Your Thursday moment of zen.
Daniel Abraham, Walter Jon Williams, Geoff Landis and Mary Turzillo, Taos Ski Valley NM. © 2007, 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 5:50 am Thu August 25 2011 | Comments(0) |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Books We Can’t Wait For This Fall — io9 gives my novel Endurance some love, as well as the terrific Dan Dos Santos cover art.
The visibilizing analyzer — Language Log on the dangers of writing SF. Some of the comments are interesting, some are annoying.
My new job. In his own words. — Roger Ebert on audiobooks, specifically his biography, but there’s some neat stuff in here about voice performance.
The Tricky Transition From Walking To Running — Biomechanical engineers say we can switch from walking to running without increasing our energy use
Deciding to Die, Then Shown the Door — Voluntary death by VSED.
WISE: Coolest Brown Dwarfs Yet
Fossil redefines mammal history
Case closed: “Climategate” was manufactured — …the “ClimateGate” nonsense of the past couple of years, where leaked emails were taken hugely out of context by the press and climate change deniers, and used to smear scientists. Dr. Mann was at the center of the whole manufactured controversy, being the biggest target of the people who want to deny the Earth is warming up. Quelle surprise. Another conservative smoking gun turns out to be a cynical lie. Still, millions will remember the accusation who will never hear of the exoneration, so the lie serves its purpose.
Abortion Is Legal, but What Percentage of Ob-gyns Will Provide One? — It always amazes me that the very same conservatives who are violently opposed to having the government come between you and your doctor (HCR) are violently eager for the government to come between you and your doctor (the forced pregnancy movement). Intellectual consistency much?
Big-Spending Bureaucrats — Tea Party to America: Keep your government hands off my clean water and safe food and maintained roads!
Indiana GOPer: ‘Self-Destruction’ Of Soliciting Young Man On Craigslist Won’t Make Me Resign — Mmm, family values. Remember, liberals are immoral!
?otD: What would you have had for breakfast?
8/25/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (2,800 words on Sunspin plus some WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (solid)
Weight: 230.4 (yikes!)
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Posted: 5:49 am Thu August 25 2011 | Comments(1) |
I’m at a point in drafting Calamity of So Long A Life (volume one of Sunspin) where the wordage I’m putting down feels rather like tedious natter. This is of course a normal phenomenon experienced by a great number of writers, often referred to as “the muddle in the middle”, though in my case this time it’s more like “the muddle at the 85% finished mark”.
One thing I’ve heard countless times in workshops, at retreats, and from aspiring writers in other settings is along the lines of, “I was writing this novel, but it just wasn’t working for me, then I had a better idea.” This is often accompanied by the statement that the writer has started six or seven (or whatever) novels, and finished none of them.
My response to that is that if you’d stuck with any of the ideas, you’ve already written enough word count to finish one, and possibly more than one. Consider this following concept carefully:
Finishing a novel is a necessary condition to selling that novel.
In other words, one of the most important writerly skills is learning to ignore that voice that sits in the back of your mental classroom, over by the glue pots, and drawls booooooring at you whilst you are pecking away at The Further Adventures of Spreadsheet Lad and the Balanced Books. It’s almost inevitable that at some point your magnum opus will feel boring to you. Heck, it might even be boring. But you don’t know. Not in the middle of writing it. How could you? You’re too close to the manuscript, and to the psychological processes of writing.
And if it turns out later that a portion of the manuscript is boring, then fix it on revision.
But don’t quit in the the middle because the novel isn’t working for you. Unfinished books don’t even have a chance to get read. And your inner voice is largely full of it in this context. Bull through the bullshit, finish the book, let it steep, and listen to your first readers.
Posted: 5:29 am Wed August 24 2011 | Comments(1) |
Your Wednesday moment of zen.
Flower, Taos Ski Valley NM. © 2007, 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 5:17 am Wed August 24 2011 | Comments(0) |
Man pretends to be 911 to telemarketer — Hahaha. (Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1){kind=small}
willyumtx
From Country Bumpkin to City Dweller: Urban Wildlife
The New Big Data — Today’s big data is forcing researchers to find new techniques for knowledge discovery and data mining.
Experiments Show Gravity Is Not An Emergent Phenomenon
Changing Face of an Icy Dwarf — Water volcanoes and red methane ice.
Fantasy author Jane Yolen under attack by Tea Party — The reality-impaired are at it again. (Via a mailing list I’m on.)
Study: Tea Party Members Cultural Dispositions ‘Authoritarianism, Fear Of Change, Libertarianism And Nativism’ — Also, this just in: sun rises in east. Are those really the criteria by which we want to manage our national discourse and governance?
?otD: Will you teach me how to dance real slow?
8/24/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (2,800 words on Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 hours (solid)
Weight: 230.4 (yikes!)
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Posted: 5:16 am Wed August 24 2011 | Comments(1) |
My thoughts are still somewhat muddled by exhaustion, and the process of picking back up my real life, but I wanted to post a bit about my experience of co-hosting the Hugos with the mighty kenscholes
In a word, it was an awesome experience. Draining, difficult, amusing, wonderful, and many other suitably bipolar adjectives.
We’d been working on the script off and on for well over a month, interrupted by my liver resecting in mid-July. We had read-throughs and rehearsals Thursday and Saturday at Renovation. We had a magnificent tech crew supporting us across the board on site, with able leadership from Sharon Sbarsky and John Maizels. But when it came down to the moment, it was still me and Ken walking out on stage in front of 1,500 2,500 people and a handful of video cameras.
Things went wrong. Somehow we started on page two of the script. No one seemed to notice. Somehow we lost the last four pages of the script mid-show. (This included the entire Best Novel segment.) I scrambled on the dark stage during the clips of Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form to locate the missing pages, which I found in the pile of discarded pages from earlier in the show. Yet it all worked.
I know the scripting was obvious from the audience. I wish we could have done the whole thing more naturally, ad lib — that’s how I do my best work — but there were way too many details and checkpoints and hard cues to leave to a set of bullet points and our wit for two hours. Plus the need to coordinate between the two of us. When I hosted the World Fantasy Awards a few years ago, I worked without a script, but I was hosting solo with a ceremony where I only had to provide the main introduction, not manage the timings between award segements. (It’s a much less technical show than the Hugos.)
A real treat for me was that much of my family came to see the show, including my dad and (step)mom, my sister and her boyfriend, the_childthe_child
I’ve also learned that while I’m emotionally bulletproof about bad reviews of my fiction, I’m only mildly bullet-resistant about bad reviews of my live performance. It’s an interesting distinction, doubly so because live performance is such a relatively small part of what I do.
This was so much fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Plus if I’m ever invited to host the Nebula awards, I’ll have made a trifecta of hosting the major awards in our field.
I want to thank Renovation, and especially Patty Wells and Sharon Sbarsky, for inviting Ken and I to do this. I want to thank John Maizels and the tech crew for making the show possible and making us look good. I want to thank kenscholes
It was a blast.
Posted: 5:32 am Tue August 23 2011 | Comments(6) |
Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Trees, Taos Ski Valley NM. © 2007, 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 5:02 am Tue August 23 2011 | Comments(1) |
A funny photo of me and Ken Scholes hosting the Hugos — (Thanks to Irene Gallo.)
…this report of my death was an exaggeration. — Making Light on the state of publishing.
On Habitable Worlds and Their Moons
Aurora Over Greenland — Another awesome APOD image.
Lego Milling Machine Creates Amazing 3D Sculptures — It is to boggle. (Via David Goldman.)
Animal’s genetic code redesigned — Researchers say they have created the first ever animal with artificial information in its genetic code. (Thanks to lillypond
Study Shows Animals Starting to Move to Higher Latitudes, Elevations — There goes that liberal bias in reality again. Actually, it’s just a reality bias, but I repeat myself.
In defense of the low road — The reality of mocking Christianist fundamentalism. (Snurched from Slackivist.)
Comic’s PAC Is More Than a Gag — Stephen Colbert continues to hack the US political scene. (Via my Dad.)
Maxine Waters to tea party: Go to Hell — A prominent tea party group shot back with a statement calling on Obama to check the members of his party and to condemn the rough talk. I love it when conservatives whine about Democrats playing rough. Typical right wing hypocrisy. GOPAC memo, anyone?
?otD: Can music save your mortal soul?
8/23/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (convention exhaustion)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (interrupted)
Weight: 229.6 (yikes!)
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Posted: 5:00 am Tue August 23 2011 | Comments(0) |
I am home. Thanks to various issues, did not get back til 1 am, which is my current state of health is very destructive. I have taken part of the morning off work, though I am now picking that up again.
The Hugos were awesome. My wonderful family made the trip from Portland to see me onstage, along with 1,500 of you guys. I’ll have more to say later when I have had a chance to pull my thoughts together, but for now I just want to thank everyone for all the love and support and good wishes, which were an overflowing abundance.
Also, thank you for laughing at the right places during the ceremony.
Posted: 10:26 am Mon August 22 2011 | Comments(5) |
Your Monday moment of zen.
Flower, Taos Ski Valley NM. © 2007, 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 10:18 am Mon August 22 2011 | Comments(0) |