Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 124

Monday WIP Open Thread

I'm not sure if Kelly is back from the lake yet, so I'm going to jump in with the Monday WIP post.

Today, I am hoping to get back on some kind of a writing schedule. My wife has been in Norway for a week, which meant that when I wasn't watching our two kids, I was generally too fried/exhausted/distracted/brain-dead to put anything down on paper other than, "Bub-bub-bub-bub." My wife returns today, which means that, if not now, then tomorrow, I can get back to work (I hope -- summer is always a ch

Why you need cliches like you need a hole in the head

(Cross-posted from my LiveJournal, swords_and_pens)

Overheard bit of dialog from a kids' program from another room:

"Those taste like sweat socks. And not the good kind."

I like the cadence of this line, and how it plays against usual adult expectations. The slow burn of the "eww" factor is nicely achieved, too.

Yes, it's a campy little line, and not a particularly challenging one in terms of construction (we've seen the form a million times: "cliche + pause + qualifier that makes the cliche worse")

Friday Cat Blogging

Blob cat, blobing



It is the East, and Juliet the sun



Gaming cats and their custom chair rig



Helpy cat helps with bed making



Lazer cat is in ur closet fryin ur shirtz

Writing Pain

This started as a comment in Justine Larbalestier's post about writing physical pain. I thought it might interest some of you here, so I've ported it over:

In my first published novel (WebMage) I wrote a good bit about a knee injury my central character incurs in the first couple of chapters and about how it affects everything he does from there on out. In that case I was writing from the personal experience of the aftermath of a torn cartilage injury that I lived with for more than a decade bef

Tuesday Morning WIP Open Thread

Hey all,

What are you up to? I'm about to medicate a cat, an action that is often followed by quiet bleeding. Well not really, not with our cats at least. Then probably a walk and working on getting Eye of Horus into submission shape and out the door.

The Velocity of Prose

A number of years ago, a writer friend of mine, Heloise S., demonstrated to me that the velocity of prose can be represented by the equation

teleology = etiology (charactersx)
                                        conflict

where x equals the number of characters in the story.

Mme S. notes wisely that (a) euphony and (b) money remain uncontrolled variables.

(Sneakily cross-posted from my new blog.)

Friday Cat Blogging—The Late Show

Three chairs, three cats



The Committee for feline domination takes a meeting



Gopher!



Is it cold in here, or what?



The feline collective "helps" with gaming

More on the garden

Here are the promised garden shots:

Before:



Beginning:



The sodkicker:



Sod removed:



After, overview:



Closeups:

1:



2:



3:

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Blogging at SFNovelists Today

About publishing's secret handshake.[image error]

Smart Things—The World Without...

Dean Smith, who is one of my mentors, is running a great series of posts on the publishing world without... The first two are "without returns" parts one and two the third is part one of "without agents." All are very worthwhile reading for what they can teach the reader about the way the publishing industry works.[image error]