Musings

Small Epiphanies

January 5, 2012

Last February, I was a participant at the San Francisco Writers Conference, where I met lots and lots of people, but three people in particular: Katharine “Kit” Kerr, Alex Tillson, and Clint Talbert. Though it would probably surprise at least two of them to hear it, all three of them led me to great epiphanies [...]

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Ripe Ideas and Low-Hanging Fruit

November 28, 2011

“Low-hanging fruit” is a common metaphor you’ll hear in writing circles, in reference to coming up with ideas. The lowest-hanging fruit on any tree are the easiest ones to reach and therefore the ones that get picked first. For writers, the metaphor usually suggests that the ideas you come up with first, or most easily, [...]

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Self-Publishing, SF/F, and Standards of Quality

September 12, 2011

Paul Cornell, in his Reno 2011 WorldCon report, says many things near and dear — both to my own heart, and to my own convention-going experience. Read this and learn what these conventions are like, why we go to them and why we love them. But one particular thing he says, which I’ve spent several [...]

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The Elephant in the Room

September 8, 2011

If you’re in publishing, even if you’re not in New York City yourself, you probably know a lot of people who are–or have been–based there. Nobody talks about it much, especially not any more, but if you know people who’ve lived and worked in New York City for a while, if you know people in [...]

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The Value of F2F

July 18, 2011

Friday afternoon, I met up with a local authorfriend for lunch, and ended up spending the afternoon swapping books and stories, and I left feeling wonderfully recharged. I don’t get to see my co-workers in the office every day, and that makes spending time with colleagues more special. Especially in such a solitary field, I [...]

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Five More Truths About Publishing

June 14, 2011

Last week, Richard Lee Byers was here, sharing five truths about publishing that nobody told him. Richard made a lot of good points, so I wanted to follow up with a response. Please consider this post an addendum, not a rebuttal. 1. You will hate your book cover for 24 hours. Then you will fall [...]

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On Names, Placeholders, and Autocorrect

May 23, 2011

Just a brief cautionary tale today. Lately I’ve been trying to improve the work-productivity of my iPad. It’s a nifty thing for reading and for watching Netflix, but I want to be able to do work on it too. I want it to replace my netbook when I travel. It can’t completely take over until [...]

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Writer’s Inertia

March 10, 2011

Writer’s inertia is one of the big issues I face when I seek to set down a story. It’s not to be confused with writer’s block — I have the idea, I know exactly where it’s going…and in a way, that’s exactly the problem. I write really solidly at first: I establish the set-up, get [...]

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Practice vs Polish

January 27, 2011

It’s a beautiful day here in San Francisco today. The temperature is mild, the sky is cloudless, and there’s a perfect gentle breeze. I’m not saying this to earn the ire of everyone still struggling under winter’s grasp. I’ve put in my due time in colder climates, I don’t miss the snow, and you all [...]

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Speculative Fiction and Speculation

October 25, 2010

As much as we all think we should have our flying cars by now, science fiction doesn’t exist to predict the future. (Nor, necessarily, to prevent it — an assertion that has been attributed to both Frank Herbert and Ray Bradbury.) Science fiction — and all speculative fiction — exists to speculate. It takes a [...]

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