Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 75

The Mind of the Young Mare

Mares don’t get the best rap these days. Stallions get to be all macho and sex-crazed and noble and rearing against the sky and all that, and geldings (who are from heaven) are what everybody rides. Or is supposed to ride. But mares–they’re moody and mareish when they’re not boring or docile or barefoot and pregnant.

It’s hip to hate winter and love zombies and sneer at mares.

Geldings are the only fit riding horses. If you have to have a mare, well, all right, but are you sure you’re not just...

“I am terrified, but I’m not afraid”

This is a story about a story. But it’s more than that.

Somewhere in early 2012, I’d started working on a story, set in the same universe as my short stories “Crossroads”and “The Devil’s Jack” (forthcoming inDEAD MAN’S HAND). But about three thousand words in, I realized that there was more here than a short – that I’d created a character, and a world, that wanted to expand into a novel.

So I sent the story and a proposal to my agent, and said “what do you think?”

She thought that it was a great...

Annals of Pard: The Tango

Annals of Pard: The Tango

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Cats are pure predators: they hunt live prey. Carrion and other stuff dogs like is of no interest to them. They abhor sweets, and despise most vegetables, though many make an exception for asparagus, or corn, and my big Leonard liked a taste of salad greens and had a passion for raw spinach. We’re told that feral cats get the greens they need from what the prey they eat ate.

Pard is about as unferal as a cat can be. He stays indoors by choice and ca...

The more they stay the same!

In 1740, Lord Chesterfield wrote regular letters to his son in Latin, French, as well as English. Many have heard of his famous letters, but alas, few have read them.

I say alas, because I think they are awesome. I reread all four volumes every few years. They read like a blog, with acerbic, formidably educated and witty commentary on all subjects of the mid eighteenth century— politics, culture, custom, relationships, the latest medical theory, literature, archeology and history— in several l...

Webcomics of Interest

Since it’s the new year, let’s address some new webcomics.

Most of these are new to me. Some I have been following a bit and still get a kick out of. Some haven’t been updating as much as I would like and I’m hoping that sending some traffic their way will do them some good. All of them are terrific.

Of a curious note, many of these involve college life or are in the form of children’s book illustrations. Not sure why that attracts me this year.

The Red Calaveras: The Red Calaveras are a punk ba...

Over the River and through the Campus, A-Tracking We Will Go…

A Blue Hound Beagles Blog AKA when-not-writing

I almost chickened out.

The VST (Variable Surface Tracking test) is one of those ultimate tests, requiring skill and trust and teamwork (and good weather and good luck!)–and still, with all that, the passing percentages wobble around 5-8% of the teams who take the test.

That’s not a lot.

So when things went totally wonky a month ago, I thought hard about withdrawing. (I missed 2/3 of a favorite agility trial when I had an excitingly intractable heart...

Publishing, the Cooperative Way (Part 2 of 3)

You’re here, at Book View Café. That means that you love great books, at great prices, written by great authors. But do you really know about Book View Café? Do you understand who we are, how we started, how we get great books to you? This three-part series (originally published in Romance Writers Report, explains publishing, the co-operative way! Part 1 described our history — how we came to be the publisher we are today. Part 2 describes our current book production process, explaining how w...

Legal Fictions: An Introduction

“It’s a free country.”

If you grew up in the U.S., that sentence was probably your first introduction to the idea of law and rights. Maybe another kid shouted it at you when you questioned their behavior. Maybe you said it yourself. Simply translated, it means “I have the right to do what I want whether you like it or not.”

What gives us that right?

Law.

Kids also like things to be fair, so even on the playground there are limits to the “free country” argument. Rules get made – don’t cut in line,...

Little strangers, part 2: the wrath of kittens

Great Godfrey, it’s been a month or more since I posted about cats! The foundations of the interwebs are tottering!

My little strangers are now approaching the age when, sadly, they must go to the vet and be denied forever the right to be parents. On the up side, they will not stink up my house with forms of self-expression that make “cat lady” a bad word to the postal carrier. Also, no six-fingered new kittens. Since T is half her brother’s size, I will feel virtuous about this, eventually. W...

End Of The Year Reading

The winter holiday season has always seemed to me to be a good time to strike out beyond my usual reading preferences. Maybe that’s a relic from the childhood years when adult relatives would give me the books they thought I ought to enjoy, whether these were ones I would have ever thought of selecting for myself. And many were treasures indeed. So here are a few, genre and not.

Top of the list is the book I’m currently immersed in, An Equal Music by Vikram Seth. It appeared on our To Be Read...