Last year, at the Twin Cities branch of the BoingBoing Meetup Day event, musician Jeremy Messersmith brought the lyrics to a song he was working on—a song intended to be as terrible a song as he could possibly write.
Now, you can enjoy "It's the Heat" as an actual recorded song ... a song that includes lyrics like, "There's a fire in my belly / That I can't put out / My two legs turn to jelly / Thrashing like a trout."
— Maggie
By Xeni Jardin at 5:39 pm Tuesday, May 8
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"Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!" Art Spiegelman drew his experience of hanging out with Maurice Sendak in 1993 for the New Yorker, and the magazine has "unlocked" the archival link in honor of Sendak's passing today.
(via Neil Gaiman)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:59 am Tuesday, May 8
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Beloved children's author Maurice Sendak, creator of Where the Wild Things Are, is dead at 83. Here's some of what The Guardian's Michelle Pauli has to say about him.
The wild things of Max's imagination were based on Sendak's own relatives. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents and was aware, in his early teens, of the death of much of his extended family in the Holocaust. The terrors of his childhood specifically, and childhood more generally, flow through his work. "I refuse to lie to children," he said in an interview with the Guardian last year. "I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence."
Sendak also said that the term "children's illustrator" annoyed him, since it seems to belittle his talent. "I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can't do that. I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person," he said.
"I refuse to lie to children," is probably the best kids'-author manifesto statement ever.
Maurice Sendak, father of the Wild Things, dies at 83
(Image: Wild Things, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from maxbraun's photostream)
By Cory Doctorow at 9:39 am Friday, May 4
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My latest Locus column, "A Prose By Any Other Name," is a state-of-the-project report on my longrunning habit of writing science fiction stories with the same titles as famous books, and the interesting things I've discovered about creativity and my subconscious along the way.
The more I thought about writing stories with ‘‘borrowed’’ titles, the more interesting it all got. Every time I thought about a famous title – one I hated, one I loved, one I had mixed feelings about – I found my subconscious simmering and then bubbling over with ideas. Stories – more so than novels – are often the product of odd subconscious associations. I’ll see something, I’ll see something else, the two will rub together, and wham, there’s a story idea crystallizing in my mind, and off I go to find a keyboard.
But for every story fragment that finds a complementary fragment to bond with and form into an idea, there are dozens of lonely haploids, grains of potential that never find another grain to join and synthesize with. Seven years into the project, the single most significant and reliable trait of ‘‘title’’ stories is that the titles exert a powerful gravity on story fragments, aggregating them into full-blown inspiration.
A Prose By Any Other Name
By Xeni Jardin at 1:32 pm Tuesday, May 1
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Two weeks after historical fiction writer
Anne Clinard Barnhill's debut
novel was released, she was diagnosed with stage 3 endometrial cancer. She writes about how the diagnosis changed her, and about what the experience has taught her about writing and living:
Since then, I've done a six-week book tour across North Carolina, had a radical hysterectomy, gone on a blog tour and started chemo. Not exactly what I'd expected in what was supposed to be 'my' year.
At first, I didn't want to tell anyone about the disease, but that quickly became unfeasible; people were contacting me to do readings and I had to explain why I couldn't; my editor had been patiently awaiting my revisions to the second novel and I didn't want him to think I was dawdling; and, I figured it was something my agent should know. So, I went public.
As I deal with the gritty life of coping with cancer, I've noticed some similarities between the writing life and living with cancer.
Read the rest here: BOOK PREGNANT: What Cancer Has Taught Me About Writing And Living.
(thanks, Lydia Netzer)
By Cory Doctorow at 1:57 pm Wednesday, Apr 25
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Further to yesterday's announcement that Tor Books, the largest science fiction publisher in the world, would no longer use DRM on its ebooks as of this summer: now Tor UK, a sister company to Tor Books, has announced it will follow suit.
Tor UK, Pan Macmillan’s science fiction and fantasy imprint, has announced today that it will make its ebooks DRM-free over the next three months.
“We know that this is what many Tor authors passionately want. We also understand that readers in this community feel strongly about this,” says Jeremy Trevathan, Pan Macmillan’s Fiction Publisher.
This decision has been made in partnership with our sister company Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, in New York. Tor UK is consulting with its authors at the moment and will announce their plans in more detail in due course.
Tor UK E-book Titles to Go DRM-Free
By Cory Doctorow at 1:06 pm Wednesday, Apr 18
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DemandProgress, the activist organization that was one of the main movers in the history-making fight against SOPA, is looking to hire a "Lead writer," who lives in NYC (or can relocate). Co-founder Aaron Swartz explains,
It’s a pretty incredible job: you’ll be leading a new lab to try to pioneer innovative ways of thinking about what works in online campaigning. And because it’s so experimental, it doesn’t require a whole lot of experience—in fact, not having any preconceptions might be a plus. It’d be perfect, for example, for a smart kid straight out of college.
They've also got some internships available.
Incredible opportunity: looking for a writer
DF McCourt sez, "Just thought that you might be interested in knowing that Canadian Creative Commons magazine
AE has been added to the list of qualified professional markets by the Science Fiction Writers of America."
— Cory
By Cory Doctorow at 4:00 pm Monday, Apr 16
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Bill Shunn sez,
The Chicago Writers Conference is Chicago's only homegrown mainstream literary conference focusing on practical business advice for fiction and non-fiction writers alike. The brainchild of Mare Swallow, it will feature such editors, agents, and authors as Chuck Sambuchino, Christine Sneed, Robert K. Elder, and Jennifer Mattson.
But it can only happen with support! The CWC is in the final eight days of its Kickstarter campaign and still needs to raise over $4000 for equipment rental, web development, speakers' travel expenses. There are lots of great incentives remaining for various donation levels, including art, signed books, and query letter or story manuscript critiques from Chuck Sambuchino and William Shunn.
Please help, and support Chicago's long tradition of literary excellence!
Make the Chicago Writers Conference a Reality!
(Thanks, Bill)
By Cory Doctorow at 3:54 pm Thursday, Feb 16
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Justine Larbalestier, a very good novelist with very bad RSI, has written a great post called "Why I Cannot Write a Novel With Voice Recognition Software." In it, she explains why machine-based speech-to-text software isn't sufficient for fiction. I think that if I absolutely lost the use of my hands and had no other choice, I'd probably dive into speech-to-text and gut it out, but nothing short of absolute necessity would get me to write fiction with machine-based speech-recognition.
Most of my first drafts are written in a gush of words as the characters and story come flowing out of me. Having to start and stop as I correct the VRS errors, and try to get it to write what I want it to write, interrupts my flow, throw me out of the story I’m trying to write, and makes me forget the gorgeously crafted sentence that was in my head ten seconds ago.
Now, yes, when I’m typing that gorgeously crafted sentence in my head it frequently turns out to not be so gorgeously crafted but, hey, that’s what rewriting is for. And when I’m typing the sentence it always has a resemblance to its platonic ideal. With VRS if I don’t check after every clause appears I wind up with sentences like this:
Warm artichoke had an is at orange night light raining when come lit.
Rather than
When Angel was able to emerge into the orange night Liam’s reign was complete.
Which is a terrible sentence but I can see what I was going for and I’ll be able to fix it. But that first sentence? Leave it for a few minutes and I’ll have no clue what I was trying to say.
However, checking what the VRS has produced after Every Single Clause slows me down and ruins the flow.
Why I Cannot Write a Novel With Voice Recognition Software
(Image: Arthritis, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from interactivestrategy's photostream)
By Cory Doctorow at 9:39 am Tuesday, Feb 14
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Aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers have two weeks left to get their applications in to this summer's Clarion Writers' Workshop at UC San Diego. I'm a Clarion grad, instructor and board member, and yup, I really believe in it. The Clarion format -- a mix of intense writing and critiquing, along with extended personal instructions from six instructors in six weeks -- is a great way to bootstrap your understanding of how to write sf, along with detailed business and professional advice.
Established in 1968, the Clarion Writers' Workshop is the oldest workshop of its kind and is widely recognized as a premier proving and training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction.
Our 2012 writers in residence are Jeffrey Ford, Marjorie Liu, Ted Chiang, Walter Jon Williams, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.
Clarion Writers' Workshop at UC San Diego
By Cory Doctorow at 8:44 am Monday, Feb 13
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Cat Valente, author of such outstanding novels as The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and Deathless, is guest-editing Charlie Stross's blog, posting writing advice. Part one, published yesterday, covered some good ground, and today's continuation is especially good, with advice on coping with haters -- useful perspective for more than just writers.
People Are Going to Shit All Over You
Oh, yes they are. It really doesn't matter if you try to do something different or you just want to rescue the princess in the tower. It'll start with your teachers, in college or high school or workshops. You are going to have to hear, more than once, more than ten times, that not only does your work suck, but it betrays some signal flaw within yourself, and you as a person are terrible for having written this thing. This is true, basically, no matter what you write. It is especially true if you are trying something off the beaten path, whether that beaten path is one of bestsellers or your teacher's own predilictions. I have personally had verse and chorus of "Nothing" from A Chorus Line spewed at me from numerous teachers. For those of you not musically inclined, it goes something like: you're bad at this, you'll never amount to anything, give up and work at a gas station and leave this to the real artists. One professor literally threw up his hands at our final conference and said "You're just going to do whatever you want no mater what I say so there's no point in even trying to teach you about good writing."
We all have stories like that, I suspect. Most particularly those of us who write SFF, which makes no friends in universities. The best part is, it doesn't stop there! Once you're published, new and exciting people will appear to tell you how bad your work is, even if you are popular and/or critically acclaimed. And it will get personal, especially if you are throwing down with your whole being, laying your kinks and history on the page like a sacrifice. If you're a woman, or other-than-white, or queer, it will probably, at some point, get really personal. Many readers have a huge problem separating the work from the creator. The mountain of crap I got for writing Palimpsest, both in public venues and in private emails, would make you crawl under the table with a bottle of fuck-you whiskey. I not only wrote a bad book, but I am sexually disturbed (I either hate sex or like it way too much, depending on who you ask) and politically suspect. Give up and work in a gas station. Name a book you think is universally liked and I will find someone saying it is a sin against man, decency, and the dictionary. People get very invested in books, which is the whole point of writing books. I have myself gotten upset to tears over books and have said so online. I try not to do that unless at great need now. I know too much.
It's easy to say: you must develop grace about this. I doubt anyone actually has grace about it. We all get mad or sad or hit the bar and rage against it all. It takes a really long time, or a really good internet filter, to be ok with how much some people will not like your work and by extension you. I'm not saying get grace at the bargain virtue store.
But you can fake grace.
Between the Perfect and the Real: On Writing Part 2
By Cory Doctorow at 9:00 am Tuesday, Jan 24
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Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "I have a challenge for you. When was the last time you got a letter in the mail? December sees a lot of mail and you remember that sense of delight when the first card arrives. You can have that more often. That's what sparked The Month of Letters Challenge The rules are simple. 1. In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch. 2. Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items. If you are in the US all you are committing to is to mail 24 items. Why 24? There are four Sundays and one US holiday. In fact, you might send more than 24 items. You might develop a correspondence that extends beyond the month. You might enjoy going to the mail box again. Feeling intimidated? It’s fewer words than NaNoWriMo and I know how many of you do that. Can you mail a letter a day?"
The Month of Letters Challenge
(Thanks, Mary!)
Charlie Stross
looks at some leading indicators of library decline in the UK, which he attributes to cuts and closures, and notes: "if the drop in my PLR loans reflects library closures, then we have just slammed the door in the face of a new generation of readers. I got my start reading fiction from my local library; the voracious reading habits of a bookish child aren't easily supported from a family budget under strain from elsewhere during a time of cuts. I hate to think what the long term outcome of this short-term policy is going to be, but I don't believe any good will come of it."
— Cory
By Cory Doctorow at 3:13 pm Monday, Jan 16
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Katie sez, "To help writers get in the habit of working on their
craft a little bit each day, Figment has started Daily Themes, a
free email service that sends subscribers a writing prompt five
days a week. This week (January 16-20) all of the prompts will come from none
other than Lev Grossman, author of the gripping, dark, funny The
Magicians and The Magician King. His five original prompts are
created to inspire writers to hone their short story and novel
writing skills."
Jonathan Franzen used to write his novels wearing earmuffs, or earplugs, in a darkened room with no windows, so that he could completely immerse himself in his fictional world and forget about the real one. See if that works for you.
Daily Themes from Lev Grossman!
