Paksworld

What makes writers laugh?  What makes writers laugh at themselves?   Things like this:

http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/68515543753/novelist-error-messages

I’ve now looked up Maggie Stiefvater and read a teaser from two of her books, and I think I’m going to have to read one of hers end to end.  In fact, I know I am.  Because writing like that in the teaser, plus sense of humor?  Priceless.

(No, it’s not off-topic: it’s about writing novels…)

Like most writers, I have a head full of unwritten stories–only they aren’t nicely complete, something I could, with time, simply write down.   They’re like the old men who, when we moved here, used to sit on benches in front of the domino hall (no longer there) and grocery store (still there, and now including what was the domino hall, but the wide covered sidewalk is now cluttered with the ice machine, the propane tank locker, a newspaper stand, and signs, so it’s hard to even walk under cover let alone slouch on a bench and talk, as the old men used to do.

At any rate, every one of those old men had stories to tell, but they were shy of the newcomer woman who slowed down on her way in and out of the grocery store, hoping to overhear more.   A few of them (Doss and Wallace, particularly) finally relaxed enough to share some, but nowhere near all, their stories.    The characters in my head with unwritten stories have stories…everyone does…but they aren’t telling them yet, or not in enough detail that I can be sure it’s really a story and not an anecdote they want to share.  Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve mentioned before, late in a project almost anything can be a spoiler–so many clues, so many established patterns missing just one piece.  Early on, all roads are open, but by now, many of them, the ways not taken, have been left behind.

So this may be a spoiler for some, though I’ve tried not to let it be.  If you are a reader who hates knowing anything before its time, then don’t read below the break.  Stop now.  Turn around, don’t look back, ignore the rest of this.  For those who proceed, please do your speculating about where in the book this is, or what character you might know, in the Speculation Space.  Read the rest of this entry »

I have been informed that I’m not posting often enough.   I thought (hoped) that posting to comments, answering questions there, etc., would keep the natives from expressing restlessness, but that didn’t work.    So…well…I can’t say anything more about the Other Story that’s with an editor.    I can’t say anything about the story for which I haven’t decided on a market.  I can’t say anything about the ideas churning in my mind for another CHICKS anthology.  So what can I say? Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a very short snippet (there are spoiler-cooties all over what comes before and after.)    But the enmity between some elves and some humans is still going strong in Lyonya and not all the secrets have been excavated even yet.   This comes early in the second third of the book, at a point where Kieri is increasingly frustrated at not being able to access all of his innate magery.  Recall that he has inherited magery from three sources: elves, magelords, and Old Humans.   At this point he is able to access two of the three–elven and magelord, but needs the third.   Read the rest of this entry »