Universes Interlude

Admiral Vida Serrano and Lady Cecelia, sitting in one of the booths facing Universes wide starfield windows, are almost finished with their exchange of family news.   Cecelia would very much like to show the Admiral her images of her latest crop of performance foals, but is aware that the Admiral knows little and cares less Read More…

A Sloth Day

The combination of weather, two nights without sufficient sleep, and no nap yesterday have produced a strong desire to fall in a heap.  Or move very…very…slooooowly.  Weather has been interesting–usually is, in a Texas May, unless we’re deep in drought when it’s not just boring but scary with real summer coming on (100F degrees in Read More…

Rewrite in…

Earlier this week I sent back the latest rewrite…and boy, should you be celebrating the fact that Editor held my feet to the fire and made me work the monster over again.  It’s MUCH better now.  (Editor may not think it’s enough better, as is Editor’s prerogative, but it’s definitely better.)  Among other things, while Read More…

The Naming of People, Places, Things

Without looking up the source (bad scholar, but it’s that kind of day)  I think it was Owen Barfield in an essay about language, corporations, and legal fictions who suggested that language itself is rooted  in the ability to abstract and name a concept, and that is itself a form of fiction (or lie, if Read More…

Culture-building: Virtues & Vices

See, there’s a bonus to the previous post–today you get two new posts.   Today’s topic is culture-building–some thoughts on creating cultures-not-like-ours-exactly (or at all) and specifically some thoughts on how cultures differentiate along the fault lines of, well, faults.  What’s right.  What’s wrong.  What the people in that culture think about the “why” behind what’s Read More…