I’m pretty certain that if I’d been introduced to the idea of “desert island books” as a child, A LITTLE PRINCESS would have been on the short list. I can’t possibly count how many times I read it, although I either didn’t own it or had a hardback edition, because I did not, as I did with my paperback THE SECRET GARDEN, read it to literal pieces. I re-read THE SECRET GARDEN last year and found it, if possible, even better than I had remembered it; A LITTLE PRINCESS is…
I’m home from Dysprosium, which was a very pleasant weekend away. All my panels and things went well–the kaffesklatch was full!–and I spent most of the rest of the weekend at BarCon, without going to many panels, although I went to a few and had fun at them. It was *great* to see Jim Butcher again, as it’d been since, like, 2008 or 2009 since we’d met up. It was also pretty funny to hear him telling stories about things I’d been there for, especially the origin of the Codex…
Six years ago today I started a writing chat room colloquially known as the War Room. Its purpose was to create a space where the writers I knew could log in and encourage one another to write. The idea is basically a chat room where you don’t chat, you just shut up and write, but in the presence of others, so that there’s some accountability. It’s a way of creating a work environment for a job that often expects you to get it done with nothing but your own self-discipline…
As mentioned previously, I’ll be at Dysprosium, AKA Eastercon 66, from Friday morning to Sunday evening. My schedule is as such: Friday, 6:45 pm – 7:45 pm: The Ultimate Urban Fantasy Panel Something nasty in your neighbourhood? Everybody wants to go to the big cities, so why not the supernatural? with Charles Stross, Mike Carey, CE Murphy, and Alice Lawson as Moderator. Saturday, 10 – 11:15 am: Kaffeklatsch “Armstrong,” my information says. I’m not sure if that’s a location or if I’m kaffeklatsching with someone named Armstrong. :) Sunday, 4:15…
A fellow writer over on Twitter was asking for example elevator pitches to show to some of her friends as examples, and since I’ve got, oh, eight or seventeen of them that I’ve been using for years, I threw several of them at her. An elevator pitch is what you want to have prepared for when you find yourself in an elevator with the high-powered head editor of your favourite publishing house and she says, “Oh, you’re a writer? What are you working on?” This is not the moment to…