Somewhere, in one of her carefully preserved files, my mother has the first story I ever wrote. I was six. It’s written in crayon on one of those weirdly-sized pale vanilla sheets with the upper half blank for illustration and the lower half lined in blue and pink, dotted lines dividing up the space so that beginners have guides for letter height.  It’s been through 5 cross-country moves, packed up with more traditionally important documents like birth certificates and shot records.

The fact that I made up a story didn’t surprise my parents at all.  I loved stories so much I made up stories about illustrations before I could read at all.  The fact that the story was about ponies was a no-brainer. I’d been staring at and trying to heist my brother’s Breyer model for as long as I’d been seeing it on the top shelf in his room.  The ponies for the illustration were fantastically loud colors straight out of Crayloa’s super-sized 100 jillion colors box, but that didn’t make them pause.  What made that decidedly-six-year-old effort a keeper was that by dint of working like hell I had been able to write it down without a single mistake.

Mom spotted dyslexia in me virtually the first time I was presented with reading and writing.

Certain fonts were and still can be a living nightmare for me to read, because what I see isn’t what others see.  Take  e  a  &  s.  In many fonts, I cannot tell them apart.  Heaven forbid there should be a string of multiples of them.  Take, as an example, the name of one of the most highly-regarded literary agents in the business.  Mr. Maass, I only know there’s two sets of doubles in your last name because I asked someone to spell your name aloud.  All I see is M followed by a blur of identical shapes that I have to concentrate on to discern how many letters are there.

Writing, which in those days was handwriting, can be a virtual minefield.  The classic d & b swap is the tip of an iceberg.  My married name is Mueller.  Written in cursive, it’s a series of up and down, some short and some tall, and after more than 20 years of practice I still have to think about it when I write it to get it right.  We shall not speak of the evil of zip codes that are one freaking character too many in a row.  Particularly if they contain 5 & 3, and 6 & 9.

From the time I could reach the tabletop until I left home for college, my chore was set the dinner table  correctly every single night as an exercise in spatial arrangement.  Between the ages of four and seven or eight I spent most weekday evenings sitting at the kitchen table practicing writing out lines of poetry that Dad would give me in between chatting with Mom while they got dinner ready.

Everytime I failed a spelling test, and great googly moogly I must’ve failed hundreds.  Every time I was asked to read aloud in class and came home still feeling the sting of it.  Every time I screwed up a math assignment because the columns and rows of numbers had gotten conflated.  Their answer was help me get back up, rub the bruises off my ego, and figure out how to pull more effectively next time.

They didn’t just give out the advice.  They lived it.  There were five of kids.  Three were dyslexic.  To say that life got hectic now and then is an understatement.  Mom and Dad did flat out everything they could think of to help us.  Sometimes they didn’t know, sometimes they were just as frustrated as we were, and sometimes they probably got it wrong; and being the third of the three dyslexics I certainly reaped the benefit of their parenting experience.

Mother’s Day cards, Father’s Day cards, birthday cards, and mountains of other merry detritus went the way of the trash long ago; culled in various moves.  Somewhere in the bottom of the filing cabinet, though, there is one folder devoted to each of us.  Five in all.  Mine has, among other child-sized triumphs, a story about ponies on yellowing vanilla paper.  Mom showed it to me once, when I was in the pit of particularly black teenage despair.   ”It might always take you extra effort, but you can do it.”  Tucked up in one corner in my first grade teacher’s precise handwriting was – “Excellent” and a gold star.

I wasn’t the only one who earned that gold star.

Tags: family, story, writing
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Someone recently commented on the ‘steampunk’ name of this page. I admit to loving the aesthetic of steampunk, and that a lot of the images here have a distinctly steampunk feeling. I also admit that the image of clockwork is strong in my last novel manuscript, but… the name isn’t so much about steampunk as it is a hat-tip to probably the first fantasy book I can remember my father reading to me.

My father is a fan of well-used words, and The Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber is certainly that and more.  Thurber wrote a fairy tale so full tropes it should implode.  Thurber is far to skilled a writer for that.  He took that framework of tropes, used them to their best and always a little differently than expected.

Like poetry, or a script, or Dr. Seuss, I’m convinced The Thirteen Clocks was meant to be read out loud.  What fascinated me, even as a child, was the rhythm and flow of the words.  They have meter, and sometimes rhyme.  They frame the ridiculous, threatening, and magical without pressing either into perfect shape, leaving the reader with only an ephemeral image that tickles at the listener’s mind.  That hazy impression is, ironically perhaps, made of razor-precise use of words.  Thurber is one of our greatest authors, in my opinion, and if The Thirteen Clocks were the only thing he ever wrote, it would still be true for me for one reason – he began my love affair with words.

So yes, the image of clockwork is one of the themes of steampunk, but for me things started ticking when I was sitting in bed, listening as a princess and a weird little man reasoned out how to start the clocks that had frozen to death.

Tags: reading, steampunk, writing
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Below are some links that I think every author should read, regardless of where in their careers they are and regardless of what genre they write in. In my opinion they’re also posts that every reader should read.

They’re on ebooks and their futures. If you are a writer and you aren’t interested, you’re not thinking hard enough about the future of your industry. Keep in mind that, as a big time agent and epublisher, these are not unbiased observers. What they ARE are gents who are really, truly thinking about the future. The comments are also worth reading.

do-authors-make-good-publishers

Below is the response from Joe Konrath, also a must read. As an author, Joe has his own point of view. Again, I recommend reading the comments.

jakonrath response-to-richard-curtis

There is a reply to Joe’s post on Richard’s site also.

do-authors-make-good-publishers-j-a-konrath-weighs-in

If you’re a reader, it might be interesting to ask yourself ‘who will be the gatekeeper of quality when anyone can self publish?’ Will readers fall back on publishing house labels in a sea of self-published uncertainty? I find that a little hard to believe, but it is (to me) an interesting question.

Thank you, gentlemen, for a first class discussion.

Edit – added for consideration, this post by Kristine Katheryn Rusch

Tags: ebooks, publishing, reading, writing
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It should be noted that organization is not my natural state.  I perfected the filing method of ‘largest on the bottom, smallest on the top’ at an early age.  Recently I saw ran across some blog posts on ‘Writing Bibles’.   I wish I could remember where I picked up the links, but I didn’t write it down.  Notably posts by Nathan Bransford’s and at The Write Thing.  Anyone writing anything longer than a short story might want to go read them.  I first ran across the idea of organized writing notebook in ‘Guide to Fiction Writing’ by Phyllis A. Whitney.  It has a ton of good information in it, and a chapter on writing notebooks that as far as I’m concerned is pure gold.  When I finally broke down in a moment of total befuddlement and admitted that my recall of my own work is something less than perfect, I tried it.  I was sold.

My notebook system looks something like a 3 ring binder with dividers that I swipe from my son at the end of a school year.  What, like I’m going to buy new ones?  That would be way too official feeling and would scare the crap outta me.  Old office supplies.  You know you have some.  I divide up differently depending on the book. My usual start looks like this:

I start doodling about on paper, brain storming on some vague idea.  After a while I have a stack of brain storms.  Possibly some characters.  I toss some, and put the others into a notebook divided up more or less like -

Themes – usually I just write these on the front of the first divider as they come to me.  For example “Corset”, “Motherhood”, and  “Agape vs. Eros” were some of what’s scrawled on the first divider in my Bone Orchard notebook.

Characters - I have to keep track, otherwise I end up with every other secondary character named with the same letter, or with some other quite simple mistake that’s the product of my memory being a sieve. I have a sort of character questionairre that I got… er, a long time ago?  From a creative writing teacher?  I think?  It’s long, it’s grotesquely detailed, and I have never ever answered the whole thing about a given character.  Name, age, hair color, build, height and weight, distinctive features, siblings, parents, pets, job, schooling, grades in subjects… whatever.

It keeps moles from wandering around, mustaches from appearing where they have no business being, and makes sure that Hank the best friend and artist doesn’t turn into Hank the best friend and car repair guy.  Hank is free to change jobs, but as the writer of Hank, I’d better know if he does.

Plotting - That part where I muck about on paper while I decide what’s going to happen.  For me it looks like a lot of free form writing, scratching out, rewriting, underlining, stars by stuff I’m liking at the moment… and most importantly the outcome I think I want.  Frequently it looks like notes I took (I hope I thought to take notes) while talking it out to a friend.

Flow Chart of Nepharius Deeds – what I think happens and in what order.  It might have a calendar and/or a timeline in it.  It might be an outline for you.

World - any bits of the world I might need to keep track of.  Maps, politics, governments structures, a second moon, the reason cheese is purple, rough notes on magical systems or star drives or…

Inspiration - mostly pictures I print out or find.  More often these days I toss images into a folder on my computer.  Might be a dress, an actor, a painting, a recipe, or any other shiny thing that made my brain go ‘hey, that’s like my book!’

To Be Researched – what it sounds like.  Stuff I can’t find in five minutes online.  What was the formal title of the Duke of Alva’s lieutenant who attacked the camp of William the Silent outside of Mons?  ’cause you know that the brain space for remembering that title was more important than remembering to get gas in the c… rap.

Bibliography - Sometime I use actual books for research, and I want to know what books I’ve actually used, what books were rubbish for my purpose, etc.  This saves a lot of time.  I also have bookmarks on my computer that I tag with the manuscript title.

Barf Drafting – with thanks for the header title to Kristine Kathryne Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.  A blank section that’s purely for me to write long hand in.  Typing and longhand writing use slightly different parts of my brain.  Often when I’m stuck I can shake my brain loose by going back to pen and paper (or pen and paper towel or pencil and… you get the idea).  This section is full of rough draft stream-of-consciousness stuff that may be useful or not, but I keep it at least until I’m sure sure sure and positive with no take backs that I’m not going to use it.

Okay, notebook!  Go me!  Then… I push it to one side, write the story, and only refer back when I discover that Hank is needed again and what the hell weird pet did I think he had?  An iguana? (Dig out notebook) A frog?  Nah,  I like this idea better.  Oh hey, and lookie!  I can… right!  Got it!  (scratch out, write down, search and replace the frog with an iguana on computer, close the notebook and stuff the notebook back under the cat bed). Write write write, four chapters later looks the babysitter needs a name… (move cat, open notebook, write down name, replace notebook, replace cat).

There’s only one reason my notebooks aren’t purely electronic.  Batteries die, hard drives seize, motherboards fail, and technology goes out of date.  Or I’m on a plane and we’ve been landing for an hour and a half.  Or I’ve jotted down notes on a napkin or an envelope.  I know I could transcribe, but I already wrote it down once, for pity’s sake, and there’s a paperclip right here.  And I might need to know about Hank’s iguana again when in five years I’m offered a spin off deal.  What did I name that critter, and do I want to go page by page through three books to find out…?

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL – Don’t forget to write the book. The notebook or Bible or binder system is a tool, not the goal.

How do you organize your writing?  If you don’t, why don’t you?

(no cats were harmed in the writing of this post, though Lucy would like it known that she is pathetic and old and should not be subjected to any indignity not accompanied by cat treats and/or a long convalescence in a lap)

Tags: process, ramble, writing
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People tell lies about writing.  Writers lie to themselves sometimes, or sometimes people tell us lies about our work.  We get over these lies with help from our friends and mentors.  Sometimes we have to get over the same lies repeatedly.  What in the hell am I talking about?  Below are the first two lies that leaped into my head, that I’ve heard professionals tell me over and over are lies.

Writing isn’t a physically strenuous career…

LIE.  This should be an obvious one, though the strains on your body aren’t of the football or construction kinds.  By now probably everyone with a computer has heard of Repetitive Strain Injury, of which Carpal Tunnel is probably the most famous.  There are a whole host of them, and they’re all nasty.  Focusing on a monitor glaring at the same distance all day is bad for your eyes.  Sitting still in a chair all day is generally not good for your body.  After a while our bodies will tell us about the strains in hateful ways.

Read up on ergonomics and apply it to your writing everywhere we reasonably can.  Particularly true in my case, where nerves in my arms and hands remind me almost daily that they’re screwed up.  Do not break your body if you can possibly avoid it.

Along with ‘sit down and write’, many professionals have said, is a need to find some form of exercise and DO it.  Sounds fabulous and easy.  If we don’t have this as part of our life, shoehorning it in can be a challenge. I struggle with this one.  I stopped horseback riding years ago.  Right in the wake of that, I ended up with a series of open-body surgeries that put me in bed for weeks at a time.  Now, getting my butt up to exercise takes some motivation because I stopped exercising.  I’m supposed to ‘Just Do It’?  Are you freaking kidding me?  I need a reason to do it, because I have just piles of reasons not to exercise.  I don’t feel too good today, and maybe I’m sore from trying to exercise once already this week, and I’m way behind on (task du jour) so I don’t have time today… whine grumble, bitch moan.  Words to live by from Jenny Gibbons to her husband – “But babe!  You need to do cardio!  You don’t want the zombies to catch you!”  Those excuses back there?  The ones dressed up as reasons not to get off your butt?  They’re the zombies, and they’re coming to get you.

I need to be inspired to write…

LIE.  Evil, evil lie.  If we seriously think a Special Snowflake Fairy is going to make us into writers all of whose work is birthed only in the Flow of Artistic Inspiration, we need a slapping.  A brisk stinging slap the first few times.  Further infractions qualify the writer for a ‘clue x 4′ to the back of the head.  Writing when we’re not inspired may well result in a page full of crap, but in the immortal words of Kath Nyborg - “We can edit crap.  It’s impossible to edit a blank page.”

Realize that no one ever has to see our crap but us, and we can edit it.  So face the fear of writing crap, take up the implement of your choice, and bloodily chop this lie to bits every time it crops up.  Like fixing the first lie (or like fighting zombies, come to think of it), this is not as easy as it sounds.  There’s a gajillion ways to get over this, and I sure don’t know them all.  Here are two I’ve used.

If you have no idea where the plot is going, and you’re looking out at a directionless sea, and you have no friends to go to lunch and plot with, there’s always the most dreaded advice I’ve heard a professional give to me.  “Just write a (expletive deleted) synopsis.  It’s not going to kill you.”  It didn’t kill me.  In this case it took me to the gasping edge of death by boredom… and hey, wait… where did I get bored again?  Oh!  Right around there!  So what’d be more evil there…  Go to the beginning and just make a list of what happened in the story so far.  It’s distressingly mechanical.  It has NOTHING to do with inspiration, but sometimes it helps to get some distance on a project so that you can see where you’re actually going with it.

If you have some idea of where a plot is going, you can just recognize that the next bit’s going to feel like slogging through the Sea of Crap, pull up your hip-waders, and head in the general direction of that far off shore ‘The End’.  Try to find as many hummocks of decent ground as you can along the way.  You might have to double back a lot to find the right direction.  You’ll probably have to come back once you’ve blazed a trail to ‘The End’ and cut out stretches of crap and replace them as needed with better stuff.  You might very well find the Flow of Inspiration again, hidden below the surface somewhere along the way.  You darn sure won’t find it unless you wade in.

I’m sure I’ll think of some more lies that professionals have, over the years, told me were lies.  I’m sure I still tell some to myself, because I’m not perfect.  What are some of the lies about writing that you’ve fallen victim to?  How do you try to fix them?

Tags: process, writing
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As I’ve explained to a host of doctors and physical therapists over the years, my desktop work station really is ergonomic. Like, I’ve measured with a ruler and a protractor (seriously – my son marked the angles of my arm at the elbow on paper, and I borrowed his school protractor to measure) and had the numbers assessed. I can work here quite comfortably for a fairly solid chunk of time (solid for me. Your mileage will vary). Go me! So now… in the words of the song from ‘Dick Tracy’… I want more!

I’d really like to be able to take this show on the road. To coffee shops, to friends’ houses, etc, and be able to get solid amounts of work done. I have a rather elderly laptop, and a spare plug-in ergonomic keyboard that I can use, but it’s a weird lot of luggage to tote about. It’s not a ‘oh, look, I’m early to this appointment maybe I’ll pop into the coffee shop’ kind of set up. The keyboard alone is bigger than most laptops.

This is significantly better than not being able to write at ALL, which is a possibility that I’ve looked down the barrel of more than once. It’s a big old caliber barrel, too. I still have days where I don’t consider myself able to drive safely. These days usually coincide with a lot of whining and self-pity. It’s just not pretty.

Solution the First – I’m only able to write on computer at home.

Solution the Second – I’ve found ergonomic travel keyboards (Goldtouch makes it, and they have a travel laptop stand also)… which at least breaks down into smaller parts that can all go in one backpack. This is not an inexpensive solution, but I’m going to try a similar keyboard this weekend. That’s what birthdays and Christmas (/Yule/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah) are for, right?

Solution the Third – Well, heck. I don’t have a third solution. Do any of you have a third option I haven’t considered?

[edited for a heck of a lotta hecks!]

Update!  Sadly, solution the second doesn’t work out, as it has no ‘palm rest’, and I need that feature to avoid ‘sharps’ in my elbows.

Tags: arms, netbook, travel, writing
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At last year’s World Fantasy Con, I had the good fortune to hear Ken Scholes read his work.  One of the questions asked was  “What books are you currently reading?”  Ken’s reply was that, in his case, writing used the same brain muscles that reading did and since he was deep in a writing process he wasn’t really reading anything at that moment.  I was intrigued by that answer, heard the ring of potential Truth there, and started to pay more attention to what I read.

Everyone who’s a writer in a serious way will tell you – if you want to write, you need to read.  This is true.  When I’m not neck-deep in romancing a manuscript, I read voraciously.  Lately, I’m almost always neck-deep in writing, so I’m not as currently well-read as I’d like.

When I’m actively working on a manuscript, I make time to read works by friends (a way big enough pile that I’m always behind anyhow) and sometimes reread favorite books.  I can pick up those, read one page, or ten, put the book down and go back on my merry way until I have another ten minutes.  If I start up reading a NEW story?  Six will get you ten it’s start to finish, baby, and if I get four hours of sleep and feed my family around the edges it’s a great day.  I have to block out ‘works by friends’ time, because otherwise not much of my own writing gets done.

Then there’s research fiction I read while writing.  It’s usually in the narrow spectrum of what I’m writing.  What the hell is research fiction?  Well, while I worked on Bone Orchard (written in between surgeries and the nerve condition in my arms/hands), I tended to read books like ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley, and books by Edith Wharton and Anthony Trollope.  They’re ‘research fiction’.  In those cases they were books I’d read before, but I needed to be thoroughly reacquainted with Gothic (in the classical sense) and Victorian writing and I chose books whose tones had commonality with what I was writing.

Then there’s reading for research of facts.  For my current project, I read Her Majesty’s Spymaster, by Stephen Budiansky, which was a fun read, because I find Francis Walsingham in all his type-A hyper-intelligent fanatic Protestant anti-glory to be fascinating.  Then there’s some nice light stuff like ‘The Revolt of the Netherlands 1555 – 1608‘.  ‘Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England‘.  ‘The Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century‘.  Sometimes research reading is Really.  Not.  Interesting.  Unless you’re me, and sometimes not riveting even if you are me; and if you are, would you fold that load of laundry?  Thanks.  Four books here, out of about three dozen quite dense historical reference works and I’m trying to get hold of more even as I move forward in my writing this manuscript.

For me, it’s not necessarily about how many cycles I have to devote to reading vs. writing.  Quite a lot more sharply it seems to be reading time vs. writing time.  If you don’t read, you probably won’t learn to write really well.  If you don’t do the keyboard time, you don’t get anything written.  The time I spend reading, I’m most often reading toward my writing.

Writing vs. Reading.  If you do both, how much of each?

Tags: process, reading, writing
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At the outset, I feel it only fair to warn you that this is and will remain a ramble.  I recommend fetching a cup of tea or some other beverage.  Over on my friend M.K. Hobson’s site, she coined the term Bustlepunk.   I found this to be singularly cool at the time, and I still do.  Somewhere in the back of my head I can hear a teacher/panelist/writer/editor (I’ve heard it over and over and probably so have you.  In fact, say it with me…) “Science fiction is fiction about science.”  Whiiiiiiich isn’t really correct.  I may have to break out a fire extinguisher around here, but bear along for a few more sentences.  In fact, go and have a look at the bookstore shelves.  Even the virtual ones.  Are all the novels that come up when you go looking for science fiction about science?  NO?  I’m shocked.  SHOCKED, I tell you.  No.  I’m not shocked and neither are you.  Science fiction may be about science, but mostly it is about the effect of science, or a device, or a future and about people who live in that situation.  If it thinks like a people, it’s a people.  Don’t even go there. I intend to ramble quite enough without that particular devolution of the conversation.

Now… I like derivatives if they’re polite and play nicely.  Prosecco is high up on my list of preferred grape derivatives, for instance.    Bustlepunk is all about the polite.  Or the lack thereof.  It takes place in a technological derivation from the norm.  Cyberpunk takes place in a futuristic technological derivation from the norm that deals in the interface between wires and nerves, between flesh and computers.  Steampunk has as its effecting setting a deviation from the technological norm a bit earlier.  Victorian era.  People never really stopped writing it, though they may have skipped a bit in the middle between Vern, Burroughs, et al and the last 20 years.  This isn’t about a timeline of Steampunk, but I’d very much like to see one!  Where was I… ah yes, Bustlepunk.

Bustlepunk is such a lovely, evocative word.  The era of the bustle (and the hoopskirt, and right up through the Edwardians… but the bustle is a good middle point) evokes Merchant Ivory dramas.  Masterpiece Theater productions.  Weird thoughts of dear Miss Marple who never WORE a bustle, but who certainly evoked the high ideal of good manners and who certainly should have possessed a lovely broach with clockwork that spun backward for no reason whatever that she would reveal.  Don’t believe me about the manners?  Check out the Gibson Girl hairdos on the covers of Miss Manners some time. The bustle and its era are symbolic.  Much as steam and cyberwear are symbolic.

Bustlepunk, of course, being a speculative fiction genre, is neither a regency romance nor an Edith Wharton novel.  It has more to it than only manners.  It has aspects of Steampunk, certainly.  Zepplins may be present.  It has aspects of Victorian Gothic aesthetic.  Vampires or werewolves or zombies might haunt the gas-lit streets.  However, it seems to me that Bustlepunk, while it sets a gracious tea table at which one or both of those distinctions may have a pleasant repast, sets itself apart with the importance in the turnings of the plot and within the gears of any society… of manners.  It serves this somewhat dainty and sometimes bland repast along with the greatly appealing aperitif observation that social norms may be broken provided one does so with sufficient aplomb and grace.

Bustlepunk need not lack in action, nor indeed in bloodshed and violence.  Good gracious, people, there is such a thing as a duel and also such a thing as a serial killer and even such a thing as that ghastly boor Lord Whateverhismutziz who’s treading down one’s botanical reseach without the slightest notion that it possesses the keys to a lost kingdom, eternal youth, and you will certainly need a zepplin at this point to go off and conduct your field research.  Or else you’ll need a gold mine in Arizona from which you may transfer yourself to Mars.  Did I not mention that this was a civilized tea table, and as such it necessarily hosts the most interesting of guest devices?  Of course I did.  The Low-Techs are such dear, accommodating people once you get past their xenophobia.  And the drooling.

Waaaait a minute, I hear you say.  That’s Cyberpunk pure and classic there!  Trot off and find your copy of the SHORT STORY ‘Johnny Mnemonic’.  It’s a brilliant piece in its folding together of elements.  The science creates the situation.  It is certainly science fiction.  It deals with direct computer interface in human beings and with advanced body alteration unknown to then-medical-science and in direct rebellion.  Certainly Cyberpunk.  All good and fair.  Cyberpunk is a subset of Science Fiction.  Madam has clearly lost her tiny little mind here, eh?   The climactic resolution deals, in part, with the intersection of two social situations, and the hero’s ability to span both worlds.

You see?  And you didn’t think he even owned a waistcoat.  Oh dear.  How extraordinary of me.  Here I asked you to bring tea and completely forgot about to ask – do you take lemon, or milk with your bustlepunk?

Tags: books, bustlepunk, ramble, steampunk, writing
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Someone asked me recently what I thought it was that made me a writer.  The quick and obvious answer is that a writer is someone who writes.   I’m a writer because I write.  Yep.  Heard it a hundred and forty seven thousand times.  What is it that makes me into a me who writes?

Hunh.

I considered this question in great depth for about a second and a half and up blinked the word ‘curiosity’.  It isn’t the only thing that makes me a writer, but it’s certainly a solid cornerstone.  I’m curious about people.  My husband is endlessly amused and wry because I talk to people that I don’t know.

I converse with the lady at the meat counter (her dog has squeaky toy issues).

I chat with the dry cleaner (the roofer recommendation?  Awesome.).

I listen to nervous people on airplanes (one lovely young lady was studying casino management).

So why does that make me a writer instead of nosy as all get out?  Okay, so I am ALSO nosy as all get out.  I’m curious about people, about things, about history, about virtually everything.  Well, maybe not Nascar, but possibly I just don’t know enough about what makes that interesting to people.

I’m curious about people, about what makes them do what they do, how they think what they think.  I wonder what would make them change.  What would they do if some situation radically changed the world in which they live and how would they respond?  How do people respond to challenges in their lives?  What kinds of responses make someone, maybe even a very broken person, into a hero?

Do you write?  Why?  I’m curious.

Tags: writing
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Today is the 80th birthday of one of the grand dames of science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin. Happy birthday to a great and gracious lady.

It’s also the 40th anniversary of ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’, so if by some cruel twist of fate you have missed out on Le Guin’s work up until now, this might be an appropriate place to start.

Tags: birthday, writing
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