throw another bear in the canoe

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Go on, ask me a question.

confidential to megmccarron: I am a lesbian today. I am wearing a purple flannel shirt.

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suzilem: One of the best things about the show, really. Although I also love the fact that generation X obviously has enough money to interest the sponsors, now, because there is a sudden proliferation of twenty-and-thirty-something geek-chic and/or gothtastic characters on television.

MY PEOPLE!

airlight: The Doctor and I are on hiatus until the book is delivered. There was a break entrained by WisCon, and I haven't gotten around to catching up the last four episodes. I'll watch them in the fall, I suspect. (And hope they improve. I really want to like them.)

colomon: assuming that obtaining the relevant issues of Interzone is a challenge (which I realize, for many North Americans, it kind of is), the current best solution is probably to hold your breath for about a year and a half. There is an Unsubstantiated Rumor that a collection of the Interzone Abby Irene novelettes ("Wax," and "Wane,"), the forthcoming Subterranean Don Sebastien-and-Jack Priest novella ("Lucifugous," and oh I love that title with the loff), and three (or four, if I decide to include the first Abby Irene story, "Almost True," which is currently relegated to Grotty Trunk status) more short pieces is in the works.

The remaining three stories are all started--"Chatoyant," another Sebastien-and-Jack novelette (which will have Abby Irene in it, as well), "Paddareen," which is an Abby Irene novelette and will probably have Sebastien and Jack in it, and "Les Innocents," a novella which should, in fact, tie the whole thing up, including the over-plot.

None of these stories are sold to anybody yet (they aren't written, after all), but if this comes together, "Les Innocents" at the very least (And "Almost True," if I decide to include it) will be unique to the colection.

This is all vaporware at this point, though.

roane: Yes.

callunav: No, not really. If I want to talk about personal things, I pretty much do. But my life is very boring.

ratmmjess: Lilian Jackson Braun

lnhammer: Ooo. That's a poser. And I don't know if I can commit to just one. I love modern sonnets: Millay, Frost, and so on. I love some Housman--"Stars," is such a perfect little poem--and I love Dylan Thomas, the crash and rhythm of his words.

And of course, I adore Marlowe and Jonson--all in very different ways. (Shakespeare I more respect; he doesn't get drunk on language the way the folks I really dig do.)

But, just one poem? The best poem I've ever read?

I don't know.

davidlevine: depends on where I'm wearing them. *g*

copperwise: overworked, underslept, and travelling too fucking much, but generally happier than I have been in years.

tamnonlinear: Yes.

rachel_swirsky: Well, the entire three and a half years of this journal to date is pretty much about just that. I'm not sure I can boil it down any more than that--other than, I read a lot, I talk a lot, and I try to keep my eyes peeled. When something strikes me as interesting, I stick it in the back of my head, keep thinking about it, and wait for it to click in with other things.

Ray Bradbury recommended stuffing your head with everything--fiction, nonfiction, pop culture, long walks down city streets. Everything. It all comes in handy. Notice things. Observe. Scribble.

The story idea generator is like any muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Creativity can be trained.

handworn: the peregrine falcon. Or is that off earth? I mean, do you mean terrestrial animal, or terran animal?

razorsmile: Unfortunately, I never know much about the plot of a book before I write it.  And this one hasn't even generated a protagonist yet; just a setting.

Ideally, though, to adhere to its antecedents,. it should have one protagonist, and maybe a single-POV narrative. Which would make a change from the ensemble books I've been writing, recently.

I can post a couple of quotations I'm looking at for the flavor of it, though, and two or three snippets that I wrote to give myself the flavor of it, though--although I doubt very much that this will make it into the final book.

( Collapse )

That's all quite rough and terrible; I'm just getting a feel for my options. *g*

dsgood: I think almost exclusively in words or physical sensations. I can't remember, for example, the image of a person's face or the sound of her voice; what I remember is a description of it.

Sometimes I think in emotions, which to me are the same as physical sensations.

anghara: In Semagic, you screen comments by setting them to "screened" under the "screen replies" control. *g*

This novel? It's not helping me. As evidenced by the fact that I just spent four hours playing flash games and answering people's comment-screened questions. *g* I really need to write the next scene now, however. More coffee!

And I need to come up with good neologisms for "probability pollution" and "probability engineer."

Writing is hard.

a2gemma: ooo, tough question.

In terms of a practical application of skill? Learn to write; I'll never be done with that one.

In terms of life? Learn that sometimes the only way to get something I really want is to admit I want it, and then go after it, and permit myself to be vulnerable. Learning that if I'm not falling off, I'm not riding hard enough.

Admitting I want something badly is very, very hard for me. Because as soon as you care, it becomes a weapon that somebody can use against you. And also, sometimes, Hollywood aside, you give something your absolute best, and you still fail. Or you're just not very good at it. Or it turns out that you went after the wrong thing and when you get it, it turns to ash.

And that's okay, too.

Fall down seven times. Get up eight.

revenna: I'm a fan, but I'm not really active (by my standards, anyway) in any fandoms, and I don't read a lot of fanfic. (Some, I do, certainly: I have friends who write nothing else, and I read their work when I can. A couple of them even let me critique. Sometimes more than once. *g*) I hang out with the MfU people a bunch; they're a good crowd and were very welcoming and helpful when I was working on One-Eyed Jack, and a lot of those friendships have lasted. I also have a lot of fans in SF fandom and Amber RPG fandom.

But I don't SMOF, and I don't really contribute to 'zines (sometimes, when specifically asked, I do), or write much in the way of formal criticism.

I'm a loudmouth with no accountability, in other words.

Progress notes for 11 June 2006:

Undertow

New Words:  1,342
Total Words: (actual / ms) 65,821 / 75,750
Pages: 303
Deadline: August 1
Words per day to meet deadline: 475
Reason for stopping: Time to eat. And watch some bad '80's TV.

Three quarters of a book. Are we THERE yet?

65,861 / 100,000 (65.9%)

303 / 400 (75.8%)

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Stimulants:  darjeeling and carrot juice
Exercise:  none! I am the slug!
Mail: nomail
Today's words Word don't know: infantilizing
Mean Things: André just got his ass kicked by his big sister. Poor André
Books in progress: Martin Cruz Smith, Stallion Gate; Jay Lake, The Trial of Flowers
Interesting tidbits: proprioception

and I'm realizing that I probably shouldn't do this, because it is revealing to me again exactly how much my childhood loff for Ralph !Hinkley informs several of my male characters.

Like Gabe, and like Matthew.

Sometimes it's better not to recognize our own influences.

Also, thank you, leahbobet, for the Ukrainian werewolf song. Because the bloody Ukrainian werewolves needed the help.

As if I hadn't already promised them their own book.

As if they weren't already staking a claim on Patience & Fortitude.

Oi.