Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 123

Horse Yoga Evolves

We live in a fantasy novel around here. Not always the part with the unicorns and the flowers. Mostly the one with stablehands and pitchforks and bread that needs baking. Once in a while some grimdark. And around just about every corner, a good dose of the Weird.

We thought we were starting horse yoga here because a human then in residence needed to loosen up some tightness to ride a horse better. We were quickly disabused of that when one of the horses marched up and took charge.

She likes War...

Story Inspiration Sunday

My writing process has evolved and changed over the years. I anticipate it will continue to change.

Currently, I write everything out by hand, first, then type it up on the computer. Creating fiction using this process ensures that it starts as fun for me.

I have a day job, and I’m on the computer all day long. Therefore, somewhere in my head, I’ve equated “computer” with “work.” It doesn’t matter that I use a different computer, in different parts of the house (or at a coffee shop.) Computer...

Nostalgia Vacations and Indoor Volcanoes

There was another report this week about the rise in the traditional British holiday. Part of this is down to economics – ever since the financial melt down of 2008 people have had less money to spend on overseas holidays – but, apparently, a larger part is down to nostalgia for our old childhood holiday haunts. We’ve done Europe. We’ve done the Far East. We’ve done the Caribbean. Now we want to re-create those magical childhood memories.

As someone who grew up in a British seaside resort in t...

“Nahiku West” a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Finalist

Linda Nagata’s novelette “Nahiku West,” originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, has been listed as a finalist for the 2013 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, for the best short science fiction of the year. The Sturgeon Award is a juried award, with winners selected by a committee.

“Nahiku West” has also been selected for inclusion in multiple best-of-the-year anthologies. The story is available from Book View Café in ebook version, along with a second story, “Nightside On Callist...

Stalking the Wild Muse: Writer Rituals & Habits

A series exploring the props, habits, and drugs that fuel the writer’s productivity. Past, present and future! Look for BVC writers, plus other authors we know and love.

By Brenda Clough

Fredereich von Schiller, the famous German dramatist, kept a drawer full of rotten apples in his desk. He claimed that the whiff of decaying fruit inspired him to write. Another one of those writers it would have been very difficult indeed to be married to. Although it would be interesting to try the experiment...

Spy Princess a Mythopoeic Award Finalist

The Spy Princess, a middle grade fantasy by Book View Cafe author Sherwood Smith, was chosen as a finalist by the Mythopoeic Society’s jury for the Award for Children’s Literature. Written when Smith was fifteen years old, and sensitively edited by Sharyn November of Viking Children’s books, The Spy Princess is followed by Sartor, published by Book View Cafe.

The rest of the nominees can be found at the Mythopoeic Society website.

Writing Tools and the March of Technology

I bought my first computer thirty years ago, a Kaypro II. It was state of the art for the personal computer: no hard drive, of course, but duel floppy drives so you could run software on one and save your work on the other.

The operating system was CP/M. I picked the Kaypro because I’d read that the CP/M operating system was the one most likely to survive. Microsoft was still an upstart back then.

It was “portable,” meaning that it closed up into something about the size of a sewing machine and...

WWW Wednesday 5-15-2013

It’s WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

• What did you recently finish reading?

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, by John McWhorter. It’s a history of English, but it doesn’t focus on the vocabulary changes that I’m already familiar with; instead, it digs into the grammatical shifts along the way. Which is much mor...

BVC Eats: greasy food revisited – Baked Eggs

This is the kind of thing you eat when it’s still cold out, darnit, and summer should have been here weeks ago, and coffee isn’t doing the job, and you want something solid in your stomach.

Baked eggs are very, very solid. Think in terms of one or possibly two baked eggs per person, tops. How many bowling balls can you eat? Exactly.

Per serving:

2 slices bacon

1 raw egg

2-4 T crumbled strong cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

this bacon is perfect–kind of cooked, but still limp and gr...

BVC Announces Conscientious Inconsistencies by Nancy Jane Moore

A Collection of Short Fiction

by
$4.99 (Collection)ISBN 978-1-61138-258-7

“Break all rules, including these.”

So advises one of the stories in this reprint collection. These stories jump — conscientiously — from a homage to Alexandre Dumas to an action-packed adventure set in the near future. There’s also an epic fantasy or space opera — take your pick — told in aphorisms, a contemplation on death, and a tale of what happens when walls begin to divide a place. As Lyndon Perry wrot...