Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 115

Smart Things

Amanda Palmer on asking for money for art.

Megan Crewe guest blogs for Agent Kristin Nelson, exploding the you must have connections to get published.

Lilith Saintcrow on the good and the bad of cliche.

Friday Cat Blogging

Moooom! Meglet's hording the best spoooot!



I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.



Madeye Meglet? Me? No, you must have me confused with someone else.



I heart my blankie.



No, of course I'z not laughing at you!



I have really cute toes!



No, really cute!

WiFi: Friend or Foe?

After yesterday's writing extravaganza, I'm tempted to say FRIEND!

Here's the background: yesterday my son had an early release day from school, which meant that I had three less hours to write. I thought to myself, maybe I should TRY going to a coffee shop close to his school and see if I can just put my head down and write until time to pick him up. Normally, coffee shops distract me. I'm not like the rest of you. I don't listen to music while I write. I don't have easy Internet access at ho...

And Here a Miracle Occurs

There's an old math joke that involves a complicated formula that goes on for a while and then the mathematician writes "and here a miracle occurs" and then goes on with the equation. Another mathematician standing nearby says, "Perhaps you could be more specific in this step here." My partner, who was a math minor in college, had a t-shirt with this on it because she had a professor who tended to skip several steps in the equation saying that those were "patently obvious to the casual observ...

Monday Morning WIP, Deadline Edition

I shouldn't be posting here at all. I should be writing. Like. A. Fiend.

In eighteen days my young adult novel is due at Penguin USA. I've got about a hundred or so pages to write. I suspect I'll make it, given how much I can write during the day. The real question is: how much time will my readers have to read it and for me to revise it after they find everything what is wrong with it....

And wouldn't you know it? The world is full of shiny. I have have dishes that need doing. Kitty l...

New Interview With Me

Heyo folks,

There's a new interview up with me with the Examiner.com's Speculative-Fiction-Examiner. Fun questions.

Friday Cat Blogging

Blob cat blobs



None shall pass!



Pwease don't make me burnz you with my laser eyes...pwetty pwease



Iz got nip hangoverz, go way



I'z nesting...OK e-nesting...you gotz problem?

More about YA taboos

Lyda's post about YA taboos actually got me thinking about them enough to write a post of my own on the subject. (Try not to die of shock, guys....yes, I am a group blogging LOSER.)

I met Holly Black at WFC a few years back. She's a very successful middle grade and YA author; she wrote the Spiderwick chronicles for the younger kids and Tithe, Ironside, and Valiant for the older kids. She said, when I asked her, that the ONLY real taboo in YA is explicit sex; the characters can have sex, but th...

Young Adult Taboos

Apparently, there are very, very few.

This question came up for me because yesterday I was in the middle of writing a scene in my young adult novel that's fraught with sexual tension. Something funny (and vampiric) happens which causes our heroine to flee from a make-out session with the hottie Witch boy. He thinks she's off to go, you know, find some condoms. She, meanwhile, is trying to put her fangs back in the box, as it were. Hilarity ensues.

I wrote this thinking, "ha! Great scene! Good j...

The Amazing Work Ethic of a Hack

This morning while doing my usual morning things in the bathroom, I happened to pick up the most recent Entertainment Weekly. In it they had a short article about the new sequel to Dan Brown's The Davinci Code. I never read The Davinci Code, but my partner Shawn read it and his earlier book Angels and Demons which she much preferred, though I believe she thought both were kind of "eh."

However, I was very impressed by Mr. Brown's work ethic as described in the article. Apparently, he got up...