I was surfing, and ran across this, which I haven't read in years. After bearing the comments of those fanfic writers who complain of "grammar nazis," I thought I'd give them the pleasure of understanding what public release of stories really might be subject to, given higher expectations than they're used to ( Read more... )

One thing not on my icon is the different between "averse" and "adverse." I just can't come up with a short way to say it. I even searched today to find a good one to steal ( Read more... )

I'm still snickering over this one: oh joy. There's some bitterness in Britain over a trend toward using the present tense -- and, of course, getting an award for writing in that particularly ( Read more... )

Ok, as I've hinted a couple times, requirements for postings drive me crazy -- not because I don't think there should be warnings, but because there seem to be no logical rules about what to post. I mean, I know rape deserves mention, but beyond that ( Read more... )

I seldom make recs, for arcane reasons which have nothing to do with either quality or pleasure -- there are lots of wonderful fics out there.

But sometimes, a fic is so wonderful, and so under-read, I just have to make sure that my friends have seen it. And perverse-idyll's "No Room for the Weak" is definitely one of those ( Read more... )

John Updike has died.

Besides a nice obituary, the New York Times ran a poem from his soon-to-be-published collection. The poem is about his own death, and is, as the writer could be, amusing and thoughtful ( Read more... )

Warnings: A bit more toward psychotherapy than I usually get ( Read more... )

Garrison Keeler wrote -- well, hardly an essay, more like a stream of consciousness -- concerning fiction here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2009/01/14/reading_fiction/index.html?source=newsletterRead more... )

Very short post today -- my computer is acting crazy, and now the typefaces for entering lj entries are screwed up as well -- so in lieu of writing, I'll just refer you to Ellen Kushner (Thomas the Rhymer, Swordspoint series, etc.) to read a fascinating discussion about visual description of first person characters -- how to do it, when to do it.

I promised a friend -- Stray, whom I will be mentioning -- to write a series of informational somethings on centralizing character in stories. When I started writing it, I realized that I could definitely only speak from my personal writing experience. So this is NOT canon, academic or otherwise. The only reason I know something about this is that ( Read more... )