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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

[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:

  • tortoises (tortii?)
  • loons
  • beaver
  • elk (ok, just tracks, but still)
  • hummingbirds (brave little adventurers from the southern reaches of the continent)
  • wolves (including one gorgeous specimen with russet fur)
  • deer, a.k.a. walking wolf lunchies
  • moose, female or juvenile male, large (hey, it’s a moose)
  • mosquitoes (forget cicadas, these monsters should be the next major food group)
  • It’s raining now, providing me with the perfect reason to stay in and keep working. But even work is better in the woods!

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    Exciting news, I have the page proof for my forthcoming Nature story in my Inbox this morning. What, I forgot to mention that I had a story accepted for their Futures column? I’ve been busy so I’m afraid that fell through the cracks, but that doesn’t mean I’m not thrilled by the prospect, because I am. The proof looks great, and the artwork they commissioned for the piece is just terrific, capturing the essence of the story in one beautiful image. I look forward to sharing it with you soon!

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    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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    In a broader sense, all science fiction prepares young people to live and survive in a world of ever-continuing change by teaching them early that the world does change.… In a more specific sense, science fiction preaches the need for freedom of the mind and the desirability of knowledge; it teaches that prizes go to those who study, who learn, who soak up the difficult fields of knowledge such as mathematics and engineering and biology. And so they do! The prizes of this universe go only to those able and equipped to reach out for them. In short, science fiction is preparing our youngsters to be mature citizens of the galaxy… as indeed they will have to be.

    — Robert A. Heinlein (in “Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction” by Damon Knight, ed., pp. 26-27)

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    The Devil Reads Prada | Colleen Anderson

    I want to send a quick thank you over to fellow SF Canada member Colleen Anderson today. She wrote to Prada to clarify the terms of their writing contest, which happens to have a €5,000 prize. Sounds good, right?

    Sadly, not so much.

    As Colleen makes clear with her post and the attached response from Prada, they are offering a Very Bad Contract. Not only will the winner have to give up all moral rights to their work (but hey, €5,000, right?) but Prada also reserves the right to make up new contest categories, assign winners, and take all of those writers’ rights as well… while paying them nothing.

    Very Bad. As Colleen says, the devil’s in the details.

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    Check out io9’s entertaining new list of classic speculative fiction novels originally rejected by publishers. It’s like a mashup of English reading lists from school and some of my favorite books.

    Just goes to show, eh? Keep writing!

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    I’m still busy, mostly with non-writing work, and that makes it harder to focus on being creative than I’d like. That said, you just have to knuckle down and do it. Even when you’re stuck. Even when your work is hard.

    Queue this quote. As the Harvard article cited below says, Maya Angelou has been a “cook, streetcar conductor, waitress, singer, dancer, editor, teacher, civil rights organizer, and actress” and oh yes, a writer. If anyone knows how to live a courageous life filled with productive creativity, she’s it.

    I realized that one isn’t born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things—in the way that if one sets out to pick up a 100-pound bag of rice, one would be advised to start with a five-pound bag, then 10 pounds, then 20 pounds, and so forth, until one builds up enough muscle to lift the 100-pound bag. It’s the same way with courage. You do small courageous things that require some mental and spiritual exertion….

    I understood early that not everything I did was going to be a masterpiece, but I would try to do it the best I knew how. I’ve listened to an inner voice and had enough courage to try unknown things.
    — Maya Angelou

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    Today I’m going to pass along a great piece of advice from Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn series and many other excellent books. It helps when I don’t feel like writing (or more likely this month, when I think I have too much to do).

     

    “Sit in a chair and write,” Sanderson says.“Ignore this thing they call writer’s block. Doctors don’t get doctor’s block; your mechanic doesn’t get mechanic’s block. If you want to write great stories, learn to write when you don’t feel like it. You have to write it poorly before you can write it well. So just be willing to write bad stories in order to learn to become better.”
    — Brandon Sanderson (as quoted here)

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    Last night I was facing down a story that’s had me stymied for a while, a tedious rewrite I wasn’t sure was going to work. That uncertainty took up so much brain space I didn’t have the energy to actually write. I finally remembered that the best way around that sort of questioning is to turn off my critical brain, or at least keep it busy in another room. So I put on some music, loud, and sang along while editing.

    That’s how I finished my dissertation. Something about the singing ties up my internal editor; he’s too busy trying to get the song words right to nitpick over the written words. There’s probably a neurological explanation for this but whatever, it works for me:)

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    You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.
    — Dr. Seuss, in “On Becoming a Writer,” The New York Times, May 21, 1986

    In related news, I just got a terrific rejection. Yes, acceptances are great but there is a lot to be said for a rejection that offers praise while pinpointing the one thing that’s problematic. I’ve been asking myself what was missing from this piece for months and now I know. That’s helpful in terms of this particular story but also for future work over the long term.

    So thank you, Every Day Fiction submission readers, for doing what so many markets can no longer take the time to do: provide useful feedback.

    Onward!

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