Before I begin, let me say that I think I was unfair in my last post. In my Friday writeup, I suggested that the all-male panels I'd seen had been the result of some negligence on the part of the con's organizers. Yesterday, Margaret McGraw told me that the panels were actually self-selected--that the guests had chosen whatever panels sounded interesting. There was still a gender imbalance among the guests themselves, but if this is one of those cons where you have to apply to be a guest, then the organizers really can't be blamed for that. Sorry I implied it was their fault!
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Day 2
(Click here for Day 1, or here for Day 3)
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 1/2/13
Not too many links today. While you read, here's Iron & Wine's "Flightless Bird, American mouth." Yes, I know it's from the Twilight soundtrack. The Twilight movies have excellent soundtracks.
1. "Loved Your Book, Can't Publish It." Lynn Price at Behler Blog writes about the frustration of trying to sell an excellent book that's not currently marketable.
2. "Just Shut Up." An excellent post about loving problematic media.
4. "How Long Should You Keep Trying To Get Published?" Jane Friedman discusses when not to try for publication, when to start thinking about it, and when it might be good to step back and take another look at what you're doing.
5. "Ten Things I Wish I'd Known." Julianne Lee at Book View Cafe talks about things beginning writers should know about the publishing process.
6. "Prophecies." Patricia C. Wrede weighs in on prophecies, why they often don't work in modern fantasy novels, and why they absolutely can work if used correctly.
And that's all for this week! Going off to work on the winter story, and then to edit more of WOODS. Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season, and that 2013 is your best year yet. : )
1. "Loved Your Book, Can't Publish It." Lynn Price at Behler Blog writes about the frustration of trying to sell an excellent book that's not currently marketable.
2. "Just Shut Up." An excellent post about loving problematic media.
3. "Research -- All The Layers." An ode to research at YA Highway.I don’t know about you, but when I was a child, nobody sat down with me after I watched Beauty and the Beast and said, “Okay, this is a movie, and it’s okay to enjoy this movie! It’s okay to think this movie is great! But just so you know, if someone in real life did to you the things the Beast does to Belle, that wouldn’t be okay. That wouldn’t be right.” When my mind was young and malleable, there was no trusted adult pointing out, “This is a movie, and it’s okay to like this movie, but the relationship it shows is unhealthy.” And that’s not because I didn’t have those trusted adults in my life! I was lucky enough to grow up with two intelligent, liberal, kind, forward-thinking, active parents; they didn’t tell me because they didn’t know to tell me. They didn’t tell me because nobody told them. (via not language but a map)
4. "How Long Should You Keep Trying To Get Published?" Jane Friedman discusses when not to try for publication, when to start thinking about it, and when it might be good to step back and take another look at what you're doing.
5. "Ten Things I Wish I'd Known." Julianne Lee at Book View Cafe talks about things beginning writers should know about the publishing process.
6. "Prophecies." Patricia C. Wrede weighs in on prophecies, why they often don't work in modern fantasy novels, and why they absolutely can work if used correctly.
And that's all for this week! Going off to work on the winter story, and then to edit more of WOODS. Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season, and that 2013 is your best year yet. : )
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Year-End Book Recommendations: 2012
Happy New Year, all! I hope you had a great night last night. Here are the best books I read in 2012--in chronological order, since I couldn't begin to rank them by quality. Well, except for the last one, which was probably the best I've read in a long, long time.
I put off posting this list for several days, because I started reading Lindsey Barraclough's Long Lankin and suspected it might earn a place here if I finished it in time. As it turned out, I didn't even get halfway through before the end of the year, but expect to see Long Lankin on the 2013 list if it keeps going as well as it started.
Note: When I say that these were "the best books I read," I mean that they're the reading experiences I enjoyed the most. Different books on this list serve different purposes, and I try to keep that in mind when I read. That's why Suzanne Collins is next to Dostoevsky. : )
Drumroll, please:
I put off posting this list for several days, because I started reading Lindsey Barraclough's Long Lankin and suspected it might earn a place here if I finished it in time. As it turned out, I didn't even get halfway through before the end of the year, but expect to see Long Lankin on the 2013 list if it keeps going as well as it started.
Note: When I say that these were "the best books I read," I mean that they're the reading experiences I enjoyed the most. Different books on this list serve different purposes, and I try to keep that in mind when I read. That's why Suzanne Collins is next to Dostoevsky. : )
Drumroll, please:
Friday, October 26, 2012
2012 Halloween Story: Over the River
Over the River
by Katherine Traylor
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Sabrina couldn’t sleep with the moonlight shining in her eyes.
Her friends were having no such trouble. Jenny and Mark were sound asleep, cuddled up in their zipped-together sleeping bags. Brian had been snoring for half an hour. But Sabrina, pressed against him, was as alert as ever.
She’d tried snuggling closer to Brian, and moving farther away. She’d unzipped the bag for a breath of air, and zipped it back up when she’d gotten too cold. She’d rolled over, covered her eyes, counted sheep, and tried to meditate. But wherever she turned, the halogen light of the full white moon shone through her eyelids, keeping her wide awake.
At last she couldn’t take it any more. She eased herself out of the doubled sleeping bag she shared with Brian, patting his shoulder when he whimpered in his sleep. Shoving her feet into her old yellow Crocs, she walked to the edge of the woods.
The air was cold tonight. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and stomped her feet. She’d put on sweats over her flannel pajamas, and the socks she wore were the fluffy SpongeBob ones her sister had given her for Christmas, but the wind cut through everything like scissors through gauze. Strange that it should be so cold: usually it didn’t get below fifty this time of year.
She supposed she could go into the house. It would be warmer. But the door was probably locked,and she didn’t want to wake Jenny for the key. Anyway, what if she encountered Jenny’s parents? They seemed like nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she didn’t feel like making small talk. Better to stay out here.
She could stir up the coals and roast some marshmallows, but she’d already brushed her teeth. She hadn’t even brought a book.
Frustrated, Sabrina stared into the forest. The moonlight fell in broad beams through the leafless trees, chasing the shadows from the underbrush. Far below, at the bottom of the hill, the Little River glittered like tinsel. They had walked along the shore this afternoon, before sunset, but the place looked very different at night--fairy-haunted; forbidden.
She paced restlessly around the edge of the campsite, peering through the trees for a better look at the water. Every few steps she saw a flash of moon-bleached sand, a twinkle of water. Then, suddenly, a path came into focus.
She didn’t know how she had missed it. It was a wide, straight track between the trees, leading right down to the water. It looked much more passable than the glorified deer-trail they’d followed that afternoon. She could probably make it in her Crocs without twisting an ankle. And it wasn’t that far: the murmur of the water carried clearly over the chilly night air.
She could go down now, have a little walk, and come back without waking anyone. It would only take a few minutes. She might even be tired enough to sleep when she got back. Still, it seemed wrong to go off and leave her friends without saying anything.
Sabrina turned to wake them--let Jenny or Brian, at least, know where she was going. But they were all sleeping so peacefully--and she knew they’d tell her not to go. It wasn’t safe to wander by herself at night.
Making a quick decision, Sabrina shoved her hands in her pockets and started down the trail.
Sabrina couldn’t sleep with the moonlight shining in her eyes.
Her friends were having no such trouble. Jenny and Mark were sound asleep, cuddled up in their zipped-together sleeping bags. Brian had been snoring for half an hour. But Sabrina, pressed against him, was as alert as ever.
She’d tried snuggling closer to Brian, and moving farther away. She’d unzipped the bag for a breath of air, and zipped it back up when she’d gotten too cold. She’d rolled over, covered her eyes, counted sheep, and tried to meditate. But wherever she turned, the halogen light of the full white moon shone through her eyelids, keeping her wide awake.
At last she couldn’t take it any more. She eased herself out of the doubled sleeping bag she shared with Brian, patting his shoulder when he whimpered in his sleep. Shoving her feet into her old yellow Crocs, she walked to the edge of the woods.
The air was cold tonight. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and stomped her feet. She’d put on sweats over her flannel pajamas, and the socks she wore were the fluffy SpongeBob ones her sister had given her for Christmas, but the wind cut through everything like scissors through gauze. Strange that it should be so cold: usually it didn’t get below fifty this time of year.
She supposed she could go into the house. It would be warmer. But the door was probably locked,and she didn’t want to wake Jenny for the key. Anyway, what if she encountered Jenny’s parents? They seemed like nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she didn’t feel like making small talk. Better to stay out here.
She could stir up the coals and roast some marshmallows, but she’d already brushed her teeth. She hadn’t even brought a book.
Frustrated, Sabrina stared into the forest. The moonlight fell in broad beams through the leafless trees, chasing the shadows from the underbrush. Far below, at the bottom of the hill, the Little River glittered like tinsel. They had walked along the shore this afternoon, before sunset, but the place looked very different at night--fairy-haunted; forbidden.
She paced restlessly around the edge of the campsite, peering through the trees for a better look at the water. Every few steps she saw a flash of moon-bleached sand, a twinkle of water. Then, suddenly, a path came into focus.
She didn’t know how she had missed it. It was a wide, straight track between the trees, leading right down to the water. It looked much more passable than the glorified deer-trail they’d followed that afternoon. She could probably make it in her Crocs without twisting an ankle. And it wasn’t that far: the murmur of the water carried clearly over the chilly night air.
She could go down now, have a little walk, and come back without waking anyone. It would only take a few minutes. She might even be tired enough to sleep when she got back. Still, it seemed wrong to go off and leave her friends without saying anything.
Sabrina turned to wake them--let Jenny or Brian, at least, know where she was going. But they were all sleeping so peacefully--and she knew they’d tell her not to go. It wasn’t safe to wander by herself at night.
Making a quick decision, Sabrina shoved her hands in her pockets and started down the trail.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
RTW #115: Best Book of January
(Mandatory plug: Check out my new short story!)
Two posts in one day? Surely the world is turning on its head. It's Road Trip Wednesday, though, and I actually have something to say about today's prompt, which is: "What is the best book you read in January?"
There's not much of a choice: I only finished three books in January. One was a romance novel, which was okay but only just. One was Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, a very informative book that I definitely recommend. The third was Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men. Not surprisingly, the third one won hands-down.
Two posts in one day? Surely the world is turning on its head. It's Road Trip Wednesday, though, and I actually have something to say about today's prompt, which is: "What is the best book you read in January?"
There's not much of a choice: I only finished three books in January. One was a romance novel, which was okay but only just. One was Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, a very informative book that I definitely recommend. The third was Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men. Not surprisingly, the third one won hands-down.
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