My office, which is actually a spare bedroom, has a sliding door closet right next to where the desk is situated. As a result, there’s not a lot of wallspace on which to hang things. (I’ve tried taping things to the sliding door, but they get almost instantaneously shredded when the doors overlap). As a [...]
Some facts and figures from my 2012. Goodreads: I read 115 books this year, for a grand total of 38,888 pages. Purely electronic books/magazines don’t add to the page count, nor to things only partially read (that is, abandoned) so the true figure is probably over 40k pages. As I mentioned before, this is a [...]
Writers, if you use the site Duotrope, the time is at hand to get ready for some changes. They are switching to a paid format beginning Jan 1, which several others have written about. What that means in practical terms is: Go back up your data now. On the submission tracker page, click the large [...]
I’ve been an ardent fan of hypertext for about as long as I can remember, even before I’d ever been exposed to the web. I’ve had this Salon article on hyperfiction open in a browser tab for a full year, wanting to write about it. I think it gets the sentiment largely right. “Then nothing happened,” and that’s a [...]
November was rough on the tidiness of my desk, and lo, of my whole office. I’ve lost track of how many little scraps of paper are here. Besides that I have a few pens, and a DVD about linguistics of sign language. That and a bunch of the usual clutter–xylitol, yerba mate, and chocolate mainly. I fear [...]
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a writer in possession of a first draft will think it sucks. And it is true. First drafts feel like terrible writing because the ARE terrible. Look on any writer’s blog for confirmation of this. It’s a testament to sheer noble sticktuitiveness and dedication toward getting stuff done [...]
Turns out my little brother was right, in a way. I am a liar. Fellow Viable Paradise alum Anaea Lay has been accumulating these hilarious whoppers, and now it’s my turn. Check it out.
Putting the ‘no’ into NaNoWriMo. Lots of things going on right now, including work-related chaos that make arbitrary commitments against arbitrary timeframes less useful at the moment. Don’t get me wrong. NaNoWriMo has helped me greatly. It’s made me better at writing-fast and recalibrated my sense of how much I can get done. I like [...]
The wonderful Miranda Suri tagged me in her Next Big Thing blog post, which means I get to talk about my WIP and pass the baton to other writers for their chance. With no more than the median quantity of ado… Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing 1. What is the title of your book? [...]
August, where did you go? The main fixture on my desk right now is a technology sandwich, my (now outdated) iPad under my (soon outdated) Kindle Fire, under my ailing 4-year-old iPhone. I actually won the iPad in a contest, but since beginning to study ASL, it’s come in handy. I also have a glass [...]