Is Marriage Disposable?

Okay this post has very little to do with writing, but I ran across an item that struck a chord with me about something fundamentally wrong with our society these days. I just read a post on Scalzi’s Whatever page written by Lara Zielin. Her post was about a personal event that happened while she was on a storm chasing trip. It ended up inspiring the story behind her book The Waiting Sky, which I’m sure is lovely, but her revelation is about how she realized her marriage was not what she expected it to be. She found attraction to another man while alone on her trip chasing storms in Oklahoma. But while I was reading it I began to wonder which came first, her attraction to the new guy or the fact that she was unhappy in her marriage.

Curiosity has landed!

If you have been living in a hole somewhere and missed the news, the Mars Science Laboratory, callsign Curiosity, landed early this morning very close to the target spot in the Gale Crater.  It's this kind of stuff that really gets my juices flowing.  I really wanted to stay up and watch but I had to be at work at 0630 this morning and it didn't land until well after midnight Eastern time.  The picture here was taken from an orbiter as Curiosity was landing, pretty inspiring stuff.

A lot of people were down on NASA but they proved they can still pull off the incredibly difficult and make it look easy.  My hat is off.

And FYI for those people out there wondering why we spend so much money on this kind of thing, we get back $10 for every $1 we spend as an investment.  It's money extremely well spent in my opinion.

The location they picked is believed to have once held water ice and they will be looking for more clues.  I can't wait to hear more from this exciting mission.  Here is a LINK to the NASA Page for more info.

Clear Ether!

It's not censorship but it sure stinks

Holly Lisle recently posted about trying to get a book published for Apple's iBooks, but was rebuffed because she mentions Amazon in one of her teaching methods.  I don't know about you but that just ain't right.  While it may not be censorship by definition, it's not cool, and Apple is using its power to block any mention of a rival.  Holly pulled all of her self-pubbed books out of iBooks.  I have never been all-in with Apple, but I like most of their products.  I have an iPod, and iPhone and an iPad, and they work pretty damned well, but this behavior stinks and I wanted anyone who reads this blog to know about it.


Clear Ether!




Image attribution Beachblogger42 via creative commons license

Committing to that First Novel

Ava Jae has an interesting post on her blog Writability this morning about first novels.  The question she was answering is, how do you pick the story to write for your fist novel when 95% of first novels never see the light of day?  We refer to these as trunk novels (because they stay in the trunk).

Her answer is right on the money, you have to commit to whatever story you choose.  We can’t possibly commit the time and energy it takes to write a novel to real completion without the belief that we are going to put it out there for sale or distribution (if that was our original goal, not everyone writes to be published).  By complete I mean first draft finished and then several passes to revise and refine; this just to send it to a publisher or agent.  If you are self-publishing you need to add another step.  Send it to a real editor for that professional polish.

Novelists don’t do practice novels.  That is not to say we don’t do writing exercises.  Writers write for practice and it can be in the form of writing challenges or blogs or short stories.  But even short stories require work.  Challenges are easy and don’t take up a lot of time.  Novels are a completely different animal altogether.  They are layered with multiple plots and many characters, that done correctly, have more than two dimensions.   The novel should have theme and soul and requires foreshadowing and planning.  The planning can happen after the draft is done actually and may require you to move things around as the plot elements are often very malleable, but it requires time and energy. 

Why Can't We All Just Be Cool?

Every now and then I hear stuff over the internet (okay I read it), where someone is being an asshat to someone.  It is actually a fairly common thing these days but the heat seems to move from place to place, video games, book reviews, paparazzi, news sites, it’s everywhere that people interact.  It’s ubiquitous.   And it seems to be getting slowly worse. Scalzi has a blog about it, Stacia Kane, Chuck Wendig and many others are pointing it out.

Why is that? 

It bothers me that somewhere along the way our society has stopped teaching our children what it means to have manners and even though you can remain anonymous, you still should show some regard for other human beings.   You know, do the right thing.  Sadly, I ‘m not sure a lot of people even realize that what they are doing is wrong.  They spew frothy hatefulness like it is their right and it doesn’t matter that the person that is the target has feelings and a family and a life that they might be impacting.  Do they really want to ruin someone’s life over something that in the big scheme is trivial?

Wired for Story

Chuck Wendig interviewed Lisa Cron this week for his blog Terribleminds and she gave us her take on developing story.  Another great find for interviews by Mr. Wendig, he rarely disappoints.  Lisa has a very fresh take on the importance of STORY and how it relates to the human brain.  She has a new book out called Wired for Story, and I can’t wait to read it.  She is a big time producer for Showtime and Court TV, a writer and also teaches a writing course at UCLA.  She has spent the last ten years researching the connection between neuroscience and how the brain relates to stories.  It’s quite fascinating and illuminating, allowing us to learn techniques that will make your story click with the reader.  They can’t help themselves, the brain is hard wired for receiving stories and if we can strike the right chord it will resonate within the readers mind.

            On Lisa's blog she touched on why books that get panned by critiques can still sell at amazing rates.  It answers the question as to why books like 50 Shades of Gray can sell millions of books.  I remember picking up The Hunger Games, because my wife and daughter love it, and reading the first couple of pages and saying to myself, the prose just aren’t all that, but next thing I knew I was 100 pages in and couldn’t put it down.  Stephanie Myers Twilight books have been criticized for not having elaborate prose also, but the one thing all of these books have in common is they tell a great story and in a way that touches those chords in the mind.

Book tours and good feedback rock!

I just gave my critique partner the kind of response I hope to get someday from someone doing a critical review of my stuff.  Her new book is fabulous!  I loved it!  It really blew me away how she is developing as a writer.

Don't we all yearn for that moment that someone says,"OMG!  Your stuff is awesome!"  Sure beats questioning yourself every other day if you are in the right line of work. 

There were of course minor flaws, but that is why we go through the process of having someone else putting their eyes on our work.  Sometimes you go through your WIP so often you start having trouble seeing the mistakes or typos.  Overall the work she sent me was pretty clean, and just needs very minor repairs to be ready for a wider beta audience, if not outright release for an agent.  The stuff I pointed out for her would likely not even be noticed by a lot of readers, but I wanted to be thorough.

The Ultimate Unsatisfying Ending

So I’m on alert last night and as I often do on alert I found an offbeat movie to watch.  It’s a stranger than normal movie with a combination of subtitles and English speaking parts and a lot of dialogue.  The main characters are two broken people who find each other and start to fall in love despite their shitty lives, but of course they are lying to each other and keeping dark secrets.  ***SPOILER ALERT*** I give away the ending and the movie title at the bottom.  But really you don’t want to waste your time on this one. 

It’s a great writing tactic to let the reader/watcher know what a character should do, but is too stupid or hard-headed to do and you are hoping beyond hope that they will pull their head out and do the right thing.  The writer has two ways to go with this ultimately.  You can give the satisfying finish where they actually end up finally making the right choice and or you can go the crappy way and have it go horribly wrong when they can’t or won’t make the right decision.