Category Archive for ‘On Writing’ 
Gonna keep this brief, ’cause it’s 1:30 am as I’m writing this, and ’cause tomorrow I’m taking a 6-hour flight to Cali to attend the Nebulas and hopefully either win, or cheer while someone I really like wins. It’s a win-win, so no need to wish me luck; if anything, wish me safe and stress-free [...]
Awhile back I got an email from a reader which asked, “When are you going to write some real fantasy, y’know, with orcs?” This is a paraphrase, because I didn’t get the reader’s permission to quote (I asked, no reply). But I’d say it’s pretty accurate as to its tone and implications, since the email [...]
So today I’d like to talk about fantastic profanity — by which I mean not “really good” profanity, but “made up for fantasy and science fiction” profanity. Therefore this post will contain quite a bit of cussin’. FOR ART AND SCIENCE. You are warned. There are some words that are universally vulgar, in my opinion. [...]
So since last week’s debacle, a lot of people have asked me whether it’s even possible to write a discrimination reversal that isn’t chock full o’ bigotry. Not really sure why they’re asking me; it’s not like I’m some kind of expert on the matter. But they are, so what the hell, I’ll share what [...]
This is sort of a tangential response to John Scalzi’s “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting. Good article; you should read it… and the comments. Yeah, I know, I usually say don’t read the comments. But I think they’re illuminating, if frustrating, in this case. If you’re not a straight white male, it’s a [...]
Stealing Martha Wells’ idea; I’m going to be posting the occasional deleted scene from my various works over the next few weeks. And since people have asked, I’m starting with the one I read at Comic Con, during my “Spotlight” panel. This would have been the second appendix of The Kingdom of Gods, if the [...]
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. -Agatha Heterodyne (Girl Genius) by way of Larry Niven by way of Clarke La la la can’t hear you. -Me This is a whine, not a rant. I rant when I’m angry; right now I’m just [...]
This one’s going to be a toughie, for me and some of you reading. Please take heed of the subject line, and avoid if you need to.
::sigh:: I get emails from readers from time to time, and 99% of these emails are positive and welcome. (Thank you!) But every so often I get one that’s… soooo very not. It isn’t exactly “hate mail”. Generally I only get those via the comments on my more “controversial” blog posts, like when I complain [...]
This is where I’m going: Off to Hawaii to research the coolest stuff ever. Back in a few days.
