Blathering
Halloween
I really, really love Halloween. As a kid who didn’t get to eat much candy the rest of the year, it was like… hedonism itself. I would panic and fuss about costumes, and made myself some pretty terrible ones. Yes, Read more…
Writing
How Much Science is Too Much
So you’re writing hard science fiction. You’ve spent a week researching the thermal control systems on space stations for a scene where you need a time-dependent problem for the heroes to fix. The problem is, you’ve got like an 80-page Read more…
Writing
Unhappy Little Accidents
When I was starting out as a short story writer –and for longer after I started than I am proud to admit– I thought my stories should grow organically as I wrote them, that they should be spontaneous things unexpected Read more…
Blathering
Confidence
Playing sports taught me that if you don’t have confidence in your ability to do a thing, you won’t succeed at it. You have to believe you’ll catch the ball, bring the runner to the ground, or land your sword Read more…
Writing
The Dreary Dominance of Everyman
When I started writing fiction, and thought of my potential audience, I knew who I wanted to appeal to: Everyone. Well, okay, that’s impossible, but I had this idea there was a sort of mass of “normal” people out there Read more…
project
Main Character Genders
I was commenting to a fellow-writer that, in the slush piles I read, lately female main characters outnumber male main characters so much that the males stand out more and might have an unfair advantage because I find them refreshing Read more…
Writing
How Much Science is Enough?
Blog post idea suggested by Karrin. I’ve gotten rejection letters that said “It’s a good story, but it just isn’t science fiction enough.” I think that might be where this question is coming from? How much is enough, then? Let Read more…