Marjorie M. Liu's Blog, page 16

Beijing Instagram!

Another day in beautiful Beijing. Traffic is so bad that it makes going into the city a real drag, but this area in Shunyi has everything we need, and the air is clear and the skies are blue. Today, between bouts of writing, I went out for a bit — took some pictures. Small stuff, but I fed it through the Instagram filter for a bit of character, just to play.

Oranges, bought from a local village market — part of that market itself, along with a shot of the trees that line the roads for miles an...

In Beijing…

As we began our descent yesterday, I happened to look out the window and saw mountains. Something else, too: a snaking pale line that was the spine of the Great Wall.

It’s amazing, the things we see when we actually look out the window. I usually have the aisle seat on long flights (I hate climbing over people), so I miss views like this. I may have to revise my seating chart from here on out.

More tomorrow!

Journal the journey…

I think I’ve been writing in a journal since I learned how to make words happen with a pen and paper. In the beginning it was just drawings (because art is another way of taking stock of our lives), and then it was words, and now it’s a combination of art and words and photos — but mostly words. The types of journals I write in depend entirely on my mood: in high school it was simple spiral-bound notebooks, or pretty little bound volumes — whatever I could get my hands on, really. For years,...

If you’re not done shopping…

So, in the right hands, Kickstarter is an amazing platform for (as they describe it) “funding creative projects”. Really fantastic opportunities are arising for art to be made — from dance to film, to games and books — and with only five days left to go, a friend of mine, John Picacio, is kickstarting a calendar that will showcase some of his beautiful art (you’ve probably seen his work on your favorite fantasy novels and never realized it).

In other news, NaNoWriMo is approaching its last wee...

Thanksgiving.

I think most people give thanks all throughout the year, but this is the month when we just get more vocal about it — especially today. It’s as if we give ourselves permission to speak, finally, about all those things that make our hearts squeak. Because usually what we’re most grateful for is what makes us feel most vulnerable, and on Thanksgiving no one’s going to laugh at you (hopefully) when you crack open your chest and say, “This is what matters to me, this is what I don’t want to be wi...

Loving to write doesn’t mean easy.

I wrote a post in 2008, right before NaNoWriMo, called “Good Questions are a Source of Creative Energy“:

Great fiction, from my point of view, happens when beautiful lies smash up against essential truths. Something, I suppose, every author strives to achieve—though everyone has a different method of getting into the mindset that allows that kind of discovery. My guess is that most authors and artists are stable people with somewhat neurotic tendencies—so that whatever system slides us into ou...

Some advice: Just have fun.

Yup, that’s it, most of what you need to write a book. Besides reading a lot, and taking the time to write. Also, stubbornness. But, whatever — having fun is a huge part of what we do, and why we do it. The late David Foster Wallace talks about this, in-depth. I recommend reading the entire piece, over at Brain Pickings:

Whatever “ego” means, your ego has now gotten into the game. Or maybe “vanity” is a better word. Because you notice that a good deal of your writing has now become basically s...

I name thee Trickster.

I’ve referenced this Jim Henson book before (a gift from a friend), and as I was flipping through it the other day, I came to this page:

Trickster. Rule-breaker. Rules you love to break. No rules at all. Which reminds me of a quote attributed to Thomas Edison that I read years ago: “Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”

Good advice. There are no rules to life. Certainly, no rules to what you should do with your life. No rules to getting published. No rules to ge...

The alternative form…

Thinking about NaNoWriMo, it occurs to me that you don’t have to write a prose novel…you could dedicate yourself this month to writing a graphic novel. Never mind if you’re not a visual artist, you can still tell a story in script format: 120 pages, 200 pages, however long you feel it should be. A graphic novel is still a novel — and the results can be spectacular.

Check out Moth City, for example — which is an online comic — a murder mystery. Check out Joe Sacco’s work, which is journalism an...

Write! Write! Write!

Lately, I’ve been reminded (again and again) that I’ve written seventeen novels (never mind the other stuff: novellas, comics, etc). Trust me, that feels like an unreal number — because when I launch into a new book it’s as if I’ve never written one before in my life. Each time is new. Each time is exciting and mysterious, and ultimately, a lot of hard work. I invest a great deal of myself in every project — but then, when it’s time and the story is done, I let go. I let go so completely, I f...