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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

Mint Condition, One Owner

Posted in Books, Hi Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , on 06 May 2013| 6 Comments »

Stack of BooksAmazon wants to sell your used ebooks.

Yep, it’s true. Amazon wants to sell your used e-books, and a lot of people are really, really upset by it. “It’ll ruin author’s livelihoods,” some say, and “It’ll destroy the publishing industry” say others.

BTFU.

Before we all go running through the streets with our hair on fire, let’s think about it for a second.

Amazon wants to sell you an e-book for your Kindle and then, once you’ve read it (or not), give you the option to sell it back to them so they can re-sell it to someone else. This allows them to sell it without paying anything to the publisher (and thus, the author), just as if it was a physical book…

Hey…wait a minute…

(more…)

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XX vs XY

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 02 May 2013| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiWhen I build my characters, I like a full picture. As I practice this craft, I get better at it. My pictures are more complete each time, and one reason for this is Observation.

Observation teaches two things. First, it shows me actual characteristics, physical and mental, that I can use to build my characters. Appearances, mannerisms, vocal traits, behaviors, they all add to a complete portrait. The second thing observation teaches is types. Yes, I’m sorry to say, but people generally can be classed into types.

Understanding types is important because, when I go against type, I want to know it.

Example: by and large, men are more into sports than women. Yes, I know…some women are sports nuts and I’m not saying they aren’t; I’m saying that, in general, men are more likely to have an interest in sports than women. So, will I never write a female character who’s into sports? No, I might do that in this next book. But if I do, I need to know that the characteristic puts the character in the minority. Why? Because if a character is in the minority of her peers, that might shape her, one way or another.

To this point, an interesting characteristic has been discussed on a couple of boards. It’s a characteristic I hadn’t thought of before, but it’s an important one. I’d like to share it with you, and get your feedback.

It has to do with men and women and the friends they have. (more…)

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Doggerel Day Afternoon

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 30 Apr 2013| 4 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiOver the weekend, I experimented with the “clustering” technique, with mixed success.

It is a great idea generation tool, and similar to Ray Bradbury’s morning word association ritual, can seemingly bring something out of nothing. It needs a seed, a kernel from which to grow, so it’s not literally “from nothing,” but that kernel can just be the first word that pops into your head. I’ve had success before, born of this sort of free-wheeling (my Ploughman Chronicles started from just such a random idea generation technique), but what clustering provides is a definite method.

Another way I found it of use is in focusing and honing an idea I already had. I used it when I created “25 Hz,” posted yesterday. I already had the idea, born of a crappy mood and a little cat therapy, but didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say. Clustering around the word “purr” gave me a page of word associations and–to my surprise–almost all of them appeared in the short poem.

However, there was one area in which I found clustering to be of no use whatsoever: Rhyming.

Yesterday, I got the bit of doggerel stuck in my head. I knew the start. I knew the finish. I just needed help with the in-between bits, all of which needed to fit in with a strict meter and rhyming scheme. Here, clustering failed me, utterly. To finish, I had to resort to an old school method; I slept on it.

(more…)

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Dear Left Brain: STFU

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 26 Apr 2013| 5 Comments »

Yesterday I tried the “clustering” technique for the first time. I was not pleased.

“Clustering” is an idea generation technique where you start with a core idea in the center (the nucleus), and start jotting other notions around it. This sort of random, free-association is what the right-brain does best, and clustering is a way to do that without the left-brain getting in the way.

In the book (Writing the Natural Way), Rico tells of how easily people fall into the technique of clustering, how even second graders are able to generate story ideas using it. It’s the “rare individual,” she says, who has problems with it.

Meet a “rare individual.” (more…)

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Ray and Me

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 25 Apr 2013| 4 Comments »

Stack of BooksI am setting aside work on my new novel.

If you have a problem with this, take it up with Ray Bradbury.

Some comments on a recent post of mine got me thinking, and I went to get my copy of Dandelion Wine. I hadn’t read it for a long, long (loooong) time; such a long time, in fact, that I’m really a completely different person, and I knew I’d enjoy it more. I’ve always liked Ray’s stories–he and Roger Zelazny were the major influences on my decision to attempt writing, myself–so, an indulgence. I opened the book and began to read.

I didn’t make it past the foreword. (more…)

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Lion’s Tooth

Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 23 Apr 2013| 3 Comments »

Doc Maynard had a wife. Two of them, actually, and simultaneously, some say.

David S. “Doc” Maynard, one of Seattle’s more colorful founders, married Catherine Simmons Broshear Maynard, a widow he had met along the Oregon Trail. He married her almost immediately upon divorcing Lydia, his first wife, a decree granted via questionable–and later, contestable–conditions. (Doc may have implied that Lydia was…deceased….)

Catherine Maynard proved to be as legendary as her husband, helping thwart an attack on the settlers of Seattle, accepting for a time her husband’s first wife under her own roof, and traveling the state on horseback, riding from Seattle across the Cascades to Ellensburg, well into her 70s.

But she did one other thing which, 150 years later, affects every single Seattle homeowner.

Catherine Maynard brought the dandelion to Seattle. (more…)

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Maintain an Even Strain

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , on 19 Apr 2013| 3 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiIt’s been a difficult week for us all, and continues to be so–nowhere more so this morning than in Boston. In reaction I’ve tried to “Keep calm and carry on” by doing normal things and moving forward with projects. I’ve been able to push the line forward a little in some areas: with this blog, with my gardens, and with the new novel. (more…)

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