If a picture of me holding a tarantula will scar you for life, admire this cute stag beetle and move on without clicking.
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Telewitterings – Luther
Kelly and I blasted through the first season of Luther
He doesn’t get into his murderers’ heads so much as just fall into their thought patterns and flail about trying not to drown.
The standout thing in Luther
Here’s Wilson in a trailer for another thing I must see:
I cannot wait to see what the Luther
What are all of you watching now that Game of Thrones
Readin’, Research, Write-A-Thon Giveaway
I am going to Victoria tomorrow to do some research for the series of books and stories I’m currently writing–in point of fact, I’m going on a short day sail on a tall ship called the Pacific Grace, which is owned and sailed by S.A.L.T.S. It should be a neat experience. If I’m not clinging to a rope every minute, there will, of course, be pictures.
I am really excited about this, except in the moments when I wonder if it will involve barfing or hard labour.
But back to the current project, I have firmed up my decision to give away naming rights to one island nation on the world of Stormwrack to the person who contributes the most to Clarion West in my name this summer. I will also have a draw for naming rights to a landmark, animal species, sailing vessel or city on Stormwrack. It’s your choice. Anyone who wants to qualify for that one need only donate something, even if it’s the minimum.
To win, you need to 1) give money; 2) tell me so and 3) give me some contact info. The Clarion site’s supposed to let me know about contributions, but this didn’t work out so well last year–I’m doing something wrong when I log in, is all I can conclude, because I have immense troubles with the site, and I’m the only one. (It’s me, lovely wonderful Clarion folks, it’s not you. You’ve tried, Chaos knows you’ve tried…)
The reason I’m clattering for donations should be blindingly clear, but if it isn’t: Clarion is a great program. It does terrific work. It made a difference in my life. I wrote six stories in the weeks before I went to Seattle (see, I had a pre-season last time too!) and 220 pages of new fiction while I was there. It helped me improve at my chosen art, it got my nascent writing career on track and introduced me to some of my best friends in the world.
But wait, there’s more, and it’s not frickin’ steak knives!
You need to know what kind of a place Stormwrack is if you’re gonna name an island, right? So as I continue to Thon, there will be posts from all the interconnected works set in this world, and they will be about the island nations I’ve established so far. For example, in the first of a series of stories called The Gales, I have this, about Redcap Island:
To distract him, she asked: “What do you know of Redcap Island?”
“It’s a kingdom,” he said promptly. “Government is stable, king’s rule is absolute. The crown passes to the eldest son upon the death of the king or his sixtieth birthday, whichever comes first. Elder kings go into a kind of ceremonial exile, along with any other sons…”
“Yes?”
“There’s usually just one other son. They must use magic to affect the succession.”
Gale nodded. “Once there’s a healthy heir and a second son, the king’s consorts bear only daughters. The Blossoms Majestic—the princesses—run the government.”
From “Among the Silvering Herd
Novel Writing II begins July 2nd
As of today, I still have two or three slots available in my upcoming UCLA Extension Writers’ Program course, which has the unwieldy name of: Novel Writing II: Writing a Novel the Professional Way. The course description can be found here, and this is the syllabus, subject to last-minute tweaks.
The weekly discussion questions in the syllabus should give you a good idea of how we’ll go about the workshop: I want to put your book under a microscope in a directed fashion, so each week we focus on a specific aspect of your storytelling: the setting, the prose, the characters, the plotting. The idea is to ensure that all the likely points of writing success or failure get looked at, with each book.
The other important thing to consider about me as an instructor is that I am friendly to all genres. Put in the simplest of terms: I don’t consider science fiction to be either superior to or inferior to something like literary fiction, or paranormal romance, or splatterpunk. I will read each book with care and respect, whether or not it’s something I’d buy for pleasure reading. I expect my students to learn to separate what they prefer–the stuff they like to read, in other words–from the issue of bad or good writing. This is more easily said than done. It takes practice… but I also think it’s important.
Someone always asks, so I’ll say up front: It is totally okay to register for Novel II without taking Novel I as long as you already have a good idea of what you’ll be writing. Novel I is essentially a book development class that takes you through the process of building the groundwork for a book: figuring out setting, choosing a protagonist, working through a basic outline of their journey. If you’ve done that and are ready to write fifty pages, or if you’ve written that much already and are ready to write fifty more, you can take this class.
I’m teaching Novel III next quarter… for that, you do need Novel II.
Needless to say, I’m not the only game in town at UCLA–there are dozens of great courses, dealing with the long form and the short, in prose, poetry and in screenwriting. If you’re looking for a course this winter, you can probably find something delightful and challenging in our catalog.
Let me know if you have any questions; I’ll be happy to answer them.
Where did this Tuesday come from again?
Since committing to the Write-A-Thon, I’ve gotten to the 10K words mark on the new novel, and the official starting date for the Thon (and for Clarion West) is still about a week away. I started early because I have a couple travel obligations that will cost me a few days of writing time, and I wanted to get into the swing before the 18th in any case. It’s sort of like doing a warm-up lap.
In other news, the latest Buffy rewatch is up–it’s on “The Wish.”
Azure Dwarf has written a short review of Blue Magic, the gist of which is he likes it better than Indigo Springs.And… that may be it, this week.