This is getting linked all over the place:

Oh No, She Didn’t: The Strong Female Character, Deconstructed | by Ilana C. Myer

For the most part, I agree with this essay, particularly her points such as:
Just as I don’t imagine most women want to be thought of as “female writers,” the idea of “female characters” as a category for discussion seems ( Read more... )

A side effect of being a Lady of a Certain Age is that I tend to wake up in the middle of the night with my skin on fire. Or bathed in sweat. Actually, more often bathed in sweat, but last night it was skin on fire. This may or may not have been exacerbated by the flu shot I got yesterday morning. (Probably was ( Read more... )

A couple of days early, but happy birthday mastadge!

Garden is moving along. Super sweet cherry tomatoes are ripening a half dozen or more every day, and the pace is accelerating. The black cherry tomatoes are starting to take on the purple blush. There's one orange pixie that's turning orange, but since I've never grown this variety before, I don't ( Read more... )

First: veggies. I have a zillion green tomatoes. The "volunteers" have turned out to be standard cherry tomatoes. Probably either the Super Sweet 100s or the Black Cherry toms don't breed true. (My guess is the SS100s, since those are a newer, selectively engineered brand, while the BCs are an heirloom variety.) Either way, the cherry toms are ( Read more... )

WRITING IS HAPPENING.

I've been neglecting the blog horribly for at least a year, but I've been writing. I did a bit of math and figured out I wrote around 70K new words last year, which is HUGE for me. I've done 8K in the last 2 weeks.

Getting rid of the TV has been the best thing for my output.

I've also read a lot more books in the last ( Read more... )

I said this in a comment-reply in my previous post, but I'm going to promote it to full status here ( Read more... )

There's a superabundance of shit around the internet today, so I'm going to post a positive thing ( Read more... )

I was reading this ( Read more... )

OMG two posts in less than a week! Wax up your skis, hell-bound people ( Read more... )

So apparently there's some talk lately in writerly circles about realism vs genre. The latest iteration I've seen--and which prompted me to write this--is in the vein of "YA Realism is a rising trend (that will save us from sparkly vampires)." This is layered with overtones of lauding white guys for "creating" this beneficial trend, which ( Read more... )