Posted in Writing, tagged artists, arts, awesome, creativity, David Mamet, drama, Fiction, inspiration, work, Writers, writing on July 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »
QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.
1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?
START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.
LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.
Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged arts, awesome, books, books in real life, entertainment, fun, google maps, harry potter, j k rowling, literature, magic, sff, Writers, writing, yay on July 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Google Maps Street View now features an up close and personal tour through the Warner Brothers version of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley. If that’s not fun for a Sunday morning, I don’t know what is. Thanks go out to the magical imagination of J.K. Rowling, and enjoy!
Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged awesome, Ben Aaronovitch, books, British TV, entertainment, fun, genre fiction, sff, Tor.com, tv, Writers on June 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant Series Optioned for UK TV Adaptation | Tor.com
Author Ben Aaronovitch’s hugely successful series of urban fantasy/police procedural novels featuring a copper who becomes a trainee wizard with the Met is to become a TV series in the UK.
As someone who likes well-written books and entertaining, thoughtful television, this is good news. We’ll have to see how the final product comes together but in the meantime, if the above description sounds intriguing and you haven’t already found Aaronovitch’s series, I suggest you start with the first book, Rivers of London.
This Tor.com-enabled lunch break is now over; I now return to my regularly scheduled work program!
Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged artists, arts, books, cory doctorow, creativity, david foster wallace, fun, funny, genre fiction, j k rowling, joe hill, literature, ray bradbury, sff, work, Writers, writing, yay on June 22, 2013| 2 Comments »
I was feeling a little blue and I was looking for something on the internet to cheer me up and Warren Ellis has a post on his tumblr pointing to a website, I Write Like, so I thought, oh, hey, why not? Warren got David Foster Wallace; I was thinking, huh, maybe it’ll tell me I write like John Steinbeck! Hell, maybe David Mitchell!!!
Thanks to the above post by Joe Hill I’ve discovered an entertaining website called “I Write Like.” Unlike him, however, my stylistic tendencies seem to be more varied. Depending on the story, I apparently write like Cory Doctorow, J.K. Rowling, Ray Bradbury, and David Foster Wallace. I think the minds behind the site put this fun tool together to raise writers’ confidence levels; who wouldn’t want to be told they write like any one of the people on that list?
I don’t write like Stephen King, though. Joe Hill’s got that all wrapped up.
Posted in Other, tagged fauna, get outdoors, i should be working, inspiration, Motivation, nature, Thoughts, vacation, work, Writers, writing, yay on June 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »
[written from The Bush, as they say]
Greetings from Northern Ontario, where I sit at a table in a cottage overlooking a broad grey lake. Most mornings the lake sits still and calm, its surface and the encircling hills a chalice in which to hold mist. Like so many others in this region, this lake is surrounded by birch and pine, underpinned by the heavy, flat bedrock of the Canadian Shield. A small grassy lawn surrounds the house, illuminated by daisies and orange hawkweed.
It’s beautiful here, in the stark, almost frantic way of northern climes in summer. The sky warms around five o’clock in the morning and doesn’t fade until almost ten at night. Local wildlife takes full advantage of the long days, and I try to do the same.
Speaking of local wildlife, in addition to the usual chipmunks, rabbits, hawks, etc. I have seen the following in northern Ontario:
It’s raining now, providing me with the perfect reason to stay in and keep working. But even work is better in the woods!
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged artists, arts, books, cancer, creativity, iain banks, illness, literature, Motivation, neil gaiman, patrick nielsen hayden, pnh, Writers, writing on June 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Iain Banks, 1954-2013 | Tor.com
This piece by Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden gives a kind remembrance of author Iain Banks, who died yesterday from cancer. I particularly liked this description of Banks’s personality:
In the social world of British SF, Banks will be remembered as a larger-than-life figure—irrepressible, fearlessly outspoken, a boisterous lover of life’s many pleasures, and given to unsung acts of kindness and generosity.
We might all wish to be remembered so. And as Neil Gaiman says in his own reaction to the news:
If you’ve never read any of his books, read one of his books. Then read another. Even the bad ones were good, and the good ones were astonishing.
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