Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 128

Lois Gresh Sells to St. Martin’s Press

Lois Gresh

Book View Cafe author Lois H. Gresh has just sold another book to St. Martin’s Press for an early 2014 release.

She has also sold the French rights for her June 2013 St. Martin’s Press release, The Mortal Instruments Companion.

Congratulations, Lois!

Lois’s collection of stories, EldritchEvolutions,is available as an eBook in the Book View Cafe bookstore.

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel Has a Shiny!

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Call it a hat trick. Call it a trifecta. Call it a coup.

Book View’s own Katharine Eliska Kimbriel has scored three rapturous reviews atShiny Book Review for her Nuala series: Fires of Nuala, Fire SanctuaryandHidden Fires.

Shinyhas posted reviews of the books three weeks in a row—all glowing—and gave the series an “A” rating.

Follow these links to theShiny reviews:

Fires of Nuala:http://shinybookreview.com/2013/03/30/katharine-eliska-kimbriels-the-fires-of-nuala-complex-e...

Don’t Know, Can’t Care

by Laura Anne Gilman

Yesterday, someone asked me what the on-spec manuscript I’ve been working on, was.

My answer: a story.

No, they said, whatkindof story?

With words, and characters, and Stuff Happening and their world changing, even if The World doesn’t change for them.

But what genre? they insisted. Is it fantasy? SF? YA? Mainstream? Is it Steampunk or UF? What is it?

I don’t know. Or yeah, I kind of know, because there’s magic and there’s adventure, and there’s growing up and there’s dying and...

Where Ideas Come From: Negotiating with the Idea Fairy

Where do you get your ideas? According to a friend, the Idea Fairy leaves packets of them under our pillows. When I tell people this secret, it’s usually received with smiles. What’s not said, but what working writers all know, is that’s only one step in an entire process.

First, you have to invite the Idea Fairy into your life. Leaving out a glass of milk and a plate of cookies won’t do the trick in most cases. (You never know. That toy train story might lead to fame and fortune.) Creating a...

BVC Announces Fools Paradise by Jennifer Stevenson

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Fools Paradise: Backstage Boys Book 2

by Jennifer Stevenson

A blue-collar romantic comedy of feuds, follies, and getting your fingernails dirty!

Bobbyjay and Daisy are considered the dumbest members of their two families. When his male relatives get creative during the smelt run, Bobbyjay and Daisy have to get engaged to prevent these stagehand Montagues and Capulets from reanimating their old blood feud.

But the two families would rather make war, not love. They’ll stop at nothin...

The Rehearsal

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Sitting in on a rehearsal is a strange experience for the author of the book the play is based on. Words you heard in your mind’s ear forty years ago in a small attic room in the silence of the night are suddenly said aloud by living voices in a bright-lit, chaotic studio. People you thought you’d made up, invented, imagined are there, not imaginary at all — solid, living, breathing. And they speak to each other. Not to you. Not any more.

What exists now is the reality thos...

Writing Nowadays–Flaws vs. Weaknesses

Odysseus was proud. Bilbo Baggins was shy and cowardly. Othello wouldn’t listen.

Superman barfs in the presence of kryptonite. Vampires die in sunlight. Silver poisons werewolves.

See the difference?

Every hero has to have a flaw. A flaw is a mental or psychological problem that hold him or her back in some way. Odysseus is too proud to acknowledge the gods’ role in the destruction of Troy, so Poseidon curses him. Bilbo is shy and quiet, and he misses key parts of the adventures early on as a re...

See My Head Explode

Lately, I’ve been talking with two other writers about craft. Our styles are widely divergent. We, naturally, each insist our own way is best…but what we really mean is that the way we write is best for US, not necessarily for anyone else. Anyone who thinks craft can be taught ought to hear us argue.

So, for the sake of discussion, the three of us tore apart my appallingly drafted manuscript. I started writing in the days when we mixed head-hopping and author narrative with impunity. I’ve spen...

Welcome Spring

We live just outside of Boston. Everybody knows what’s been happening up here so I won’t go into it.

I usually like to take what’s happening in my life and spin it into something I can blog about it. Not this time.

So I’m going to talk about spring.

When I was a kid in California the direction of the seasonal winds changed. There was a little rain but mostly the weather was pretty much the same– which is why people like it out there. When we lived in Alabama it was mild relatively rainy winter f...

Story Inspiration Sunday

True confession time.

I enjoy reading about fashion. I am a Project Runway junkie, and I religiously follow Tom and Lorenzo. (Their “Pretty of the day” posts are frequently inspiring!) I buy fashion books, and, okay, I sometimes even buy fashion magazines (special treat for when I’m sick and lying in bed and want to look at something pretty.)

However, if you met me, you’d never know it. I’m very much a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal. I may own a few pairs of high heels, but I rarely wear them....