Posts under ‘Writing’

A few quick writing notes: New Science in My Fiction post up today: Orbital Mechanics for Vampires, a companion to last month’s Orbital Mechanics for Werewolves. Both were a lot of fun to write, and also contain Real Science (TM). New review at The Portal, of F&SF March/April 2011. I’m still not sure I’ve quite [...]

And goodbye February. I’ve never gotten along with that month. In fact, I blame it for a lot of things. Good riddance until next year. I was moderately productive in February, in the writing department. I finished and revised two short stories, and am just waiting on my beta reader before I submit them. I [...]

New Science in My Fiction article today: Orbital Mechanics for Werewolves. Enjoy!

Okay, I have a novel draft. So now what? (And thank you all for the congratulations – much appreciated!) Revisions, obviously, but it needs to sit for a while first. I envision it like bread dough: all the ingredients have been kneaded together, and it needs to rise for a while before I rework it, [...]

I? Just finished a novel. It’s a very rough first draft, and the middle kind of sucks, and it’s 10,000 words too short. But I have a complete draft, with a beginning, middle, and end, and it tells a proper story. Writing a novel is one of those things that you don’t know if you [...]

It was a long week, and I was tired by the time I got home last night, but I was determined to make my wordcount. Determined. So I pushed on, despite the snuggly cat rumbling in my lap, the warm soporific puppy draped across my ankles, despite the eyelids drifting closed. I made my wordcount, [...]

This is how the New Year began. I hope it isn’t an omen And here’s how the old year went, or at least the SFF-related bits: According to my Goodreads list, I read 108 books in 2010 (not counting things read purely for work). Not bad. One of my goals for the year was to [...]

I mentioned last night on Twitter that I was researching Renaissance Italian streetnames, and Chia Lynn asked if I’d share some research resources. I’m working on a fantasy novel with an Italoid setting – patterned on fifteenth century Tuscany, though without the omnipresent religion. This is a really easy time and place to research, especially [...]

I’m winding up National Novel Writing Month with 16427 words. I realize that isn’t anywhere near 50k, but I’m pleased. I met my goal for the month, which was to write every day (except for the two days I was running a weaving symposium and knew in advance I wouldn’t have time), and to get [...]

There’s a theory of competence that goes something like this: Unconscious incompetence: you not only don’t know how to do something, you don’t even know enough to realize how little skill you have. I think this relates to the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the less you know, the more likely you are to believe that you [...]