A friend sent me this link to an article at the Awl in which four literary writers talk about their reactions to editorial title changes. An example, from author Suzanne Morrison re her book Yoga Bitch: A lot of writers think their editors are crazy when they try and change their titles, but I didn’t. [...]
Category Archive for ‘On Writing’ 
The obvious vs the oblique
You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet lately. Sorry! It’s the whole two-fulltime-jobs thing; doesn’t leave a lot of time for extras. So in the spirit of maximizing efficiency, this is a two-birds-with-one-stone post: I’m going to talk about writing, which I haven’t done here for awhile, and I’m also going to [...]
So What’s Next?
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, [...]
Is there a Rule of Three in SFF?
Somebody in my Twitter feed linked this today, which I’d never seen before. Some insightful commentary from the late Dwayne McDuffie, a kickass comic book writer and trailblazer within that genre, talking about the Rule of Three. No, not this one; something else: Which got me thinking, of course. I’ve said before that most of [...]
Why is Oree Shoth blind?
A friend asked me this, so I’ve decided to answer here because I think it’s something others might like to know. The question was, why did I decide to make Oree Shoth, protagonist of The Broken Kingdoms, blind? Bear with me; this is gonna be another long one.
Comforting Futures, and Whether (or Why) We Should Avoid Them
Meant to post this yesterday, but was traveling for the weekend and got home exhausted. So this continues my one-year-long “tradition” of writing anti-oppression-related posts on MLK Day; it’s just late, sorry. I’m working on a dystopian short story right now. It’s tough going; those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably seen [...]
Even if I tell you, you won’t know.
That raspy, too-sweet voice. Lil was in my home, making me breakfast, after eating some Orderkeepers that Shiny had murdered. “What in the Maelstrom are you doing here?” I demanded. “And show yourself, damn it. Don’t hide from me in my own home.” She sounded amused. “I didn’t think you liked my looks.” “I don’t, [...]
Postmodern Epic Fantasy?
Spotted an intriguing line in io9′s Power List of 20 people who rocked SF/F in 2010. I’m not one of them, alas, though I noted a great blurb there about Orbit’s publishing director Tim Holman. Tim rightly deserves the spotlight in that article, but, well, I’m just gonna own my narcissism here. What caught my [...]
The Inheritance Trilogy That Could’ve Been*
Trilogy: A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. Per Wikipedia, page last modified 23 October 2010 at 11:14. I note this because I’ve gotten some questions lately about my choice to make the Inheritance [...]
A Few Points of Clarification
…on some things I’ve been asked about, privately and in interviews, re the Inheritance Trilogy lately. I’m a big believer in the idea that a book’s text is fundamentally interactive. It means both what the author intended it to mean and what the reader interprets it to mean, with the actual value falling somewhere in [...]
