Where it starts in the long run is a place that Editor and I agree is a good starting place, but where it starts in OurTime is like this, something that may not ever be in the final version. The house is brick, weathered brick, with vines on it, though not all over. The front Read More…
Tag: the writing life
Progress of Sorts
Finished the Lyme Disease med last night–the last few days had indeed shown some gastric disturbance, but it’s over with (the medication–and the disturbance I hope will soon follow.) I have been warned that the photosensitivity the med often causes could last much longer (NOoooooo!!!) and SPF 100 sunscreen does nothing to prevent the reaction. Read More…
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…
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…
“Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition…”
Or hitting a wall across the road when the road appeared to be wide open except for that very distant wall. But I have. It’s not a fatal crash, and not a fatal wall, but it sure was a wake-up call. It had actually been there all along, but what I saw (thought I saw) Read More…
The New New Book
The new book is Cold Welcome. The new new book is the book after that, which presently is undergoing some restructuring…since its beginning is now the end of Cold Welcome. I’ve been doing some analytical thinking about it, because it should have a series of reveals, like the opening of a rose, and it would Read More…
A Dwarf, A Gnome, a Humod, a Thief…
and a paladin…walk into a bar. Wait, I hear you say. This is supposed to be an all-SF blog site. No fluffy unicorns (I never wrote a fluffy unicorn) and no fantasy stuff. Yeah, but, this is Universes, where different things meet that can’t usually, and tonight (it’s pouring rain and I can’t sleep, largely Read More…
Done Again, Dunnigan
This afternoon I mailed the manuscript back to Editor. It’s done. It’s done again for the umpteenth time. I thought it was done last week, but Editor was busy with something else and said “I’ll be ready for it in a week and a half. ” So I spent a week combing its mane and Read More…