If you liked the Imaro books by Charles Saunders and are looking for more African-inspired heroic fantasy, or just more heroic fantasy period, check out this review of Meji by Milton J. Davis.


I was talking to a friend last night about Nanomorwrimoing, and we got into world building, and places to start. I tend to want to start with the characters, and what kind of people I want them to be, and then come up with a world, culture, etc that will provide the elements and environment that would create those people. It also helps to know a little bit about where you want your plot to go. Are you going to be staying in one place, a city or forest or island or whatever that you can create in more detail, that you're going to need to know more about how it functions, what resources the inhabitants have, level of technology, and so on. Or are you going to be moving around, passing through places that you can paint in broader strokes, that your characters won't need to know much about. You can spend as much or as little time as you want with world building, as long as you've got what you need for your story. A fantasy with a gritty realistic tone may need more detail than a surreal fairy tale.

Are there any web sites that talk about world building? I keep thinking that I've heard about some, but I may be misremembering.

Reading: Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn. This is the first of a series of mysteries set in post WW I Britain, in the flapper/Bright Young Thing time period, with a main character who is a young woman trying to stay independent from her family by becoming a journalist for Town and Country. There are a bunch of books in this series and I suspect I will read all of them.

Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile by Gyles Brandreth. Oscar Wilde, murders, Hamlet, and a steamship crossing the Atlantic. This will be awesome.

I also have The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay. Haven't started it yet but I'm really looking forward to it.

I just commented with this to a friend who just got a new kitten: They don't sleep, and they can teleport around the house, and hide in temporary dimensional pockets. I think I spent the first two months we had Tasha just looking for her. The most common conversation in the house started with "Where's the kitten?" and ended with something like "On the shelf on top of the phone book."

Troyce has a job interview today; everyone please cross your fingers for him. He's applied for a bunch of jobs since hearing about the lay-off but this is the first interview he's gotten.


There's a review of Quatrain by Sharon Shinn at DearAuthor.

I know some of you have been waiting for this one: Mermaid's Madness by jimhines is now available. He also has some links on that posts to other new SF/F releases this week.

It's a gray day, though no rain and not all that cool. Very depressing. I'm making the second pot roast from the grocery store's two-for-one sale tonight, so I hope it turns out as good as the first one did.

The Texas Renaissance Festival starts this weekend.

ETA: Keep forgetting to post this: the breast cancer click site has been low on clicks lately and needs more -- don't forget to click every day.

An article from DearAuthor: New FTC rules for Bloggers: The FTC and the Case of Unreasonable Disclosure. Not sure how this will affect me, as I don't generally get books for free. I either buy them or get them from the library or borrow them from friends.
ETA: FTC Guide re Endorsement Update

book rec: An Old Chaos by Sheila Simonson, author of Bar Sinister, Lady Elizabeth's Comet, the Lark Dodge mysteries. Really enjoyed this, though it's the characters that make this book rather than the mystery. (disclosure: I did not get this book free from the author or the publisher, but from a gift card sent by a friend not associated with author or publisher for my birthday. See, this could get old fast.)

art site: Kris Kuksi the sculpture is incredible.


Some people have probably already heard of this site, but it was recommended on the Black Gate blog: Query Shark -- book queries critiqued.

Agents have been getting huge numbers of online queries this year, to the point where it's overwhelming, and a huge number of those queries do not follow the submission guidelines posted on the agency web sites. They don't send it in the right format, they don't include the right information, they query for genres the agents do not represent. They waste time, the agent's time, the author's time, the intertube's time, everybody's time. Like I told the group in my program at WriterCon, if you just carefully follow the submission guidelines of whatever you are submitting to, this will put you ahead of a surprisingly large percentage of other people. It's sad, but true.

I've also got a small collection of publishing information sites and articles for new writers on my web site.

planetalyx: the B.C. government has reduced its arts funding for the upcoming year, and hundreds of cultural groups, large and small, are suddenly scraping to pay basic expenses. One of those groups is my beloved choir, The Vancouver Lesbian and Gay Choir. We're entering our twentieth season with big dreams... and almost-empty coffers. Please spread the word.


Let's do another book recs post. Comment with your favorite SF/F books that have GLBT characters, human or alien or humanoid aliens.

Some of my favorites I can remember off the top of my head are Titan by John Varley (the first Cirocco Jones book), Shadowdance by Robin Wayne Bailey, Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold, and most favorite, The Door into Fire by Diane Duane. It was the first book of the Tale of the Five series, followed up by The Door into Shadow and The Door into Sunset and the not-yet-published The Door into Starlight.

The series suffered from having a publisher go under not long after the first or second book was published, so it's been hard to find. I think I found The Door into Shadow at a SF/F bookstore in Fort Worth when I was a freshman in college, and I remember it took me forever to find The Door into Fire, which is probably my favorite of the series, next to The Door into Starlight. Okay, they're all my favorites. It's a fantasy series set in a country where bisexuality is the norm, and the central relationship is between two male characters, a prince and wizard who are trying to regain a kingdom that's been taken over by the bad guy. The Door into Shadow is about a female warrior who joins them, and her separate quest to try to control her magic and deal with her past. There are some very neat fantasy ideas in them, and they're the kind of books I go back and read much later, and realize how heavily they influenced me.

Anyway, what are your favorite SF/F books with GLBT characters?

book_wench (Cassandra Chan) has an interesting post on the problems she had writing her most recent novel. (which I'm really looking forward to reading.)

I've had similar problems with books, where I got so far down the wrong track I couldn't see daylight. It's a very frustrating feeling, when you know you've gone wrong somewhere, something in the plot is just not working, your vision of the book is not meshing with what you seem to be doing now, but you can't put your finger on what went wrong where. To me, the solution always seems to come in a lightning bolt and be blindingly obvious, to the point where I can't remember how I got on the wrong track when the right one was right there, all the time.

(and I highly recommend her books. They're mystery novels set in Britain, and the first one is The Young Widow)

Albertson's was having a two for the price of one sale on pot roast, so we're having pot roast tonight. We'll probably be having leftover pot roast for some time, but that's a good thing, since there's a lot of things you can do with it, from open face sandwiches with gravy to enchiladas.

I keep noticing my daily word counts are always off by a day. I think this is partly to do with me forgetting to add a new day for the new word count and typing it into the previous day's word count instead, and partly because I am so lousy with numbers, that I can stare at an entry for 9/21/09 all day and not realize that this does not match the 9/22/09 on the calendar.

I finished reading Where Serpents Sleep by C.S. Harris, the latest in her series of mysteries. I think the best way to describe them is a mystery set in a Regency romance novel. I enjoyed this one, but the first part of the book was a little slow to develop compared to the earlier novels. Also, ( cut for plot spoilers ) This one also seemed to have a few anachronisms in it that stood out a bit for me, a problem that I don't remember from the other books.

Another great informational post from tacithydra: Freivald's Flash Fiction Online is a Queer Unfriendly Market. They refused an ad for Crossed Genres Magazine LGBTQ issue.

BTW, the lovely art for the ad is by Paul Davey: Mattahan and he's got some new art up on his deviantart site, including some Dossouye portraits (from Charles Saunders' fantasy novel Dossouye).


On the personal front, things are not good. As far as we know, Troyce is still scheduled to be laid off at the end of this month. He's applied for the few IT jobs that are listed at the university, here in town, and outside of town, but there's been no word back yet. The jobs tend to appear for a short time in the listings, then get pulled, probably because there are so many applicants.

I got a hellaciously painful cramp in my left hand from typing Tuesday, so bad I thought I had actually sprained my hand somehow. It started to feel better fairly soon and was pretty much gone by yesterday afternoon, but damn. I think I have a better idea now of how much I can type in a ten-hour period and how I shouldn't do more than that. stinabat said that calcium can help, and I noticed I had been slacking off on my calcium pills lately. So let that be a lesson to the rest of you.

And the weather has been much better. There was a cold front last week that dropped the temperature to 90, and the past couple of days it's been raining. It's also hurricane season, so I need to remember to start stocking up on canned food, cat supplies, etc.

And here's a link to a list of Hurricane Ike Anniversary Events at Galveston

I think I'm starting to feel the effects of all the stress. I've had stomach issues, and up until yesterday had a stiff shoulder that made it really painful to move my neck. Ouch. Also, our internet connection has been intermittent at best. That's always fun.

We did get to have lunch with friends today -- one friend is going in for cancer surgery very soon and is about to leave town for it, so it was good to get to see her.

Finished reading The City & the City by China Mieville and couldn't recommend it more highly. Especially if you like police procedural mysteries as well as fantasy and SF.

I wanted to say thanks again for all the birthday wishes, and the V-gifts from heidi2524, eldritchhobbit, and texanfan, and the lovely anonymous that gave me a year's paid LJ time. I can certainly use that!

It was kind of a depressing day, after finding out the lay-off is a certain thing. I mostly just wrote and did laundry. The good thing is there's been a cold front come through, dropping the temperature from around 102 to 92-95. That's a huge difference. And it's dropping below 80 at night, so that's nice.

Let's do something fun. How about people comment with book recommendations, just what you're reading now or have just read or are about to read, or why you like it/chose it etc. I'm about to start Blood of Ambrose by jamesenge and then The City and the City by China Mieville.

On the lay-off front, no news is still no news. We did manage to change around our house and car insurance to cut those payments in half. The job market in town is dismal to nonexistent.

We did have a good weekend, though. A friend came into town to hang out, and we watched Psych and Top Chef and old Foyle's War DVDs, then we went to a housewarming party for a friend's daughter who's going to the university here this fall, and a surprise anniversary party for her parents. So we had lots of free cake.

Books I read before I found out I can no longer afford to buy books:

Kings and Assassins by lanerobins I very much enjoyed this one. It's backstabbing court intrigue with very dark magic by gods thought long dead. Neat.

The Shadow Pavilion by Liz Williams. This is the new Inspector Chen novel, a fantasy-science fiction-mystery series set in a near-future China where Heaven and Hell (especially Hell) interfere in daily life. I liked it, but it wasn't nearly as satisfying as Precious Dragon, which was the first book I read in the series (chronologically it's actually third) and it blew me away. I still need to track down all the Inspector Chen short stories, too.

I'll probably be hitting the public library pretty hard, so I'll still be doing book recs in the next few weeks.

I wanted to link to this book review on DearAuthor: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. It's described as a girl-positive fairy tale, set in Ancient China. It sounds fabulous.

Plus Jeff VanderMeer did a post about Online Press Kits for Writers


I really need to buy a new hand brace. I'm starting to get a lot of hand nerve pain again, even though I'm wearing it about sixteen-plus hours per day. I think it's because my hand brace is not bracing so much anymore. The cats keep tearing open the velcro with their teeth, and that can't help, either.

malimar asked: When you write a story about other people's characters, do you do anything special to make sure you know the characters well enough to write them? Do you ever worry that you'll never know the deepest minds of the characters as well as their original creators do?

Well, when I wrote the SGA characters, I was already familiar with the world from watching SG-1 for seven or eight years, and I had already watched the first season of SGA without knowing I'd be writing a book for it. (I got the book contract not long after the first season finished and I had finished writing it before the second season started.) I started taping the repeats so I could watch the episodes over and over again. (The show had grabbed me from the beginning, but I hadn't taped it before because I knew I'd be buying the DVD sets later, but they weren't out yet.)

I think all you can do is watch the show with a lot of attention, and try to put in as much of the actors' performances and interpretations and the writers' characterization as you possibly can. It's still going to be subjective; all characterization is subjective. It's an exploration that's going to change over time, just like with original characters.

Still taking writing questions.



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Happy birthday, jess_ka!!!


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We saw Julie & Julia last night, and Julia Child is fabulous! ETA: to clarify, it's a wonderful movie, totally worth it for the sections with Julia Child. ( minor character spoiler ) Must get My Life in France by Julia Child immediately.

I also read Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen. It's a mystery set in 1932, with the main character Georgianna, who is the daughter of a duke, 34th in line for the throne, and penniless. I liked it, especially that most of it takes place in Scotland at Rannoch and Balmoral, and you see a lot more of the cast of characters from the first book. I thought it should have been a bit longer, though, and I still like the first book, Her Royal Spyness the best.

WriterCon is coming up this weekend in Minneapolis, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be getting there late Thursday afternoon.

The main program I'll be doing is at 2:00 on Friday, Making the Leap: Writing as a Career Choice: A talk/question and answer session on writing as a career and the basics that people starting out as writers need to know. How to submit stories for publication, how agents work, what the publishing process should be like, scams to avoid, publishing myths and misconceptions, and anything else the participants would like to discuss. If you're at the con and you can't go to the program, feel free to catch me and ask any questions you have. I'll probably be in the dealer's room a lot. :)

Also coming up on August 14-16 is ArmadilloCon in Austin, Texas. This is one of the most fun and friendly cons in existence, and I always have a great time there. I'll be one of the teachers at the Friday writers workshop again this year.

ArmadilloCon 4 in 1982 was the first convention I ever went to, when I somehow convinced my parents to let me go when I was in high school. And I've been in sf/f fandom ever since.

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Vanity publishers are a huge problem and rip-off literally thousands of dollars from their victims, but this is the first time I'd heard of a vanity fiction anthology. Those poetry "contests" and books people pay to be in are also anthologies, but I'd never heard of one for stories.

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I'm reading Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti, and really enjoying it so far. The main character is a woman who works as a winged courier to carry messages up and down the tiers of a mountain city controlled by a clockwork engine.

Links:

The auction for writer Aaron Allston's medical expenses is today. You can also donate by check and paypal.

Charles Saunders has posted an older short story, "Luendi," in the Blog section of his web site. Bill Ward's review on the Black Gate Blog: ‘Luendi’ gives us not a fantasy Africa, but an Africa of the fantastic — one in which the mysteries beyond the light of the campfire are real, and the kind of just retribution found in folk stories is transposed to a time and place that sorely needed it.

Mark Finn decorated the Vernon Plaza Theater as Hogwarts for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and posted photos.

eldritchhobbit is one of the guests on The Sofanauts Podcast!

ahmedakhan has posted the table of contents for upcoming anthology Cheer Up, Universe.

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Conventions coming up:

WriterCon 2009 July 31-August 2, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

ArmadilloCon 31, August 14-16, in Austin, Texas.

The Aaron Allston Fundraiser is July 19, 1-5pm, at Arbor A in San Gabriel Park, 445 E. Morrow, Georgetown, TX. You can also make a Paypal or check donation. Aaron is an SF/F writer and all around great person, and he had a heart attack during his book tour last March, and has major medical bills.

If you can't donate or go to the auction, please help by spreading the word.


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Books I need to get eventually:

Royal Flush, the new "Her Royal Spyness" book by Rhys Bowen.

Kings and Assassins by lanerobins.

Couple of interviews with Joe Lansdale, who is awesome:

Interviewed by Rick Klaw, in the San Antonio Current:
Joe R. Lansdale, previously best known as a pivotal figure in the blood and guts infused '80s splatterpunk movement, reinvented his literary persona when he introduced crime fiction's most unusual duo in 1990's Savage Season. Over the course of seven books, good ol' boy Hap Collins, a 40-something white liberal, and Vietnam veteran Leonard Pine — black, conservative, gay — encounter all sorts of bizarre nasties, violent trouble, and humorous situations throughout Lansdale’s East Texas homeland. Racial tensions and societal intolerance color all of their adventures.

And in the Austin Chronicle

New speculative fiction magazine: Icarus from Lethe Press. Icarus is the first magazine devoted to gay-themed speculative fiction and writing - from fantasy to horror to science fiction, and all the weird tales that fall between the cracks.


If it doesn't rain here soon, I think we're all going to die. This is like the fifth or sixth day it's been in the 99-100 range. If this is June, I hate to think what August is going to be like.

Couple of quotes from Rex Stout:

Nero Wolfe: "Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth."

Archie, after watching a police interrogation where they slapped the suspect for hours: "They say it works sometimes, but even if it does, how could you depend on anything you got that way? Not to mention that after you did it a few times any decent garbage can would be ashamed to have you found in it."

Both from The Red Box, published in 1936