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Posts Tagged ‘speculative fiction’

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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Mad Scientist Journal

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

I am happy to announce that I will have a story coming out in the Summer quarterly of Mad Scientist Journal. “Just Like [Illegible] Used to Make” originally appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction, and I’m quite pleased that this story has found another venue.

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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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Researching a UFO Tale?

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Want more UFO-logy in your life? Look no further, because almost 130,000 pages of declassified files on UFOs from the U.S. Air Force are now archived and searchable online:

Visit the Black Vault for the Project Blue Book Collection, via io9.com.

Because the truth may still be out there:)

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CC Finlay Named F&SF Editor

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Exciting news via Locus, folks, CC Finlay has been named the new editor at Fantasy & Science Fiction. He succeeds the excellent Gordon Van Gelder, who became the magazine’s editor in 1997 and will continue as publisher.

Will this mean a permanent shift from F&SF’s traditional snail-mail submissions process to e-subs? @ccfinlay sheds some light on the question, and it’s shiny:)

Update: CC Finlay has posted answers to some of our more pressing questions in a new blog post. TL:DR version: e-subs forever! As an international author in favor of increased diversity, this makes me very happy. Also (via Twitter), no simultaneous subs, and currently a minimum 15 days between submissions.

 

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Speculation on Writing Speculation

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Someone asked me why I write fantasy and science fiction. Even better, the question was posed with the sort of genuine interest and curiosity everyone hopes to hear in a personal question that holds meaning. I gave an involved answer that I won’t repeat here because I’m going to give you a better one:

It’s what I love. So that’s what I do.

It’s that simple, and that complicated:)

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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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