[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends View]
Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 | ||
|
suricattus |
8:53p | Determined: That the Avengers movie is made entirely of crack because, having punched my geek card and seen it a second time, I want to see it again. Like, tomorrow. The last time a movie did that to me was, um, Raiders of the Lost Ark. And before that, Star Wars. |
| Monday, May 28th, 2012 | ||
|
birdsedge |
1:00a | Another one for la_marquise_de_ John Tams and Barry Coope, of course with 'Lucifer and Vulcan/Steelos' from the BBC Radio Ballad 'Song of Steel' |
|
birdsedge |
12:31a | |
| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 | ||
|
marycatelli |
7:05p | Come, thou Holy Spirit, come, Come, thou Holy Spirit, come, and from thy celestial home shed a ray of light divine! ( Read more... ) |
|
msagara |
6:40p | Decisions about children and their happiness If you’ve been reading these posts for the last week, you know that my intention was to write two posts. The first, about help, I did write. The second, I still haven’t written. This is very much in keeping with the way I write anything. I have a general idea. I put the words on the screen. And then other words arise out of interaction, and, well. We, as parents, all want our children to be happy. I take that as a given. We do not always make our children happy - but at base, we want our children to lead happy, long lives. Given the way life works, life is not predictable. We are adults, our children are not. We know the things that caused us pain - and we want to help our own children avoid that pain, and avoid bearing those scars. ( But... ) And now, I am running out of the house because it’s our 23rd anniversary :) |
|
green_knight |
10:35p | The Zen of writing    33464 / 120000 (27.89%) The better part of a day just got 250 words. And almost all of the stuff that happens between characters remains in the gaps - the parent's approval is shown, but not dragged out, the deep conversations are hinted at, but take pace offscreen; Gajut does not even meet, onscreen, the people we know ern will meet - they were introduced in Oresh's segment; we don't need to repeat the experience. I will pick up the story again on the next day when something truly _new_ happens - new people to meet, new events to cover. And I want to take time out to rewrite the previous scene. The one in the woods, where I've just skipped - again - over all the sensory details and description. Today, I walked in the woods. Not *quite* the right woods - it is spring on planet Earth and it is autumn in the world of my story - but the right _type_ of woods. Unstocked, fairly open woodland with plenty of groundcover (including the entrance to a den I found with my left foot - my camera is fine, thanks for asking) - but it gave me the sensory details I needed. How you can't see very far because there are trees and bushes everywhere. How you can't see your own trail, much of the time, let alone the trails someone else left. How frightening the woods would look like from a knee-high perspective, and how they're not much better for an adult. The sense of 'this is forbidden ground, if you enter, you might not find your way out again' even though I was less than a hundred meters from the edge. The hidden traps - you absolutely *cannot* see what you're stepping on. And based on _that_ experience, I should be able to write this scene better second time round. It won't need much, but it needs _something. And I also now grok why you just _cannot_ go after a small child and look for them in those woods. And why everybody takes keeping paths open in the woods so seriously - so that there's a chance for someone lost to find their way to _somewhere_. Linkdump: The Objectification of Women: it's a measurable thing State of Publishing: a survey by Writer's Workshop (More on this, and on a self-publishing survey, at Writer Beware The self-publishing survey includes, according to WB, the lines: The most financially successful self-publishers write more than their peers, and spend less time marketing. In fact, those self-publishers who marketed the most earned the least. That's probably not _entirely_ the whole picture, but I'm not overly surprised. If you write a good book, I want to read all of your other books *and* I'll tell the world about your books. No amount of 'buy this' can have the same effect. Whales. Obviously on this planet. And yet... Also posted at http://green-knight.dreamwidth.org/2285 Current Mood: all walked out |
|
fjm |
9:30p | I'm watching you... Focus on small orange blob in top right window. He was watching Miss P right to her door. Wary or besotted? She, of course, never gave him a glance. Probably a good thing. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. |
|
fjm |
9:28p | |
|
fjm |
9:26p | |
|
ffutures |
7:48p | |
|
ffutures |
7:37p | Interesting encounter in London Spotted in a pond on a "nature reserve garden" in a small park near my house in London - I think this explains why I've never seen any amphibians in there. I was a bit astonished, given the occasional coldness of the British climate, but it's probably several years since we had enough sustained cold weather to freeze the pond:  Shell length about 4", I think. Almost certainly a red-eared terrapin. |
| roll1d12feed | 2:47p | Super-quick Gonzo Pulp Monster Generator http://roll1d12.blogspot.com/2012/05/sup Table A: Descriptor d12 1. Abominable 2. Colossal 3. Scintillating 4. Iron 5. Sundering 6. Mind 7. Lava 8. Laser 9. Trans-dimensional 10. Insalubrious 11. Hypno- 12. Chaos Table B: Subject d12 1. Fungus 2. Jelly 3. Corpse 4. Slug 5. Foetus 6. Bishop 7. Lizard 8. Worm 9. Tyrant 10. Polyp 11. Virus 12. Titan Table C: Special d12 1. Like the shrew, must eat several times own body weight daily to survive 2. Maximum fecundity: dropping eggs/buds/spores/litters/viral loads everywhere 3. Berserk at all times, but capable of taking it to a new level if pressed 4. Singular objective: depopulation 5. Genius-level intellect, telepathic, strong opinions, very convincing 6. Melancholic: hell-bent on suicide-by-adventurers 7. Reverts back to shape of missing princess when killed 8. Constantly sings/otherwise emits mind-bending music 9. Protected by chitinous armor plating 10. Exudes deadly/blinding/incapacitating/in 11. Self-luminous 12. Demi-material, may pass through solid matter  |
|
rachelmanija |
10:17a | Any couples in Los Angeles? I am desperately seeking an LA couple for a questionnaire for my psychological testing class! I need to interview the couple in person and have them fill out a questionnaire. It should take about half an hour to forty minutes. I will buy you both lunch or coffee. - Must be available before about 4:00 PM TODAY or TOMORROW. - Must have been a couple for at least six months. - Must be willing to let me know about your couplehood. No detailed questions about your sex life, but the questionnaire asks about stuff like how satisfied you are with your sex life, your time spent together, how you handle your finances, etc. Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1041 |
|
james_nicoll |
11:41a | Dear subconscious Why is this song in particular ear-worming me today? Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
|
sartorias |
8:40a | Avengers and the Time Machine . . . Everybody seems to be at cons, or on vacation, so I thought I'd play the Time Machine game. Last night, went to see Avengers. Since there's no use talking about it without spoilers, here's the cut and the spoiler warning. ( Read more... ) |
|
james_nicoll |
10:38a | What was I doing in 2009 That resulted in
Seriously, if you say "John Clute, M. John Harrison and", "James Nicoll" is not going to be the name that leaps to mind to complete the trio. (For the record, I like a lot of anime, dislike many comics not because of the medium but because many comics are fuck-awful but, and this is the important bit, many are not, and ditto for movies. I prefer SF to F but A: that's more of a chocolate versus butterscotch thing than my god over your heathen beliefs thing and B: F and SF overlap a lot) Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
| pcwrede_feed | 11:58a | To preach or not to preach http://pcwrede.com/blog/to-preach-or-not-t http://pcwrede.com/blog/?p=1632 Around about twenty years back, I had the privilege of being at a convention where Judith Merril was appearing, and I made sure to go to every panel she was on. There weren’t a lot (she wasn’t in the best of health at the time), but when she was there, she was amazing to watch and hear. The panel I remember best was the one in which one of the (much younger) panelists, in response to a question from the audience, spouted that old, well-known line about “if you want to send a message, use Western Union” and finished up with the assertion that “fiction isn’t the place to preach.” Judith straightened up, fixed the panelist with a gimlet glare, and said, “Why not? What better place is there?” There was a moment of stunned silence as both the audience and the panelists tried to absorb the fact that a major SF writer known for promoting higher literary standards in the field had just contradicted something that the rest of us had assumed was a fundamental writing principle that everybody agreed on. Everyone except Judith. She gave us a minute or so to recover, then proceeded to list a number of well-known novels that had obvious agendas of various sorts and that were either better for having them or that wouldn’t have existed without them. I wish I’d written the list down, but I was too busy grappling with her confident writing heresy to grab a pen. That moment of silence when everyone tried – and failed – to come up with a solid, logical answer for the obvious question that no one else had asked made a big impression on me. What it did not do was instantly convince me of the rightness of Ms. Merril’s position. (Nor the wrongness of it, either.) I’ve thought about that experience, off and on, for years since. The result of all that thinking has brought me around to the same position I’m in on a lot of writing (and other sorts of) issues: It Depends. The interesting thing about the whole to-preach-or-not-to-preach question (aside from the fact that pretty much all the writing advice I see still takes the position that having an overt agenda is inherently a Bad Thing, full stop) is that it depends more on the writer and the writer’s attitude than on the story. Taking an overt moral, religious, or political stand in one’s fiction is something authors choose to do, or not do. It’s rarely something dictated by the necessities of storytelling. Once you start actually looking at novels, you can find rather a lot of them that clearly have some moral, ethical, or political ax to grind…and that work, or don’t, on a variety of different levels. Some seem to work in spite of the author’s agenda; others seem to work because of it. Some make the agenda subservient to the story; others make the story obviously serve the agenda…and manage to work anyway. There are, I think, two basic dangers in starting with an agenda. The first is a writing problem: does the author have the skill to pull this off? It’s trickier than it sounds, because the writer has to strike a readable and appealing balance between the needs of the point he/she wants to make and the requirements of storytelling. Passionate conviction is seldom an adequate substitute for writing skill. Yet the balancing act is possible; we still read Aesop’s fables, in spite of the blatantly obvious fact that every one of them is constructed to make a very specific point. The second danger is that if the writer’s agenda is too obvious, most of the readers who disagree with it will dislike the book (or, more probably, never pick it up in the first place). There really isn’t much the writer can do about this except realize that it’s going to happen and brace for it. One can try to bury one’s moral, ethical, or political point so deeply that it won’t offend anyone, but that gets right back to the don’t-preach-in-fiction argument…and quite frequently allows readers to miss the whole point. And if you feel strongly enough about a moral, ethical, or political stance to want to write about it, you aren’t going to be happy with what you do if you try to pretend that you’re not really doing it. |
|
james_nicoll |
10:22a | You know how I often have a 'don't read the comments' warning? Self-admitted Texan Elizabeth Moon suggests treating people like chattel goods, as is the custom of her people, and it is not close to being the craziest thing you will see at the other end of this link. Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | Wit and Wisdom of Lord Tredegar by Godfrey Charles Morgan Language: English |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | Der Deutsche Lausbub in Amerika by Erwin Rosen Language: German |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | A Prince of Dreamers by Flora Annie Webster Steel Language: English |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | A Sovereign Remedy by Flora Annie Webster Steel Language: English |
| gutenbergupdate | 1:38p | The Oriel Window by Mrs. Molesworth Language: English |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
