We Write!
[--- Karen Myers ---] Let's talk about memory. The reader's memory, you know, the one you need to rely on to make your story comprehensible. Now, I'm not getting any younger, and I'm acquiring a front row seat on just how fragile a thing memory can be, especially the short-term kind, and that's for real... Continue Reading →
Years ago -- about 20, dear Lord, seems like yesterday -- when I was a relatively inexperienced or at least newly published writer -- I showed something I was working on to David Drake, and asked if it was completely disjointed, because it's what it felt like to me. I no longer even remember what... Continue Reading →
Yes, I am probably an idiot. Or in the middle of a novel. Which, you know, absolutely comes to the same. It was only when I realized something that happens on Tuesdays (hush you) hadn't happened that I went and looked at the calendar. This is me, hitting my head on my desk repeatedly. Wait... Continue Reading →
Alma T. C. Boykin. What hides in the twilight behind the wall . . .? Well, you need a crime. Or something mysterious that's not a legal crime but not right either. And you need someone to find out who did it, and to get justice. Right? Oh, and now you can have cats and... Continue Reading →
We ended up dogsitting for an older friend of ours that had to go medical, off island. A long-ish treatment. She's a widow, and the dog is her husband's old hunting dog. When we arrived I thought it was a death watch. Not that his mistress is unkind or mistreats him in any way -... Continue Reading →
Neil Gaiman had a wonderful commencement speech that he has, awesomely, turned into posters and an illustrated book, so that he can get multiple streams of income from one set of words. That masterful exploration of IP licensing isn't what I wanted to address, though. I find it bitterly amusing that when I see "Make... Continue Reading →
There are two lists on the big whiteboard in my office. One is headed with 'graphic design' and the other, with a flourish, 'fiction.' There used to be a third labeled non-fiction, but for some reason it was erased, and I need to put it back up there, although really it's only one item currently:... Continue Reading →
Obedience training for Muses (Or is that Musi). Doesn’t really matter, I only have one. So far as I know. Mine is sneaky, hyperactive (except under the influence of antihistamines, decongestants, diet sodas, or extreme stress (when it disappears altogether)) not housebroken, and sure as heck won’t walk on a leash. Which explains (excuses?) my... Continue Reading →
[--- Karen Myers ---] Among a great many pedantic bits of advice for beginning fiction writers is the importance of fully describing a character's environment and perceptions as a way of embedding the reader in that experience. Yeah, well.... Boy, is that easy to do clumsily, using a shopping list approach to note the blue... Continue Reading →
… that Daylight Savings Time exists to benefit farmers. Does anyone still believe that? Most of us apply the sniff test to that and realize that no, farmers, especially ones of the early nineteen hundreds when DST started, are the people who’d benefit least from DST. They wake up when the sun rises, work all... Continue Reading →
Mad Genius Club 