I am going through the three stages of a relationship with my manuscript.

You know how it is. At first, everything is beautiful: your baby idea, this germ of a book, is without a doubt your BEST IDEA EVER!!! Every world is a pearl of perfection, there are turns of phrases that could make you weep, and it's coming so *easily*--were you ever stuck ( Read more... )

It seems obvious to talk about insanity on a writer's blog. Sure, there are plenty of ways to drive yourself completely 'round the bend, heck, there are plenty of substances that'll help you get there all the quicker, but for the entrepreneurial self-starter, I don't think there's any more thorough way to go completely out of your gourd than to ( Read more... )

On #kidlitchat yesterday, I discovered something: not everyone's library is part of an inter-library loan system. I was honestly shocked. Naive little me took it for granted that if my library didn't have a particular book that I'm jonesing for that I could easily request it from anywhere in my state and it would be delivered to my library with an ( Read more... )

Old tome taken home,
Eyes burning with mites,
Would I could read you whilst in bed
But then bedbugs will bite.

I'm no fan of the e-readers, the Almighty Kindle, at least for myself because I really like the feel of a good book in my hand and what Brain Selznick referred to as the unconscious, physical act of turning a page, willingly lifting a ( Read more... )

So despite the fact that I said I was going to continue my musings on what makes heroes heroic, I had to interrupt myself again because, well...

JOSS WHEDON!!

Yeah. I can’t seem to think about much else, so I figured that I’d better blog about it here.

I was so fortunate to have incredible friends with me - pantsie and wildpaletz (_t_ was in her home state with the ( Read more... )

This has become my new best friend.


( Read more... )

There comes a point when even the most mild-mannered person reaches her limit; when the stresses of internal combustion collide within the growing storm of inspiration vs. obsession to create a veritable maelstrom of catastrophic proportions potentially causing complete psychic core meltdown ( Read more... )

Last night, I decided to watch Princess Mononoke again. This was after reading the whole of Freakangels up to the present day (thanks, seanan_mcguire!) -- which, incidentally, reminded me a lot of the old MTV Aeon Flux -- and re-reading Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. It was like enjoying a tapas menu of eclectic inspirations; an odd melding of anime and nanotech ( Read more... )

In the wake of all this talk of evil-bad-guy-ness and beloved badassery, I wanted to offer up this great tool for tropes! (As opposed to clichés which should be axed with well-honed red pens or mercilessly struck-through with strike-throughs, but I digress.)

TVTropes.org is a handy place to look up all your favorites (based mostly on TV, film, ( Read more... )