I have been meaning to write a response to this article by Ursula LeGuin for some time. Needless to say, when she says stuff like, “It’s amazing, given their different physiology and complement of hormones, how much alike men and women are in most ways,” I want to tear my hair out. This stuff comes […]
Boys with babies and women with knives: Rethinking gender assumptionist power structures Read More »
I recently came back from the Wellspring Writing Workshop in Lake Geneva, WI. I got to spend a lovely week with a bunch of other writers – only one of whom I’d met before! – and talk shop and boat around on a lake (“We’re on a boat!”) and look at swanky stuff and ride
On Fear of Failure and Writing “The Book” Read More »
I’ve heard people call WorldCon a business con. I went to my first one right after Clarion twelve years ago and had a dull time. The panels were dull. The people all seemed very alien. I was bored to tears. Even the parties were awkward, because the only folks I knew were my Clarion buddies.
The Business of Writing: Attending Conventions After a Long Absence Read More »
I was only stumped by one question at WorldCon, and that was posed by Elizabeth Bear at the “Looking Forward to the Post-Apocalyptic World” panel. She asked why someone would choose to write future fiction vs. secondary world fantasy and what the primary differences were, or something to that end. The best I could come up
Secondary world fantasy vs. future fiction Read More »
The first panel I sat down to watch at WorldCon had a panelist lob out a sexist comment about 5 minutes into it. Also, if I never hear the term “token male on this panel” again, it will go far toward restoring my faith in humanity. You’ll never see me saying I’m the “token female
Ranting on panels: Just you and a million of your closest friends Read More »
NOTE: Contains a fairly major spoiler for GOD’S WAR. I spent a lot of time this weekend on panels at WorldCon talking about the responsibilities of being a writer, and how what we put on the page can mean something very personal to people. I spend a stupid amount of time buried in research books and
Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories Read More »
So, hey, I’ve been a little distracted the last couple of weeks. But the good news is that it appears I have a more-or-less final schedule for WorldCon in Chicago from August 31st-September 3rd. I expect this schedule to change slightly before and perhaps even during the con (there appears to be some disorganization in
So, after my mega-crazy writing spree on RAPTURE, where I found myself sitting for 14, 16, and even one memorable 20-hour-stretch just… sitting, I decided it was time to finally give in and put together a treadmill desk. Depression and anxiety runs in my family, but I’ve found that if I can be consistently active,
How I Built My Treadmill Desk for $200 Read More »
I’ve been going through some behind-the-scenes growing pains in my whole writing fiction career thing right now (a popular place to be at when one finishes a trilogy, I hear), which good sense and propriety says not to detail too publicly. This is against my nature, as longtime readers will know, so I’ve had to
Whine, Whine, Whine: Why I Stress About the Writing Life Read More »
I was always OK at writing the Big Conflict in a novel. You know, the war, the genocide, the revolution, the revolt, the coup, the big hulking thing that the novel centered around. But it took me a lot longer to figure out how to write about interpersonal tension, and longer still to realize that