B. Throwsnaill's Blog, page 2

A Yogi at the Intersection of Myth and Reality?

I recently finished reading a book called "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda.  This is a very interesting book.  The writing is beautiful--at least in my estimation.  Many seem to feel the prose is overwrought, but I think it conveys a sense of peace and spirituality.  The subject of the book is the author's life, the life of his guru and that of his guru's guru.  All of these yogis demonstrate miraculous powers with astonishing frequency.  The ta...

Impermanent Marker

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericA lot of things are changing in my life right now. My first reaction when reflecting on change is to begin to judge the changes: are they positives? Negatives? I want to try to quantify them and then aggregate their net effect into some overall statistic. Am I better or worse, and in what magnitude? I suppose this is the computer scientist in me.

No matter whether we perceive changes to be...

Full Throttle and then into the pits

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericIt's a new year and I've been remiss when it comes to blog updates.  What have I been up to?  I've been doing some writing, of course.  I started working on a blog post some time ago to report on progress made during the extended writing session I did in December.  Somehow, I seem to have misplaced that post.  I can assure you that the lost post was a legendary piece...

Wet Robots

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericI recently had a stimulating discussion with an old friend about the nature of reality.  We were discussing an assertion by science and philosophy (specifically a man named Dan Dennett) that free will is an illusion and our actions are all the product of a fully deterministic physical brain.  Dennet, to his credit, makes the point that even if free will is an illusion, it's still important to live...

Writing in Slo-Mo

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericI feel like I've been writing in slow motion lately.  I'm very motivated to write, I just don't have a lot of time or energy to write.  Still, I am steadily making progress toward reaching the end of Hemlock Book Four.  I'm right at the doorstep of popping a major "bubble" for the reader which will reveal a lot about the underpinnings of the story.  It's pretty exciting stuff!

Another surpri...

Tapping the Brakes

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericAs some of you who read this blog may know, I typically write as part of a semi-daily routine.  I've reached a point in the Hemlock IV manuscript where I'm writing a climactic battle sequence.  At the same time, my non-writing life has been very hectic.  During the last writing session I had, the details of the battle were bursting out of my brain like a fire hose gone out of control!  I d...

Short Post - Book Four Manuscript Update

I've reached a pivotal point in writing Hemlock Book Four!  All of the plot lines have come together for a climactic confrontation!  It feels surreal to reach this point in the narrative after all of these years.  It's both gratifying and a little disquieting because I realize there will be a sort of void in my creative life once this series is complete.  Certainly, other projects will emerge to fill that void--and that's very exciting.  But, at the same time, this st...

Change of Perspective

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericWriters earn their chops by successfully writing from multiple perspectives.  Characters in a story have to be portrayed differently and they should have unique points of view that come through in the writing.  Good characterization will demonstrate the unique characteristics of these personas.  This will reflect the societal norms of the societies they were raised in.  Writing a chara...

Headwinds and Tailwinds

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Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericI've had a couple of really good writing sessions over the past couple of weeks. Before these sessions, I hadn't felt like I'd had a good session in quite some time. I'd noticed the feeling, but hadn't really reacted to it much. I just kept writing. I don't know if this was some flavor of writer's block, but I suspect it displayed many of the symptoms of it. The thing is, though, I never thought to mysel...

Adding Flair

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Creative Commons Attribution No Derivs 2.0 GenericI've been slowly writing my way through the fourth Hemlock novel, and approaching it in a methodical fashion.  I think there's a point when an author completes the outline of a plot for a novel and the exercise of writing the manuscript can become monotonous.  There's an acute risk of this happening if the writer doesn't allow for the plot and characters to morph and evolve a...