Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 375

The Natural History of the Independent Authors Guild -Celia Hayes

The Natural History of the Independent Authors Guild -Celia Hayes

More than any other resource which served to launch me and a fair number of other writers as independently published authors was an eccentric on-line discussion group called the Independent Authors Guild. The first website still exists, to my vague surprise, along with the later wordpress iteration, and the Yahoo discussion group itself, but both are presently close to moribund. The original participating members got what they...

Truth and Fiction

When I was a kid, I liked to make up fantastic stories. I liked making people believe things that I’d just made up out of whole cloth.

This went on at the same time as my writing, until my writing had readers (sometime in high school, my form mates caught on to what I was up to with the exercise books with a pink cover [they’d been given to me for free by my grandparents’ best friend who owned the general store across from grandma’s house, and who found a huge bin of composition books with a...

Post Delayed

The post is delayed and it’s not my fault.

Athena Hera Sinistra woke me up at 5 am to dictate. I’m now heading for bed. Will post when I wake.

Solar, Space, and Terrestrial Weather: Some Reflections – by Stephanie Osborn

Solar, Space, and Terrestrial Weather: Some Reflections

By Stephanie Osborn

Our gracious hostess, Sarah Hoyt, has kindly asked me to write a bit about this subject, because, she told me, I was the most expert, most knowledgeable in the subject, of everyone she knew. For myself, I make no claim to expertise on certain of the topics, but my background and training does, perhaps, position me well for understanding the matter, and explaining it to others.

For those who don’t know me, or who know...

Pure Gold

So, this might possibly be another Human Wave Post.

Recently someone – okay, okay, Dave Truesdale – posted a bunch of pictures of conferences in the seventies, which still had – in attendance – a lot of people from the Golden Age.

I was particularly struck by pictures of a young Jim Baen, who looked nothing like I imagined him as a young man, which goes to show you we’re all prone to thinking that those we knew at a certain age were never young.

As someone who is now – has confronted pictures...

It’s the Past that Keeps Changing

I don’t like to be manipulated. Mind you, I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s loads of fun, but some people don’t seem to mind much. “I wuz taken” gives them an excuse not to think too hard. In fact people like claiming vast conspiracies against them (“the man”, “the patriarchy”, “the illuminati” – don’t laugh at the last one, you should see the comments I don’t approve.) It gives them an excuse not to do anything much. It also makes them important. After all it takes a vast conspiracy to hol...

The Lines In Our Heads

Recently I’ve come to the conclusion that humans are golems. Note these are the golems of Terry Pratchett and not the golems of Jewish myth. They are clay robots, with lines in their head – the chem – that both animate them and give them purpose.

When I was a very young writer, knee high to a short story, I was told – and experienced – that you should never, ever, ever make a character do something that broke it. By this, it was explained, they meant taking some line you’d clearly drawn with...

Denver Comicon AAR

With no pictures, because those are in my camera and I’m only half awake. Also in my camera are dorky (trust me) pictures of younger son and husband in the time-traveling delorian and since they paid to pose with that, if I accidentally delete them I’ll NEVER be forgiven, not even after I die.

So, this was my first comicon. I’ve been aware it was going on, but you guys know what the last 5 (10) years have been health wise, so I kept losing track of where/when it was, and didn’t go.

As I was t...

Being an Adult -Cedar Sanderson

Being an adult -Cedar Sanderson

Being an adult is more than simply reaching the twenty-first year of age – or any other arbitrary line in the sand that is culturally determined.

Being an adult is being willing to do anything, everything, to help your children succeed in life. Even when ‘everything’ means being willing to step back and let them fall down a little.

Being an adult means not buying oneself toys when one’s babies are in need of food.

Being an adult means knowing that one day you w...

Icebergs on the Starboard Bow . . . – Alma Boykin

Icebergs on the Starboard Bow . . . – Alma Boykin

And port, and behind us, and where on Earth is that global warming they promised us? And what’s with all the jokes about trees in Siberia, anyway?

People have been complaining about the weather, and noting that no one in the village/court/monastery can remember the last time X happened or it being as cold/hot/wet/dry as it is today, since the ninth day of Creation. But it was not really until the 1700s that we had the tools and resources to ke...