Love in Dark Settings

"Because you were talking about being new and everything, I am sort of trying to nurture your posting process and draw you out the way people were nice enough to do to me when I was new and terrifed, so you keep posting forever and ever and ever . . .

"(only unfortunately my version of subtle nurturing and tactful drawing-out is 'OMFG C'MERE EVERYBODY COME LOOK AT THIS OMG SQUEE!!')"

--Maculategiraffe to fellow writer Mydonald.


How I reply to comments at this blog (usually).


First the dull stuff:

( What I did for my Muse recently )

( My New Year's resolutions )

And now the really good stuff:

( Links related to my writings: fanfic, fan art, reviews, and a new essay by me )

Sorry, guys, I'm still catching up on replying to your comments. I decided to post this now, rather than make you wait forever.

"I feel like sometimes my life is a fanfiction co-authored by Dusk Peterson and Mercedes Lackey."

--J. Albert Rusla.


It took two frickin' weeks to set up my new computer, so here's a quickie, before I go back into writing hibernation on Saturday:

( An illustrated summary of what I've been up to, with a thank-you note to jesse_the_k )

I'm off to spend time with Layle. I'll see you again in late December, when I'll be posting my holiday gift story, which I wrote last summer.

"If shopping at your local Borders is part of your weekly routine, and then Borders is gone, you may end up doing something other than buying books."

--Michael Norris, concerning the impact of the closure of the Borders bookstore chain on the publishing industry.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Continuing to plunge into publishing )

( Done. )

( The Three Lands and editing )

( Work and weather )

( The heat index was 119 degrees in my town today )

( Weather reports )

( A lesson in leatherboy-speak )

( Reviews and recommendations of fiction and nonfiction narratives )

( Other links )

"There's definitely a place for [violence in fiction]. Nobody wants to read books about fluffy kittens making friends with flying unicorns and living without conflict ever after. I just wonder if it's always necessary to give violence as central a place as it usually gets. Violence can be necessary, but it can also be a cheap way of moving things on by having a man come through the door with a gun, violence in place of plot arising from character."

--Jo Walton.

(BBC Radio manages to create excellent audio dramas with tons of conflict and virtually no onstage violence. Maybe us novelists should be taking notes?)

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Darkling Plain and Unmasked - two unfinished stories )

( Why Samuel Johnson was wrong )

( Foodfail and writerfail )

( Thoughts about 'Hell's Messenger' )

( And the composing year ends )

( Book reviews and recommendations )

( Other links )

( Reply to comments )

"Change is inevitable. And, just as we assigned nostalgia to cheap, discarded paperbacks in piles underneath failing bookstores, or to scratchy vinyl records we have to flip to listen through and that had us begging for the clarity and capacity of the CD, the affordances and special traits of e-books will somehow become charming to the next generation. They may remember reading a certain book on a certain device with fond memories, or where they were, or how they discovered the book on Facebook and who recommended it. New interactive formats will deliver a new aesthetic. The human mind will find new ways to embrace stories and how they're told."

--Kent Anderson: Mourning the Printed Book - The Aesthetic and Sensory Deprivation of E-books.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Deadline looms )

( E-book plans for this summer  )

( Nonfiction projects )

( My magic formula for writing regularly )

( I'm still alive (*gasp*); thoughts on the publishing industry's future; Bookshare, Harlequin, and Carina Press )

( Links that might interest you )

"I figured out early on that writing is about failure. Almost 100 percent guaranteed failure. You'll never write it as well as you want, you will always fall short of perfection, a typo will always slip in, rejection is more certain than death and taxes, and, if you are lucky enough to get published, a horde is waiting to happily rake you over the coals. After a while, you build up great layers of scar tissue. At this point, I don't care what anyone thinks except my readers, who are my only customers. And, in a way, they are among my closest, most intimate friends. So why should I care if some scared writer [who condemns self-publishing] tries to apply a stigma? If you're a writer, you should be scared, but if you go around worrying about other writers, you have your eyes on the wrong prize.

"Listen to readers. They rarely apply stigma. The only labels they care about are 'good' and 'crap.'"

--Scott Nicholson.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Dear writer who wishes me to read their book/e-book )

( What writing I'm working on, now and in the coming months )

( In the I'm-so-proud-of-my-boy department . . . )

( Muse Marathon )

( My Muse and my mental health )

( About the Doctor Who episode, 'A Good Man Goes to War' )

( Reply to comments )

"What should one do to report a website that one suspects is in violation of copyright? . . . Seeing I'm the copyright holder and have every right to grumble, no-one's ever done anything more than take the book or story down, occasionally -- very occasionally -- muttering something hopeless and grumbly like 'information wants to be free!' as they do, but mostly being very pleased someone let them know that it was up there.

('No, that's pizza,' I want to tell them. 'Pizza wants to be free. Concentrate on liberating pizza from evil pizzerias. Information, on the other hand, really hates being free, and is never happier than when manacled to a wall, like Kirk and Spock in some piece of late 70s bondage-oriented slash fiction.')"

--Neil Gaiman.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( The Nifty folks continue to arrive )

( My current diet )

( E-book publishing, and my father's thoughts on beautiful book design )

( Locus and e-books )

( Smashwords and Meatgrinder )

( Links that might interest you )

"[Editors who are] used to plowing through mountains of manuscripts find reading digital pages less satisfying: 'It's difficult to tell how far you have to read [and it's] not as satisfying as throwing away pages.'"

--Publishing Trends

How I reply to comments at this blog.

Just a gentle reminder: I posted a thread with a request for prompts for my holiday gift story two weeks ago. So far, I've only received one prompt (which needs to be tweaked if my Muse is to be able to do anything with it).

This is the one time of the year you guys can say, "You never wrote about such-and-such!" and my Muse will pay full attention.


( Worrying about e-book publishing )

( In which my Muse saunters in blithely, as though he had never left )

( And my Muse continues his stunning reversal  )

( Life Prison (with a question for you guys), royal wedding, and 'Sherlock' )

( The results of my pricing experiment this week )

( Reply to comments )

"There already is a gatekeeper for eBooks. It's called 'free sample.'"

--K-Thom.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Read more... )

( A fan's way of avoiding work )

( Layout done )

( A long day )

( Another long day )

( The end of a long week )

"My audience is mostly women in their forties, fifties and sixties. So basically, there's no such thing as too much sex. I try to remember to put a bit of crime in the books to keep male readers entertained."

--Author Jon Loomis, responding to the question of how much sex is too much in a mystery novel.

How I reply to comments at this blog.


( Planning for story submissions )

( Doctor Who and me )

( Another stab against my Internet addiction )

( Doctor Who and my antibiotics )