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Posts from the ‘CEDAR SANDERSON’ Category

Aug 11

Moon
23 Comments

Introductions

How best to handle introducing new characters, new stories, and readers to one another? Well, my preference both as a writer and a reader is to get a sense of them, but not necessarily learn everything about them all up front at once. It’s a slow dance, a tease, a little here, a little there, and you get to know them, just like you do in real life. When you are introduced to a person in front of you, you might get their full name, or you might not. There’s formal introductions: “may I present Princess Hildegard of Aronia to you, Grand Duchess of Rexington?” and then there is: “so this is Joe, my plumber. He’s pretty good, if’n you don’t want it done fast.” With a wink and an elbow nudge. Read more

Aug 4

Library Dragon
23 Comments

Blast from the Past: Writing with Hope

Sorry about the retread, but I’ve got a sinus monster in my head, and he’s squeezing my brain in his coils and thought is… elusive. Besides which, this is a timeless topic. 

Eric S Raymond nails a list of symptoms to look for as warning signs that a book may be unreadable… Read more

Jul 28

40 Comments

Adventure Tales

I woke up this morning dreaming of Tin-Tin. In full technicolor, for some reason. No, not live-action, just as he was drawn, only moving. As I sat up, I realized something. Well, two things. No… you ever have one of those mornings where your brain comes online and you have a flood of thoughts like they were just waiting impatiently for you to be awake again so you could think them? I’d like to think it’s not just me.

The first coherent thought was that I keep saying I never read comic books as a kid, and I was wrong. Tin-tin, Asterix and Obelix, those were comic books, they just weren’t superheroes and presented like American comics were, and they weren’t always in English. Secondly, the book I recently bought which made my First Reader lift a brow and wonder why I wanted it was likely me being very nostalgic. Thirdly, I needed to sit and write this post. Fourthly, I wonder if you can buy Tin-tin books and will they hold up to my memories of them? Read more

Jul 21

9 Comments

Chicken Little

It’s been a while since I read it – my kids are all teenagers now! All four of them! (Ok, shutting the existential crisis up for a few) – but as I recall, Chicken Little was not a precautionary tale. It didn’t end with ‘the sky was really falling down, and as the world ended in fire and ashes, Chicken Little danced on the bones of his barnyard pals, finally vindicated in his unheeded prophecy.’

Instead, Chicken Little was about a small hen who panicked at the smallest provocation, like a ripe apple falling from a tree, and learned through wise guidance to keep her chill. My kids say something like this all the time to each other. “Keep your chill! Keep it!” and the other one will wail back “I can’t! I can’t keep it!” Because teens, and hormones, and all the feels, y’know, man? I can dig it. Read more

Jul 14

16 Comments

The Ravel’d Sleave of Care

the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
–Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 2 Scene 2

Read more

Jul 7

43 Comments

Three Panels, One Woman

So I was on three panels at LibertyCon… Wait, you’re saying, you did your AAR yesterday? Yes, I did. But the beauty of having two posts to do this in is that I can now talk about the nitty-gritty of writerly stuff that wasn’t the overall con. This is more about interactions with fellow panelist – ie writing professionals – and the audience, who are rarely if ever ‘simple readers.’ For one thing, the audience at a lit con (which LibertyCon is) is already self-selected to be interested in reading, and also in the process behind what they are reading, since they attended one of the most author-heavy events in fandom. So. Three panels, plus a bonus panel I literally was dragged onto.  Read more

Jul 6

Libertycon 28
19 Comments

LibertyCon AAR and More

Real Life has intruded on the scheduled poster here in a most delightful way. He’s greeting his third child into the world properly. So since the blog goes on, even when family is coming first, I offered to step in with a few words.

Community is grand. It’s a beautiful thing. I came home from LibertyCon earlier this week exhilarated, exhausted, and enthusiastic about my writing again. It had been three years since we last managed to get to Liberty, and as I said to Rich Groller at the Kaffeeklatsch, I didn’t know how much I needed that until we were there and in the thick of it. Read more

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