzi has a nice piece up today with encouraging words about persistence in writing… I particularly like this bit:
Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
Will you, as a writer, become like George RR Martin? Probably not. But you might find your own measure of success, so long as you keep showing up.
This last weekend I had an enjoyable time at the Confusion convention, which is no surprise, as I usually do — it’s one of the reasons I’ve gone back to it now for nine years running. I mostly hung out in the bar and talked to writers, doing the usual combination of business talk and complete idiocy, as writers generally do at conventions when they chat with each other.
One evening I talked to a couple of different authors about writing careers and the ups and downs careers have, and how from time to time we’re all filled with frustration with them, especially during a downturn. We all want to be on award lists; we all want to have bestsellers. If those things don’t happen we can wonder if what we’re doing matters much at all. As we were talking about it I came up with a metaphor which I…
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Posted in Writing, tagged books, creativity, Fiction, finishing, nanowrimo, science fiction, Writers, writing, yay on November 21, 2013| 2 Comments »
“Never let perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I just passed 50,000 words on my NaNoWriMo project so I am officially done. Congratulations to the other winners and good luck to those still working!
Now it’s time to get back to… everything else:)
Posted in Writing, tagged awesome, Fiction, submission manager, submissions, The Grinder, work, Writers, writing, writing tools, yay on November 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Insane deadline looming so I wasn’t planning on posting anything today but! I just had to mention that my favorite writing and submissions manager The Grinder has added yet another really useful feature: the Market Response List. It tracks all responses from markets where you have current submissions, and is visible as a tab on the main page, next to Recent Activity and Recently Added Markets. So you won’t waste time clicking through to each market individually, repeatedly, far too often!
Yeah, it’s a version of something Duotrope already has. Only, you know, free. Thanks for all your hard work, The Grinder!*
* Not associated with the aforementioned site, just think they are terrific.
Posted in Writing, tagged books, diversity, Fiction, history, literature, Thoughts, Writers, writing on November 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I’m busy working on a hard deadline so today I invite you to enjoy this great, self-reflective piece on diversity in historical fiction (and by extension, all fictional worlds) by Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s talking specifically about race but the same points apply to gender, sexuality, etc. as well.
Don’t blame the homogeneity of your novel on historical accuracy. That’s your choice, as an author.
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