For the next several weeks I’ll be engaged in rewriting a novel, one I thought I’d finished with a few years back. One of the frustrating things about this art is that often you cannot see a problem with a piece of work right away. It sometimes takes months to realize what is wrong, occasionally years. You work your butt off to make it as right as possible and then, a few years and half a dozen rejections later, you read it again and there, in the middle of it (sometimes at the beginning, once in a while at the end) is a great big ugly mess that you thought was so clever when you originally wrote it. …
Category: Writing
The Nebs
The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquet (http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-weekend/) on Saturday evening, May 21, 2011 in the Washington Hilton, in Washington, D.C. Other awards to be presented are the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Science Fiction or Fantasy for Young Adults, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and the Solstice Award for outstanding contribution to the field.
Short Story
- ‘‘Arvies’’, Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine 8/10)
- ‘‘How Interesting: A Tiny Man’’, Harlan Ellison® (Realms of Fantasy 2/10)
- ‘‘Ponies’’, Kij Johnson (Tor.com 1/17/10)
- ‘‘I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno’’, Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed Magazine 6/10)
- ‘‘The Green Book’’, Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine 11/1/10)
- ‘‘Ghosts of New York’’, Jennifer Pelland (Dark Faith)
- ‘‘Conditional Love’’, Felicity Shoulders (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 1/10)
Novelette
- ‘‘Map of Seventeen’’, Christopher Barzak (The Beastly Bride)
- ‘‘The Jaguar House, in Shadow’’, Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 7/10)
- ‘‘The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara’’, Christopher Kastensmidt (Realms of Fantasy 4/10)
- “Plus or Minus’’, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine12/10)
- ‘‘Pishaach’’, Shweta Narayan (The Beastly Bride)
- ‘‘That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made’’, Eric James Stone (Analog Science Fiction and Fact 9/10)
- ‘‘Stone Wall Truth’’, Caroline M.
Blind Spots
It’s almost sacrilege to admit to disliking certain things. People who regard themselves as culturally aware, artistically sensitive, aesthetically sophisticated must occasionally find themselves faced with work that has such apparent popular appeal among those they consider simpatico which they frankly do not care for or do not understand or both. Uttering their honest opinion can be the equivalent of farting in church.
So they suppress that opinion, perhaps nod politely and even go so far as to find some pseudo-intellectual way of understanding the thing disliked so they can at least be seen as trustworthy within their circles. It really is a case of the Emperor’s new suit.…
Schools
I spotted this over at John Scalzi’s Whatever and it brought back some memories.
A woman in Ohio has received a felony conviction for deceptively sending her kids to a school in a district where she didn’t live. Her father colluded in this. The article linked doesn’t go into the reasons she did what she did, but I can imagine some of them, and it would have entirely to do with quality of school experience.
Fifty years ago, my schooling experience—and I phrase it that way because I’m talking about much more than just what you learn in the classroom; it’s a total package, going to socialization and self-image and the whole magilla that a lot of people condemning American public education, depending on their political slant, don’t want to think about—was in the process of being thoroughly fucked up. …
A Little Bit About Writing
I’ve been nattering on about politics and related matters for a while now. It’s crazy-making because no matter how much sense you might make, or think you’re making, there are a lot of people who basically say “I don’t care, I want it my way!” and ignore everything else.
So I thought I’d talk about writing.
I’ve had a hell of a week in that regard. Let me explain.
Many folks already know that I had a major (I thought) computer issue earlier this week. It happened this way. During the really cold months of winter, rather than turn on the space heater I have in my office, I move my writing upstairs, on a laptop. …
Words Don’t Matter
The message being put forward, especially by the Right, in the aftermath of the shootings in Arizona, is that it is absurd to blame the rhetoric of violence and hatred for the actions of anyone, let alone Jared Lee Loughner. Words don’t matter. The man is a loon, his actions cannot be laid at the feet of anyone else. Taken far enough, by this reasoning he acted in complete isolation from all influences. Maybe so.
But really—words don’t matter?
In 1774, Goethe published his novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, a seminal work in the so-called Sturm und Drang movement. …
Other Buzzzzzzzz
I am not going to go see the new Green Hornet movie. I knew that long before its release, when I heard Seth Rogen had been cast as the Hornet. I just knew it would be a waste of everyone’s time, money, and sentiment.
I’m sorry. Hollywood has been doing superhero movies now for decades and they’ve gotten a few of them pretty right. Except for a ridiculous semi-musical romantic interlude, the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve was fine. Mostly this was due to Reeve and co-star Gene Hackman (who can save just about any movie), but they treated the material lovingly the whole way. …
That Book Is Finished…2010
I read, cover-to-cover, 72 books in 2010. I’ve read more in other years and considerably less in still others. It’s an average of six books a month, which, given all the other stuff I read (and write) is a fair amount.
The last one was Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, which I’d been putting off. I love Ian McDonald’s work, but I am way behind. I, at least, cannot read him quickly. His lines are such that require attention, appreciation. I have half a dozen others on my shelf to get to.
Among others of note, I read Michael Chabon’s Kavalier and Clay, which so wonderfully captures the essence of an age that I can’t recommend it too strongly, especially to all those mothers poised to toss out their children’s comic book collection when they aren’t looking (although such parents might be disappearing by now). …
Reading and Lists
By now, I’m sure, many if not most people on FaceBook have encountered the so-called BBC list of books “everyone should read” but likely haven’t. It’s an interesting meme, both for what is on it and for what is not, but also for the apparent idiocies it contains. For example, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is listed and then, separately, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. What, is Hamlet suddenly no longer part of the Complete Works? Also, the first book of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series is listed and then—again separately—The Chronicles of Narnia.
Aside from the obvious lack of editing, this raises the number of books (or, in the case of Shakespeare, “books”) quite a bit above 100. …
Artistic Purity and the Real World
The writing world is a-buzz of late with the story about James Frey’s “new” marketing idea to rope writers into a contractual arrangement that makes indentured servitude look like an intern program over a summer between semesters. The fact that some writers have actually signed these contracts is both telling and sad. John Scalzi, over on Whatever, made the (radical!) suggestion that MFA programs (because the lion’s share of these hapless dupes come directly from them) teach a semester in the business of writing for part of the egregious sums colleges and universities charge for degrees. This is a sensible suggestion. …