Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 69

Legal Fictions: Stereotypes

I started this series with the idea that it would be easy. I know a lot about law and lawyers and I figured the hardest part would be translating what I know from legalese to English.

But the process of doing the posts and responding to comments has made me think more deeply about both the law and writing. As I was writing my last post, it occurred to me that a lot of what I’m ranting about is the use of stereotypes.

This is most obvious in lawyer characters, but it can also include a stereotyp...

WWW Wednesday 2-12-14

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 are you currently reading?

I am currently reading two books. The first is a pair of erotica novellas, written by the friend of a friend and published through Xlibris. Alas, I have nothing positive to say about these novellas — the characters are flat, the writing is poor,...

The Name of the Prose, Part 3: You Are Here

Mill Street, Grass Valley, CA

Asense of place plays a critical role in determining whether a reader “gets into” a story or not. Good place names can lend an aura of reality to even the most fictional of places. Conversely, an obviously made up place name in a story that pretends at reality can make a location that seems perfectly real to the author seem perfectly ridiculous to the reader.

For example, I’ve seen a number of writers set stories in California’s Gold Country, where I resided for th...

“Going Silent”

When I notice that someone I’ve been following on a social media site (including a blog) has “gone silent,” I want to know why. Some of this is idle curiosity of the gossip type. Occasionally, the reason can be much more serious than such happy occasions as the person taking a vacation or being buried in an engulfingly-wonderful work project. My own excuse for not posting more regularly this year is that I’m happily wending my way through editorial revisions (that is, revisions in response to...

Undercover Genius

I am an avid consumer of romance, fantasy, and mystery in all their multitudinous subgenres, so pardon me if I digress from my usual historical conversation—unless one considers the Bush administration historical. Which it is, of course, but not what most of us want to hear!

My reading preference over the years has always been for stories with romance— for reasons known only to my confused psyche. It didn’t matter if the genre was mystery or science fiction, historical or contemporary, just gi...

The Best Horror of the Year Volume Six

Book View Café congratulates Linda Nagata, whose story “Halfway Home” has been included in The Best Horror of the Year Volume Six, edited by Ellen Datlow.

“Halfway Home” was originally published in the September 2013 issue of Nightmare Magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams, and is available to read online.

SFSignal.com has the full list of authors included in The Best Horror of the Year Volume Six.

Investment II: Creeping Dustmotes

In 1978, I was visiting at Greyhaven in the Bay Area. AfterDiana Paxson, a soon-to-be pro writer with an agent and everything, took me to call on Elizabeth Marie Pope for a never-to-be-forgotten rainy evening, we came back. I was granted the chance to read the first of Diana’s Westria books, with which I promptly fell in love.

Then Diana asked what I was working on (seeing this battered red book I was carrying around and writing in with a very fine point fountain pen). Gulping with trepidation...

Belief in Belief

Belief in Belief

Ursula K. Le Guin

You can buy rocks in which are carved words intended to be inspiring — LOVE, HOPE, DREAM, etc. Some have the word BELIEVE. They puzzle me. Is belief a virtue? Is it desirable in itself? Does it not matter what you believe so long as you believe something? If I believed that horses turned into artichokes on Tuesdays, would that be better than doubting it?

Charles Blow had a fine editorial in the New York Times on January 3, 2014, “Indoctrinating Religious Warrio...

Sherlock vs. Sherlock

Left:Johnny Lee Miller, Elementary
Right:Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock
Middle:Sherlock Holmes

I’ll say up front: I’m not a Sherlock fundamentalist. I like the original series fine but it’s not written in stone or anything. I’ve enjoyed many of the Sherlock adaptations, the further from the original the better–They Might Be Giants, for example.

So I’ve been watching the BBC’sSherlockand NBC’sElementary. I’ve been struck by a couple of interesting things. I call this theBatmanvs.Supermaneffect.

For t...

Story Inspiration Sunday

I’ve finally finished the last (sixth) short story for my anthology workshop!

WOO AND HOO!

I’ve actually really enjoyed the process of being given a general idea about what the anthology theme is, then being told, “Go!”

Then again, I like writing prompts.

My favorite prompts are from the book A Writer’s Book of Days, by Judy Reeves. This book has a prompt for every day of a year. I found them to be good, thoughtful prompts.

I started using this book back in 2006. I had stopped writing for a while...