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Monthly Archives: June 2011
Fighting Back the Jungle
I like pruning. When I took Master Gardening training, it was my favorite part. I like the idea of coaxing shape out of the wood, of encouraging it in a particular direction, coaxing it up and out. The rhododendron was pleasant to do, particularly since it hadn’t been done in a LONG time and I could use my little hand saw to clear some undergrowth out. The opposite facing hedge was much less so, and held a number of g’normous (but pretty) snails and a baby bird’s skeleton. Continue reading
Posted in daily life
Tagged creepy bird skeletons, gardening, landscaping, snails, Sunday morning
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Realization About Shadow Twins
Weird little things happen like this when you’re working on something big. It’s like a lens clicks into place and you perceive a section better. And that perception spreads out, affects the view you have of the overall piece, the unruly profusion of plot lines, each with its flowers of action scenes and climatic moments, that will become the lavish bouquet of the book’s world. Continue reading
Explaining Things In Fiction
Many of us know the term “infodump,” where a whooooole bunch of information necessary for understanding the story gets thrown at the reader, sometimes in the form of dialogue, sometimes outright chunks of books, or some other form. We want to avoid these because they’re usually dry and a little boring, and because they put readers off. Continue reading
Pick The Title of My First Clarion West Write-a-thon Story
I’m participating in this year’s Clarion West Write-a-thon and one of the things I’m going to do this year is make it a bit more interactive. So I invite readers to a) vote for your favorite title and b) sponsor me (or some other fine writer!) in the Write-a-thon. You don’t have be sponsoring anyone to vote on a title. 🙂 Continue reading
Horrific Miscue (Seattle Branch) Group Reading on June 30, 2010
Seattle opens its summer of science fiction with the Horrific Miscue group reading, at the Inner Chapters Bookstore & Cafe, 419 Fairview Avenue North, Seattle, Washington. All proceeds of the reading will go to benefit victims of the Japanese earthquake. Continue reading
More Dorothy Dunnett Analysis
More Dunnett, this time a fight scene that’s as carefully choreographed as her prose. Here Lymond and Jerott are fighting, and it’s soon after Jerott’s ideas of Lymond have been reversed. It doesn’t come out till somewhat after the passage that Lymond is desperately (with Lymond, it’s always desperately) ill with fever. Continue reading
Happily Busy
The Writing F&SF class has come and gone, which frees up some time, but is kinda sad because it’s a fun way to spend an evening a week. I’ll be teaching at BCC at the end of July – the Blogging 101 class plus a one day workshop on writing flash fiction that should be a lot of fun on July 28th. Come August, I’m doing a teen workshop for the King County Library System at the Issaquah Library. Continue reading
Posted in daily life
Tagged benefictions, blogging 101, clarion west, editing, f&sf class, flash fiction, inner chapters, locus awards, writing queries
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Looking at Description: Dorothy Dunnett
A series that I come back to repeatedly is Dorothy Dunnett’s marvelous six-volume series The Lymond Chronicles. Dunnett has two strengths: dialogue and its accompanying actions as well as a descriptive gift that I am bitterly envious of. Right now I’m working my way through the books for a third or fourth time, and I’m midway through Book 3, The Disorderly Knights. Continue reading
Posted in teaching
Tagged description, disorderly knights, dorothy dunnett, lymond, lymond chronicles, macbeth, niccolo, oonagh, sentences
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May Stats
May stats, including words written, submissions sent, and classes taught. Continue reading
Posted in daily life
Tagged bellevue college, clarion west, inner chapters, seattle, write-a-thon, writing
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