Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 136

A word about closets

Unprintable, but a word.

There are not enough closets.  There are not enough bookshelves.  Closets and bookshelves are necessarily related.

It is NOT that we have too many clothes.  No, it is not enough closets for clothes that a) have grown steadily bigger over the last thirty years and b) are required to do too many things (in my case, anyway.)   I can't just have, as I did once upon a time, two pair of jeans that fit (one older than the other...when it got too raggedy for me, and I was not over

Another questionnaire readers

I’m working on the character list for both the website and the book itself.  My own personal character list is organized by location and association (that is, all the Duke’s Company names together, all the Tsaian nobility together,  all the Girdish Marshals/paladins/etc. together.)

But it’s readers who will use this for something other than trying to ensure I don’t have fifteen names that all look and sound very similar in the same scene…which is what I use it for.   My editor will rule on what a

When somebody isn't somebody enough...

When is a man in a wheelchair no longer a person?

Try this: http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2009/03/elephant-disappears.html

Mr. Hingsburger is a disability-rights advocate, himself now disabled, from Canada, who was in the US giving workshops on abuse prevention to the disabled.   This is what happened at the airport on his way home.   (For more about his other activities, including the clues that this probably happened at the San Francisco airport, look at earlier posts.)

Leaving aside the sh

Editor's Comments Arrive

...and that means scarcity here while I  dig in and get the work done.   No fear--so far all seems sensible and doable and "Why didn't I think of that myself?" 

Because my head's buried in the characters, who (being as self-absorbed as real people) do not understand that they've just bored the socks off the potential reader.

And the writer is one with her characters.

All will be better soon, but I need to get with the program.

Writer's Block: Going to Extremes

If you were in perfect shape (not to say that you aren't), what would be your extreme sport of choice?

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<!-- end .appwidget-qotd -->Three-day-event.   I visualize a (much younger) self tackling Badminton and riding a perfect dressage test,  galloping across country and those massive, terrifying fences, meeting every obstacle correctly...and then finishing with a no-fault jumping round.  

Those who think that's not an extreme sport have never galloped down to a big fence with a drop on the other side.

And

Bit of news

The cover conference has been held.  I have no final absolute news, except that the direction they're thinking should make some people (among them ME) very happy.   When it's permitted to say more, I'll say more.

Choir: Ouch!

Leaving aside the problem of people not being there, or coming late, because of a severe storm....it was not the happiest rehearsal I've ever been in.   It was difficult music, to start with (difficult for me, anyway)--this Sunday's anthem is Leighton's dissonant (UGLY! she says firmly.  UGLY!) "Solus Ad Victimam," with squealing saw-blade half-steps crammed next to someone else's notes.  Not a good one to warm up on, or an invigorating start to the rehearsal.  (And, says the person who doesn't

Nose to the Grindstone

Book is now at 130,236.  What had seemed but one plot bomb had--like some fireworks--others embedded in it, that kept bursting along.  In some ways a book is like a party: if you want a good party, you invite people who will make it one, and all you have to do is supply the place and time.  With the right characters, a book (or this part of a book) takes off happily on its own, generating plot like crazy. 

Usually this is good but sometimes the writer is having Too Much Fun, like the host at the

Questions for the group mind

Note: these are time-limited questions, answers due by 8 am CDT.   (After that, they won’t have any force.)   Note also:  answers may not have any effect, even if I kick them upstairs on time.   If you choose to answer, please answer at least the first two questions.

1) What is the thing you’d MOST like to see on the cover of the new book?

Choose from a) scene, b) face of character, c) symbolic object, d) other.

2) What is the thing you’d LEAST like to see on the cover of the new book?

Choose from a

The Craft of Writing: Description

On another venue,  some writers (I among them) got to talking about description.  Since it's Sunday, and I don't (usually) work on the book on Sunday (only if it ambushes me) I feel moved to talk a little about description--what it can and can't do, and how it's different for the modern reader whose visual memory is full of picture-images.

Humans vary in their neurological wiring--some are more visual, some more auditory, some more tactile in their preferred learning mode.  This has implications