Phoebe North's Blog, page 13

An Odo to Deep Space 9

Jordan and I recently decided to rewatch Star Trek: Deep Space 9 together, now that it's available for instant viewing on Netflix. If you know me, you know that I'm a Trekkie. I grew up on TNG, spent my teenage years staying up much too late watching reruns on my old black and white television. I even went to the screening of the latest movie in full Vulcan regalia. Was in the paper for it, too.

Yes, this is me.

Back in the day, I was never a huge DS9 fan. I liked the Ferengi, but otherwise...

O Tannenbaum/Thoughts on Jewish Authenticity

I've been wanting to blog about our Christmas Solstice tree, but I've been afraid to.

Oh, it's not your fault, gentle reader. I got the same stab of fear when I recently went to see Neutral Milk Hotel, and "King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 2″ came on. "I love you Jeeeesus Chriiiist," Jeff Mangum crooned, and for a moment, I stopped singing along and instead froze in a sort of position of religious befuddlement. I mean, really, what would my Jewish mother think?!

(I talked to her; turns out, she...

The Answer Bag!

Wow, you guys are wonderful. Thanks so much for sending me questions! Answering them was fun, almost like being interviewed by a really smart, challenging, attractive committee. Hope you find my answers informative. For easy filing, I've broken your questions down by subject.

(No, I'm not procrastinating. Why do you ask?)

On the writing of STARGLASS . . .

How much of a draft did you hand in as part of the pitch? Outline with synoposis? finished chapters? Complete finished draft?

Like most debut a...

Post-book Deal Q&A

Awesome husband is awesome for giving me this blog-appropriate shirt.

Hey all! Thank you so much for the enormous outpouring of love and felicitations yesterday. You pretty much made it the best day ever. I was just a big sticky ball of happiness all freakin' day. There were so many touching emails and notes–many from people who had been following my career for awhile. And if there's one message I took from all of it, it was this:

you always believed in me.

Funny thing is, I wasn't always so...

On Beginnings (tl;dr: the book deal post)

When does a book start? That's something I've been asking myself lately.

I suppose I could say that this one started when I was eight. I lost someone (my father), and the world shifted, changed. Until then, I'd been a sunny kid. My favorite color was yellow. Now I was someone defined by loss. I was that-girl-whose-father died, too.

I was resilient, and though I was often alone, I beat back the darkness. With my flashlight under the covers, I found not only feeble light, but fortitude...

All the Dragons Keen

A relative gave me a paper grocery sack full of books when I was 12. Most of them were Pern novels–old mass markets. I inhaled them all, starting with Dragonsdawn. Back then, I had little idea of what "fantasy" was (books that were kind of medieval?), much less "science fiction." But I loved her books–not just Pern, but the Brainship books and Crystal Singer books and Planet Pirate books, too. Soon I was reading more SF: Douglas Adams and Frederick Pohl and so many others.

I joined Pern...

Philcon Cosplay and the Timeline of River Song

(or, a very Whovian blogpost in two parts)

1. Pookie & I went to Philcon as 4 and 11.

I only got one picture from the first day, when Jordan was decked out in full Tom Baker regalia. I suspect there will be some photos found soon with his awesomeness contained therein, because he couldn't walk more than a few feet without someone stopping him to take his picture. All I have is this, which is bad ass, but not very, uh, clear.

No pictures from Day 1 also means an utter lack of crossplay 11...

Got my TARDIS and my jammie dodgers!

I am officially ready for PhilCon!

Going to be there? Get in touch. I will give you hugs and biscuits.

From Pantser to Plotter?

The title of this blog post is not-quite-right. I've never considered myself a "pantser," to use NaNoNomenclature, not really. After all, I've never successfully drafted a novel without an end in sight. In fact, by the time I'm halfway through I usually know precisely where my plot is going.

But I've never considered myself a "plotter," either. Outlines were an anathema to me. They were just so boring and I wanted to get down to the fun stuff–the business of writing.

But after a year of...

Weekend Visits & Thoughts on the BSC

I spent the weekend with my good friends Tarah and Charlotte—it was a wonderful time, whittled away with shopping and Doctor Who and flowers and bees.

And The Baby-sitters Club. Charlotte is seven and absolutely nutty about the BSC, as I was around her age.

Charlotte and I chatted about our favorite characters. These days, I'm fonder of Claudia—such fabulous style—but back in the day, Mallory was my favorite. She was gawky, like I was, with braces and glasses and big hair, and she wanted to be ...