I missed last month’s post because I was busy with TIP, but I’m back again this month at the SF Novelists blog, with: “You wouldn’t like me when I’m strong.”
Usual setup applies. Comment over there, not here; no login required, though I’ll have to fish first-time commenters out of the moderation queue.
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I can’t decide whether the people at Tor are mean, or love you very, very much. (Can they be both at once?) You see, The Tropic of Serpents won’t be coming out for another eight months . . . but we have cover art now, and they’ve decided to make it public.
Can I just take a moment to say how pleased I am with myself? Also with Todd Lockwood, of course, who once again has turned in an absolutely gorgeous piece of work, and let’s not forget Irene Gallo (the art director at Tor) and everybody else involved in making this happen. But myself, too, because a few months back I was sitting here chewing on concepts and trying to figure out how we could repeat the general look of A Natural History of Dragons without pulling the same anatomical cut-away trick every single time. Then I hit upon the idea of a motion study, and lo: it worked!
You all know what this means, of course. I need an icon! Post your best efforts in the comment thread, and if I pick yours, you can have your choice of either a signed copy of A Natural History of Dragons, or an ARC of the sequel when those become available.
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Did a reasonable amount of reading while I was at TIP — at least before my brain liquified to the point where I spent most of my evenings watching Doctor Who on my tablet. π
Some of you may recall that years ago, just before In Ashes Lie came out, I released a novella called Deeds of Men, which took place before that novel and after Midnight Never Come. It was originally a promotional freebie, but after a while I took down the free version and put it on sale at Amazon, mostly as a random experiment — I knew zip about ebooks at the time. Despite that ignorance (which included things like me not bothering to give it a proper cover), it’s sold some copies over the years, though not a huge number.
Now that I’m a member of Book View Cafe, I decided to do it over again, this time the right way. It has a spiffy-looking cover, courtesy of Chris Rawlins and Leah Cutter, and some revisions (most of them minor; one correcting a narrative choice I’ve regretted ever since I released the novella), and this time it got formatted by somebody who knows what he’s doing (the inestimable Chris Dolley). That link will take you to the BVC site, where you can buy it in epub and mobi formats, good for most e-reading devices, Kindle included. It’s also up on Amazon, and should be live on the B&N and Kobo sites in the next day or so.
A special note about Kindles: if you already bought the novella from Amazon, I think, though I’m not certain, that you should be able to download the new version as an update, without having to pay for it again. I’d love to have that confirmed, so if you’re in that camp, please let me know.
For those who are wondering, the story does contain some spoilers for Midnight Never Come, though only of an aftermath-y sort — it doesn’t say what happened, just shows the characters where they are as a result. Otherwise it’s only really full of spoilers for early seventeenth-century European politics. π
And stay tuned for more news in the next few days, about what I’m doing next with BVC . . . .
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As you know, Internet Bob, I spent most of June in North Carolina, teaching an intensive creative writing course on science fiction and fantasy. It was a splendid experience: the kids were really engaged, and bonded amazingly well with one another. There’s nothing better than teaching for a class where everybody wants to be there and supports one another.
Some people expressed an interest in seeing my syllabus for the course. I’m not going to upload the whole thing — it’s got a lot of extraneous detail — but I did want to talk about the readings, and the topics we covered in discussion.
With the readings, I made a very calculated decision not to go the route where you assign “classics of the genre.” Those classics are decades old, and almost exclusively written by white guys, with a cameo appearance by Le Guin; it was important to me that I show the kids a fresher and more diverse face of the genre. (I also thought at first that I could dodge the problem of getting permissions and paying for coursepack printing if I chose readings that were all readable for free online. This turned out not to be true, owing to the extremely limited availability of computers — but even so, it made getting the permissions much easier.) The oldest story in the pack was, I think, from 2004. Here’s the full list:
As you can see, it ended up skewing heavily female — owing in part to the fact that in many cases here I was approaching friends and asking if we could use their stories. (My budget was extremely limited, and I figured friends were less likely to demand a $200 reprint fee. Plus, I know a lot of really amazing writers!) The textbooks for the course were Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing and The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, making Richard Parks the only white guy on the entire syllabus. π
Regarding topics, I spent the first week on the usual suspects: ideas, grammar and dialogue, setting and worldbuilding, character, point of view, conflict, plot. Week two started off with some basics about research, writing habits, critiquing, and revision, and then we had three days of “here, have every major social issue in condensed form” — sex, gender, and sexuality; race and ethnicity; economic class and privilege; disability (and super-ability); religion; and violence and its role in stories. Week three had a day devoted to in-class critique and then a grab-bag of practical topics: intellectual property and fanfiction, writing for other genres or other media, and how the publishing industry works.
As you can tell from that list, it was intense. Six hours of instruction a day, plus a seventh hour of evening study, in which they read or worked on their stories. And bear in mind that a number of my students had never even written a complete short story before! At least when you go to something like Clarion, you have some sense of what you’re in for and what you’re capable of. But as I told the parents in the final conferences, part of the point of TIP is to ask these kids to do more that they’re capable of — because that’s the way to find out just how far they can go. I’m ridiculously proud of the work they did and the amount their writing grew over those three weeks.
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I’m on my way home from North Carolina, but the timing of my ride to the airport meant I had five hours to kill here.
I was almost very lazy. There’s free wifi here, and I was tempted to just watch Doctor Who on my tablet. But the wifi is slow — slow enough that Netflix would play about five seconds of video, then stop to re-buffer. And so I thought, okay, it’s a message from the gods, and they’re saying: stop being so lazy!
Two hours later, I have a finished draft of the Penelope story, which I think was inspired by a passing comment in Diana Wynne Jones’ Reflections. It doesn’t have a title yet, but I wrote the entirety of it during this trip. Combine that with the 5K or so I wrote on “The Rose” during my first two weeks here, plus bits and pieces on some other things, and I’m reasonably pleased with myself: that’s two short stories in one month! I haven’t done that in ages. And during a month where I had very little spare energy or brain, to boot.
Now I think it’s time to find some food. I only have an hour or so layover in Chicago, so assuming I’ll have time to get dinner there strikes me as a very foolish move.
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I’m still in North Carolina, and extremely busy (teaching six hours a day: not easy!), but today I had only a half day, and what do I do with my time off?
I finish the punk Tam Lin retelling, is what I do. Provisional title is “The Rose,” and it’s 7400 words long, of which 3K+ got written today. It’s entirely possible this thing will be a novelette by the time I’m done revising. But it makes kind of a good companion to “Mad Maudlin,” which is of similar length, and if I’m lucky, maybe I can sell it to the same place. π
Now I’m wondering if this Penelope idea my brain is noodling around with could possibly get knocked off before I’m done here. That would be nice.
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Okay, I lied about not posting for a while, because I remembered I hadn’t yet put up a books-read entry for last month.
I’m in North Carolina now, for the TIP course I mentioned before. Ahhhh, dorm life: I’m living in a cinderblock box that normally houses two undergrads, and boy, do I pity them. This is not what you would call a spacious room.
It’s funny to watch myself fall back into a mode I’ve lived in before, which I tend to think of as “monk-like.” With so few possessions, I become very organized about putting them all away in their places. (You would think that’s a more necessary trait when you have lots of stuff, and you would be right. But I’m better about it when my life is spartan.) I’ll have a very organized schedule, too, including a much earlier bedtime than is my wont. This is how I lived on digs, and much like how I live when I travel, too. It’s a stripped-down existence, with my attention almost entirely focused on what I’m here to do.
Of course, since what I’m here to do is “teach creative writing,” there’s a certain overlap with my normal life. On the way out here, for no apparent reason, one of the short stories I thought I would never actually write stepped up and spat out nearly four hundred words. “Fate, Hope, Friendship, Foe,” the seedlet that for the last nine years has consisted of a set of signs I saw while driving from Dallas up to Bloomington, and the fact that I had a life-sized statue of Atropos in my backseat at the time. Will it turn into a complete story? Who knows. And I have a new idea, too. I don’t know if preparing to teach creative writing flipped a switch in my brain, or if this is the same switch that’s been flipped since early this year, when I found myself itching to write half a dozen short stories instead of the novel I needed to finish.
Anyway, blogging will likely be scarce around here for a while, as I am going to be very busy. But if there’s any cool news to report, I’ll be sure to let you all know.
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As I mentioned a while ago, my short story “Centuries of Kings” is going to be in the charity anthology Neverland’s Library, whose sales will benefit the literacy charity First Book.
Before it can do that, though, the anthology has to be funded. You can find them over at Indiegogo — note that this is a “flexible funding” campaign, which means all pledges will be honored, even if the project doesn’t make its goal. You can also see updates over there, with shiny things like the cover art (which is really, really lovely). If you scroll down the project page, you can also find a list of the contributing authors — the ones accepted so far, that is, as submissions are still open.
So click around, and if you like what you see, lend them (us) your support. You get good stories and a good cause out of it. π
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By that title, I don’t just mean “I’ll be going to X place during June” — I mean I’ll be in X place for essentially the entirety of June.
Some of you may be familiar with Duke TIP. (Others of you may know the very similar CTY instead.) This is a program I participated in as a kid; when I was twelve, I went to Davidson for three weeks to read and talk about science fiction short stories. The next year it was marine biology in Galveston; then it was tropical ecology in Costa Rica; then geology and a bit of archaeology in New Mexico. TIP is probably the single coolest thing I got to do during my adolescence.
And now I’m going back, this time on the other side of things. I’m heading off to North Carolina in early June to teach a creative writing course, focused on SF/F/H. It will be ridiculously intense: class runs for two three-hour blocks every day, M-F, and another block on Saturday morning. That’s thirty-three hours of instruction per week, for three weeks straight. It’s “Clarion for twelve-year-olds.”
I’m not only allowed, I’m expected to make this the most awesome and challenging three weeks those kids have ever seen. We’re talking about seventh- and eighth-graders who have scored a 570 or better on the verbal portions of the SAT. Want to know what I’m giving them for a “how to write” textbook? Delany. I’ll be lecturing a bit, but there will be much more in the way of discussion, and they’ll be doing writing exercises until their brains fall out. My challenge will be to figure out how to pace things such that they get enough variety to keep the brain-falling-out stage from happening too soon.
I won’t be blogging the process as I go, because I don’t think that would be appropriate. But I’ll probably have thoughts about it after the fact, and I’ll certainly share my syllabus/readings/etc. In the meantime, if I’m less chatty online than usual during June, you’ll know why.
It’s because my brain will be on the floor, along with those of my students. π
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It never rains but it pours.
Remember how my laptop was going kaput a while ago, and I asked for tablet advice? (Thanks for all the responses, btw. I ended up going with a Google Nexus, and I’m quite pleased with it. In fact, that’s what I’m writing this post on.)
Well, my desktop has been acting strangely, to the point where I think I should look into getting a new one. The current one is pretty elderly, and I think I’d rather make the switch before it goes completely belly-up.
So now I’m looking for opinions on that end of the spectrum. I’m a Windows user (please don’t try to get me to convert), and 90% of the work done on that machine falls into the categories of word processing and internet, so I don’t need anything massive. I am running Lightroom these days, though, and I’ve found that sometimes I can’t even play Steam games on the thing because they’re too advanced for its graphics card; ergo, I’m likely to aim a bit higher this time than my usual bare-bones build. Current machine is a Dell, as was its predecessor; I’ve been happy with them, but I haven’t been keeping up with the state of the art, and I don’t know whether I should be looking at other manufacturers.
Corollary question: Windows 8? ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kniedzw tells me I will haaaaaaaaaaaate it, because I started computing back in the days of DOS, and object to operating systems that try to keep me from rummaging around in their guts. I’d be interested in feedback from people who have used it at all.
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1) Sure, I’ll be kind and put the big one first. I’ve sold a story to Tor.com! “Mad Maudlin,” a novelette based on the folksong variously known as “Bedlam Boys” and “Tom o’Bedlam.” It won’t be published until late this year or early next, but I’m extremely pleased nonetheless.
2) One straggler from the ANHoD blog tour: an interview with me at LibraryThing, wherein (among other things) I divulge how kniedzw and I approached the most important question one must consider upon moving in together: whether to combine libraries or not.
3) Latest post at BVC is on superstitions.
Edited to add:
4) A Natural History of Dragons is #8 on the Locus bestseller list for May. Go, little book, go!
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Season five of Eureka is up on Netflix now, so I’ve finally gotten to resolve that bloody cliffhanger from last season. Not before a detour through a random Christmas episode (who do they think they are, Doctor Who?) that I pretty much could have done without, but hey, one episode, then we’re back to actual continuity.
Spoiler-cut for my thoughts on a pair of tropes.
Originally posted by at What we talk about when we talk about pockets
A few weeks ago trillian_stars and I were out somewhere and she asked “Oooh, can I get a cup of coffee?” and I thought “why are you asking me? You don’t need permission.” But what I discovered was that her clothes had no pockets, so she had no money with her.
Mens clothes have pockets. My swimsuits have pockets. All of them do, and it’s not unusual, because, what if you’re swimming in the ocean and you find a fist full of pirate booty in the surf? You need somewhere to put it. Men are used to carrying stuff in their pockets, you put money there, you put car keys there. With money and car keys come power and independence. You can buy stuff, you can leave. The idea of some women’s clothes not having pockets is baffling, but it’s worse than that — it’s patriarchal because it makes the assumption that women will either carry a handbag, or they’ll rely on men around them for money and keys and such things. (I noticed this also when Neil & Amanda were figuring out where her stuff had to go because she had no pockets.) Where do women carry tampons? Amanda wondered, In their boyfriend’s pockets, Neil concluded.
I then noticed that none of trillian_stars‘ running clothes had pockets. Any pockets. Which is (as they always say on “Parking Wars”) ridikulus. Who leaves the house with nothing? (It’s not a rhetorical question, I actually can’t think of anybody).
We fixed some of this by getting this runners wrist wallet from Poutfits on Etsy — it holds money, ID, keys … the sort of stuff you’d need. Plus you can wipe your nose on it. It solves the running-wear problem, but not the bigger problem.
The bigger problem is that people who design women’s fashions are still designing pants and jackets that have no pockets. In fact, this jacket we got last December has … no pockets. It’s not a question of lines or shape, it’s a question of autonomy.
So I’m asking my friends who design women’s clothes to consider putting pockets in them, they can be small, they can be out of the way, they can be inside the garment, but space enough to put ID, and cash and bus tokens. And maybe a phone. (And if you can design a surreptitious tampon stash, I’m sure Neil & Amanda & a lot of other people would appreciate it as well.)
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I almost posted this yesterday, because really, as such posts go, this one is a joke. I did many things in March, but reading books? Not really one of them.
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett. Returning to my leisurely saunter through swan_tower Finally Reads Discworld. I have now been properly introduced to Sam Vimes, previously encountered as a minor character in Monstrous Regiment (before I started reading things in order). I like him, though not as passionately as some people seem to — possibly I will grow more attached in time? I liked Sybil quite a lot, and the reflections on how her brand of confidence is both personal and class-based. I was mostly meh about the bad guy’s scheme, but on the whole, much fun.
the memoir that is still untitled Re-reading the second book of the series preparatory to revising it (which is what I’m in the middle of doing now). It still needs a title. I will have to fix this soon.
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, David Gaider. Read for research, as kniedzw and I have begun running a Dragon Age game. Not really worth your time, unless you are a rabid completist for that franchise. It offered little in the way of worldbuilding information I didn’t already know, and, well. This is David Gaider’s first novel, and boy howdy does it show. Hopefully he improves with the later ones, since I need to read those, too.
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Happy May Day!
I really, really want to list as one of the books I read this month, “the first third of Quicksilver.” Because really. I read and read and read, and and it was an entire book’s worth of reading. It just wasn’t the entirety of that book. Not by a long chalk. Stephenson, you are engaging, but also a very wordy bastard.
A belated entry to this series, on account of it not being out yet when I finished my re-read of all of Diana Wynne Jones’ books.
Reflections: On the Magic of Writing is a collection of various essays and lectures she gave, on various subjects related to writing (her own and that of others). A couple of these I had read before; “The Origins of Changeover” was the foreword to the edition I read, and I tracked down scans of “The Heroic Ideal: A Personal Odyssey” after seeing it referenced by rushthatspeaks. (Very glad to now have a proper reprint, as the essay does wonders for my ability to understand certain parts of Fire and Hemlock.) Most of this, though, was new.
It makes for interesting reading, though certainly a few details get repetitive — these pieces span decades, and there are certain things, particularly biographical incidents, that she brought up more than once. The two things that fascinated me most were her knowledge of pre-modern English literature (much of which I haven’t personally read), and her comments on her own books. The former made me feel in places like I was reading pameladean‘s Tam Lin, because it threatened to leave me with a reading list of rather obscure works. The latter . . . I don’t know. Sometimes it strips the magic away to know how the magic got made, but I think that here it just turns into a different sort of magic for me, because I can think about her books as a writer as well as a fan. When she talks about similarities between her characters, I nod at some and blink at others, and wonder if she didn’t see the similarities elsewhere, or simply didn’t bring them up. (Upon reflection, I see what she means about the commonality of Torquil and Tacroy, and also, after much more reflection, Thomas Lynn and the Goon. But what about Tacroy and Thomas, and also Howl? Or for that matter, Mark and Herrel, who are a straight-up deployment of her habit of “splitting” a character type and using different facets?)
I wish we had more of that stuff. I would love to know what sparked the ideas for all of her books, because Diana Wynne Jones wrote books that are nothing like mine, and knowing where they came from helps me understand the result. I also, quite selfishly, want to read all the unrevised first drafts and unfinished beginnings she had stuffed into drawers, because I crave more, and I’m (probably) never going to get it. I know it wouldn’t be the same, and it very well might not be good, but I crave it anyway. This book made me sad all over again that Diana Wynne Jones is dead, and that I never had the chance to meet her. I would have liked to thank her in person, and having read this book, I feel certain she would have understood.
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It took me substantially longer than expected (the last scene was an absolute bear to write), but I just finished “To Rise No More.”
Needs revision, of course, but right now, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve managed to write a short story! And not even one that was spoken for before I wrote it. The last seven things I wrote sold on their first trip out the door, because they were either solicited by editors or very nearly so, i.e. I knew that if I wrote them, then so-and-so was extremely likely to buy the result. Which isn’t a bad position to be in, of course — but it’s less good when you have to use that as a motivation to actually get the thing done. This one, I wrote because I wanted to.
Hopefully somebody will buy the result. π
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Okay, this is really nifty. The blog Paper/Plates bills itself as “exploring the world through food and literature” . . . and someone there just posted a review of A Natural History of Dragons, followed by a recipe for a vegan alfredo sauce inspired by the book. (On the grounds that Isabella’s lifestyle does not fit her culture’s expectations.)
I think fanworks in general are cool, but I never thought anybody would make a pasta sauce for one of my books!
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