Short one today.
I woke up this morning with a headache, which is one of the best conditions for writing something utterly unrelated to anything else I’m doing. So here goes.
Cat’s in the Cradle
April 28th, 20132012 Whitneys
April 26th, 2013Just to let all my friends and faithful followers know — over the past month or so, in my copious free time I’ve been trying to read finalists for the 2012 Whitney Awards for best novel by an LDS writer (in various categories). So far, I’ve read and blogged about the finalists for the Middle Grades and Speculative YA categories. (And that’s probably all I’ll get to, given that votes are due this coming Monday, April 29). Check it out!
Report on LTUE 31
March 9th, 2013So I’ve been back now from Life, the Universe, and Everything 31 for about 3 weeks, and I know that all my many fans out there are literally dying to know how everything went. Or, well, figuratively dying. Because I really do know the difference between “literally” and “figuratively.” Honest!
Short answer: It was great! Longer answer: It was great, though also a bit disconcerting. More on that below.
Turner, The Thief (Review)
February 1st, 2013More than once in my youth in the west which is now forgotten (kudos to whoever catches that reference), I attended a science fiction convention where the guest of honor was someone I’d never read. Like, for example, in 1984, when I couldn’t understand why everyone at the Worldcon was so excited about this whole “final encyclopedia” thing everyone kept talking about. I mean, an encyclopedia? Come on!
And so I didn’t bother to attend any events with guest of honor Gordon R. Dickson, author of the Dorsai series. A few years later, I could only kick myself for my prior ignorance.
Classic SF&F You Should Have Read
January 10th, 2013The idea started, as so many do, with good intentions. Life, the Universe and Everything, Utah’s annual symposium on science fiction and fantasy (previously held at BYU, though not for the last couple of years because BYU’s administration includes poopheads), is being chaired this year by my son. And it’s been a lot of years since I’ve gone. And my daughter wants to go too. And so I thought, why not? I can attend, catch up with friends, trade a Utah February for a Wisconsin February (not any real bargain there), heckle my son, get revved up on my sf&f writing — all that good stuff.
Well. That was before I looked at our bank balance and checked the price on airline tickets. Also before my creative writing juices ran out of steam last year, leaving me unsure that I can justify the expenditure on writerly grounds. And yet the idea, once entertained, was hard to dismiss. And so I am going next month (Feb. 14-16), with my daughter, and will be appearing on a panel on Tolkien with my old thesis advisor. And I’ll be doing a presentation on classic sf&f you should be reading, though honestly, I’m not exactly certain how I got into that one, except that I’m sure it involved incautious volunteering around people who were paying far too much attention.
Gay Mormon Lit Anthology
October 14th, 2012Hi all! Progress on my current writing is slow (partly because I have a lot of paid work at the moment, which is definitely a good thing). However, I do have a news item to report.
A month or two ago, I was contacted by some people I know who are putting together an anthology of stories about the gay Mormon experience. They asked if I’d be interested in having a selection from No Going Back included in the anthology. I said yes. Since then, I’ve been spending odd moments poking around and looking at possible candidates for inclusion.
End-of-June Progress Report
June 27th, 2012Hey! It’s been a while since I posted. And I don’t really feel sorry about that, because my resolve this year was to focus on my actual writing, and to write about my writing only intermittently, as I feel the need. And I’ve mostly managed to do that. So yay, me! Or something like that.
2011 Whitney Finalist Reviews
April 19th, 2012Each year, a set of awards known as the Whitneys are given out for the best novel written by an LDS author in each of various different categories (7 genre categories this year, plus best novel by a first-time published novelist and best overall). I have fond feelings about the Whitneys, both because I think they’re a good thing for their own sake and because No Going Back was a Whitney finalist in the general fiction category back in 2009, which was probably the single most positive thing that happened for the book marketing-wise.
The Writing Rookie Season 2, #5: Writing in the Plane Style
March 19th, 2012Cross-posted at A Motley Vision. For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
Recently in a discussion about writing and revising over at the AML blog, William Morris (someone I greatly respect and often agree with) talked about being frustrated by his first drafts because “the language seems so mundane.” Which resulted in one of those sinking feelings on my part — you know, like the one you get when the speaker in sacrament meeting talks about how bad things were when they missed their daily family scripture study, just when you were feeling good about reading scriptures together once last week. Or maybe like how you feel — at least, the way I feel — when I turn on the radio to one of those money management programs that keeps talking about how money I should already have saved for my retirement. But that’s another (though not entirely unrelated) topic.
The point is that I don’t really feel like much of a stylist. Sure, I revise — but it’s not to achieve any kind of lyrical prose effects. Really, I have only 2 main goals: to make my writing quick, clear, and easy to read, and achieve some kind of consistency in my characters’ voices. Those are hard enough.
Rules of Sanity
February 9th, 2012A few days ago, I started the following list, purely for my own amusement. I share it now for yours.
Rules of sanity (in no particular order):
- Treat all schedules as works in progress. (This is for your sanity, not other people’s.)
- Read the rest of this entry »