This weekend I finished the Dreamblood books. Yes, both of them at once. Yes, it was hard as all get out and this is why I’ve been relatively quiet for the last few months. It’s been worse for my friends and family, if you’re wondering — I’ve been shutting off my phone on the weekends, [...]
Category Archive for ‘Natter’ 
Shiny! Well, Shiny’s kid. ART STYLIN’
I think I have a seekrit authar fetish — I love love LOVE seeing readers create art derived from my work. Now, obligatory armchair legalese here — “derived from” by the terms of fair use and substantial alteration of the original work, etc., etc., and if I felt I needed a fanworks policy it would [...]
Whose Wonderland? Which wonderful?
Saw this done by a friend on LJ, and thought it might make a good memelike thing*: if you could live in a fantasy setting of your choosing, which one — based on fantasy novels you’ve read — would it be? Because not just anybody’s wonderland would be wonderful for me, after all. I’m going [...]
Anime recs please?
I’m tired of talking about writing, race, gender, politics, and all that other heavy crap. Let’s talk cartoons! It’s no secret that I’m an anime/manga fan, especially since I mentioned in the afterward to The Broken Kingdoms that the World Tree was at least partly inspired by the giant sakura in the shoujo series Mahou [...]
More Melding!
Got asked to participate in an SF Signal Mind Meld again: what are the books that I reread again and again? Admitted some I’m a little ashamed of, since they date from my teen years, but hey — every writer’s got a few literary skeletons in her closet. And there are a few that I [...]
“Feminization” in epic fantasy?
I’ll start by positing an hypothesis (H0), and its logical alternative (H1): H0: Epic fantasy is dominated, if not by male authors, then by a “masculine” aestheticism, ethos, and structural focus (it’s “the hero’s journey”, not the heroine’s). And, as with other male-dominated bastions “threatened” by egalitarianism (a.k.a. feminism and femininity), it systematically defends this [...]
What fantasy authors do in their spare time, part #354:
Talk about deep stuff. Like, why are there Chosen Ones, and why aren’t more of them jerks? In private email, got to conversing with Sam Sykes, a fellow debut fantasy author of Tome of the Undergates, about the whole concept of the Chosen One and the trope’s not-so-subtle inherent message that birth matters more than [...]
Bestseller!
For those of you who’ve seen the January 2011 print issue of Locus, this will not be news. But for the rest of you – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms made the bestseller list! Specifically in ninth place, and specifically on the “paperbacks” (mass market) subset of the list, based on data from October 2010. Details, [...]
FAQ you, you FAQing FAQ!
As some of you may know, I started a new full time job recently. Yay, regular income and cheap health insurance! And the job itself is great so far, but since I’m still kind of a full time writer, time has just become my most valuable commodity. So to maximize my free time — so [...]
2010: The Year We Make Contact
And by “we,” I mean me and any of you who are reading this post, not aliens. (Of course, it’s possible aliens might be reading this. Interstellar voyages probably get really boring. Gotta pass the time somehow.) It’s been… a weird year. The goods — my first and second novel published! a Hugo and Nebula [...]
