December 2009

by Diana Wynne Jones. A modern YA retelling of the Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer legends.  Recommended for YA fantasy fans.  Spoilers follow. DWJ is one of the great YA writers.  She writes stuff that takes complicated family situations that would make most people go mental, and makes them comprehensible to teens.  In F&H, […]

by Gene Wolfe. This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with a recursive whimper.  “Somebody tell me what that was all about.” I’ve been reading trying to keep up with the Gene Wolfe Solar Cycle Book Club for the last year.  RTTW was the last book.  I put it down and

by Charles Stross. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes Cthulu and who has ever worked in a cube farm. So there’s this guy who knows more about computer programming than he should.  When he accidentally writes an algorithm that threatens to destroy his neighborhood, a division of the British Intelligence rips him out

edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan. Featuring short stories by Neil Gaiman, Poppy Z Brite, Brian Stableford, Elizabeth Bear, and Caitlin R. Kiernan. Pub 2003, if you must know; I happened to read it in a timely manner with the new Sherlock Holmes movie coming out. The premise of this book is Sherlock Holmes

I’m going to work on a bunch of blog posts this morning, then try to queue them up and have them publish themselves automatically throughout the week, because the wonders of clicking stuff and having it do stuff in a only semi-chaotic fashion makes my ovaries twirl.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg onomatomania PRONUNCIATION: (on-uh-mat-uh-MAY-nee-uh) MEANING: noun: An obsession with particular words or names and desire to recall or repeat them. ETYMOLOGY: Via Latin, from Greek onoma (name) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze). USAGE: “Every time Ammon Shea came across an interesting word, he jotted it down, desperate to avoid onomatomania.” Nicole

Welcome to winter, that season of darkness, cold, and depression. Last year, I didn’t have any problems – it was so warm and sunny all winter, I barely noticed it.  This year has been darker and colder, and the inability to reach beyond the present moment already hit me with the lack of sunshine. This

@ianthealy Of course it's a brilliant idea. in reply to ianthealy # Rejected 4/6 on the novel, Alien Blue. # Ding ding ding! Grats! RT@ChuckWendig Hey! Holy crap, press release. (Big Awesome News over at #terribleminds!) http://tinyurl.com/y8fkxkz # I'm learning to love my writer's block: http://blog.deannaknippling.com/?p=1941 # My condolences. RT@elizawhat I just realized […] that

I am a Super Guest Star over at Ian’s blog, talking about learning to love revision.

Chuck over at Terrible Minds was writing about mood the other day, and it made something click.  Mood is how the narrator feels about the story. Not the author (although that’s often the case; see the ouvre of Robert Heinlein). The idea really only makes sense to me now that I’ve beaten myself up over