Dan Wells's Blog, page 33

LTUE Con Report

LTUE (also known as Life, the Universe, and Everything) is a science fiction and fantasy symposium held every year at BYU. It's also turning into one of the best "aspiring writer" cons out there, which is even more amazing since it's completely free. This is my report.

Wednesday, Feb 10:
This was the night before LTUE, technically, but it counts because I spent it with the delightful writing group Inking Cap, who took my wife and I out for sushi. We talked about writing, and writing groups...

Awards and Nominations

This is nomination season for books, or at least for some groups of books, but since those happen to be the groups I'm published in I thought it would be helpful to talk about them.

1. The Campbell Award. The Campbell is the "new writer" award given out alongside the Hugos at each year's WorldCon. With I Am Not a Serial Killer published in 2009, this is my first year of eligibility. If you were a WorldCon member in 2009 in Montreal, or if you're already signed up for 2010 in Australia, you...

Musings on Jack the Ripper

I recently watched the movie From Hell, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore (which I have, embarrassingly, not read. I know, I know). It was fascinating and disappointing in equal measures, though overall I'm pleased to say I liked it; it had a good pace, interesting characters, and an incredible sense of period and setting. What it did not have was consistency, either with itself or with established Ripper lore, and while the latter is unfortunate but forgivable, the former is...

LTUE 2010 — UPDATED

LTUE is BYU's science fiction and fantasy symposium: Life, the Universe, and Everything. Being a university "symposium" it's not quite as fan-based as a typical convention, but in practice it's a really fun combination of author talks, science discussions, and people in costumes. It's also free, so if you live locally there's absolutely no excuse to not be there.

This year it turns out I'm far too awesome to be mentioned on their webpage, but rest assured that I will be there with a very...

Desolation

There is a lake in the Serial Killer books called Clayton Lake, which John calls Freak Lake, which serves various different functions throughout the series. This is based on a real lake near my house, called Utah Lake. Despite being situated right next to a string of fairly bustling residential areas, Utah Lake doesn't see a lot of use; any other lake in that situation would be surrounded by jetties and resorts, and Utah Lake has a few, but for the most part it's just there. Many people come ...

Writing to Music

Like a lot of authors, I write to music, choosing specific songs and styles that help get me into a certain frame of mind. This music is different for every book I write, ranging anywhere from a single song to a full playlist or Pandora station (usually based on one or two specific seed songs). This music defines, in part, how I feel about the books, and how I want the reader to feel about the books. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and what, if anything, these song choices mean...