Sometime last year John Scalzi wrote a post at Whatever called “10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing”. I agreed with pretty much all of it (although Scalzi’s default writing style is more…well, I don’t think even he would disagree with the description “snarky”…than mine). In fact, I agreed with it so much that …
Tag: writing
The shocking truth about the slush pile…
…is revealed by one buried beneath it: It was my first job out of university: I was bright-eyed and idealistic and imagined that I might become some kind of beneficent tweedy sprite, conveying the writing of unknown literary artistes to the masses. By the time I left my job in publishing a few weeks ago, …
Mentors and mentees mingle at McNally Robinson
Some time ago I was selected to be one of the mentors for the Saskatchewan Writers Guild‘s first Online Youth Mentorship Program. I enjoyed it very much. I worked with three young writers, Danita Stallard of Estevan, James Waldner of Biggar, and Arnav Jatukaran of Regina. I had at least one face-to-face meeting with all …
A great literary event in Saskatoon yesterday…
…will be blogged about soon. Watch this space! (Er, well, watch this blog. This particular space will scroll down as I continue to post. But you know what I mean.)
The Nebula Awards…
…have been handed out. These are the awards nominated for and voted on by active members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which would include me (finally!) this year, although I’m ashamed to say I didn’t vote (I simply hadn’t read enough of the nominees)… Novel: Seeker, by Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov. …
When webscabs unite
Bloggasm has an excellent retrospective of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.
"Bad books are an essential part of life"
Praise for bad books from The New York Times: Bad books are an essential part of life, as entertaining and indispensable as bad clothing (ironic polyester shirts), bad music (John Tesh at Red Rocks, Phil Collins anywhere), bad trends (metrosexuality, not using toilet paper for a year in order to “help” the environment) and bad …
Fantasy interruptus
I spent the last week or so writing three “audition” chapters for a book packager looking for an author for a new kids’ fantasy series. They provided a detailed outline, I provided the words. It was a lot of fun, actually, and I really got into it…so much so that, now that my three chapters …
Wikipedia…
…but with monsters! Seriously, Monstropedia looks like it could be a useful source of information, inspiration and procrastination for fantasy writers. It’s a wiki, though, so reader beware when it comes to accuracy. (Via Books, Words, and Writing.)
Internation Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day: The Column
For the past 17 years, my science column (which continues to run weekly in the Regina Leader Post) also ran, at first weekly, then every other week, on CBC Radio’s Afternoon Edition here in Saskatchewan. As of two weeks ago, however, my CBC focus has changed to matters World Wide Webbish.I still write them up …
More technopeasants
Jo Walton (who started this whole thing) is keeping track of some of the other free online offerings for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.
"Tramping alien territory in search of the Fountain of Sales"
In the course of writing about the demise of “plogs” (author blogs attached to books on Amazon), Victoria Strauss pegs something I’ve been thinking, too: In the harsh world of self-promotion, we’re all snatching at straws, reading runes, casting spells, and chasing our own tails, hoping that each new opportunity–websites! Blogs! Plogs! MySpace! Podcasting!–will be …
My latest live walk and vlog
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