Sable Aradia's Blog, page 58

From Jenna Moreci’s Vlog: How to Write a Solid Chapter

Blogger Recognition Award!

I am really honoured to have been twice nominated in the few days for the Blogger Recognition Award!  Thank you so much to Mercedes Prunty and Nicole Luttrell from Paper Beats World for nominating me!  I think their blogs are really awesome too, as you might have noticed, since I have reblogged stuff from both of them.  I think they have a lot of great things to say about writing and the writing process especially.

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My blog started as a way to get myself out there as a fiction writer.  I was no stranger to blogging when I started it, so I guess I had an advantage in knowing the format.  But I decided that, like Mercedes talks about on her blog award post, I was going to do this one every single day, even if it was only a brief quote about something.  I decided that it would focus on things related to my fiction career; my books, my process, the writing process in general, book reviews, worldbuilding, and facts of science or history that I felt were relevant to my field.  And for it being so new, I’ve picked up a lot of followers rather quickly, which surprised me.  So thank you for all the ongoing support!

The conditions of the award are:

Thank the blogger who nominated you.
Write a post to show off your award.
Brief story on how your blog started.
Advice to new bloggers.
Select 15 bloggers to nominate award to.
Comment on each blog so they know they have been nominated.

So, advice to new bloggers.  I have a few things to recommend.  My first is to keep in mind why you’ve created a blog.  What is it that you’re trying to say that feels important enough to share with the world?  Then always keep that purpose in mind when composing your posts.

Maybe you’re starting a blog because you’re a writer and someone told you that it’s important for a writer to have a blog to build a following.  Okay, so then your purpose is to show people you’re a writer, so talk about the writing process, things of concern to writers, and the things you write.  But keep in mind that your purpose is to communicate with your readers, not other writers.  So don’t focus a huge amount on tips for marketing your book, unless you also intend to run a marketing service for writers, because then you’d want to show them that you know the business.  Instead, write about what being a writer means to you.  Write about grammar.  Write about NaNoWriMo.  Or write about what you write about.  For instance, if you’re researching a historical novel that takes place in Byzantium, write about what you’ve learned in your research!  Chances are that the people who do find that stuff interesting will also want to read your book.

My second piece of advice is to reblog from other people.  This way you can post with more frequency.  Also, you might end up picking up blog readers from the bloggers you’ve chosen to share.  Never post the whole thing, even if you have to copy and paste parts into your blog to share it, because that’s plagarism, while copying pieces and then showing people where to find the rest of it is Fair Use and people appreciate having their material shared in ways that inevitably bring those who are interested back to their blog.

The third is to try to develop engagement with your readers.  That term is always so misused in corporate speak, so I’ll clarify what I mean when I use it.  You want people to share, comment, and above all, keep coming back to see what else you’ve put out there.  The best way to do that, all the experts say, is frequency of posting, kinda like with YouTube.  I have certainly found that’s true when I’ve made an effort to do it myself.  But you have to make it interesting.  So don’t forget to share your own voice from time to time as well.  And don’t try for a voice that isn’t yours.  You’ll naturally attract your readers by being yourself.

Last, my advice is to make good use of your sharing functions.  Syndicate to your active social media accounts as much as you can.  Some people prefer to read their blogs that way and you’ll reach a bigger audience.

Now, 15 bloggers to nominate! In no particular order:

Dan Koboldt – great blog for writers on worldbuilding by a sci-fi writer and geneticist
Dirty Sci-fi Buddha – another awesome SF writer who is sharing some of his novels online
Steampunkapotamus – who shares all things steampunk and nerdy
Okanagan Okanogan – where a respected writer shares his observations of the beautiful valley in which I live
Humanistic Paganism – which approaches Pagan faith through an atheist and agnostic eye
Travelling Light – where a fantasy author speaks about social issues and her adventures through life
S.A. Gibson – another writer who writes about the writing process and aspects of fantasy literature
(Almost) Average – where an indie writer talks about indie writing
Angry Staff Officer – who deconstructs SFF battles with a military eye (in a funny way)
Jenna Moreci – who vlogs about writing
Space.com – a fascinating blog on the cosmos
For Puck’s Sake – a newish Pagan blog with excellent think-pieces
The Leather Library – a quality culture blog
Raise the Horns – an excellent blog about Paganism, rock ‘n’ roll, and life
Voodoo Universe – everything you wanted to know about Voodoo but were afraid to ask

I think I’ll save the commenting for another time, as this has already taken a couple of hours, but do check out those excellent blogs, and thanks for listening to my blather!

 

And then there were none…

I’m so glad she said it! Exactly!

Traveling Light

‘On Friday, a woman at my office who I greatly respect came up to me and said, “I think what you are doing is courageous. Many people your age sit in jobs like yours and stay there for years, even when they are visibly miserable. There is a world of opportunity out there and what you’re doing is brilliant.” ‘

http://www.okayafrica.com/careers/i-quit-my-job-because-i-didnt-belong-there/

Assumptions:

a) You won’t starve on the streets

b) Your kids won’t starve on the streets

c) That job you quit paid well enough that you saved some money

d) Your parents will pick up your slack.

I find articles like these problematic because they imply that people who are not able (for a variety of reasons including the ones I suggested) to simply quit their jobs are whiners, are cowards, or are in some other way culpable and to be looked down on.

The real guilty party is…

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37 Ways to Write About Anger

We all get angry. It is natural and it can be a good thing. When it is uncontrolled or unnecessary, anger will not do us any favours on either a personal or a social level.

The same is true for the characters we create. When we write about angry characters, we should remember that there is always something behind this emotion. Anger is usually a surface emotion. It is a reaction to an underlying problem.

Read the full article at Writers Write.

Cosmic Radiation

Cassiopeia A is a famous supernova remnant, the product of a gigantic explosion of a massive star about 350 years ago. Although discovered in radio observations 50 years ago, we now know that its emitted radiation spans from radio through high-energy gamma rays. It is also one of the few remnants for which the birth date and the type of supernova are known. It was a type IIb, the result of a core collapse supernova explosion. The precise knowledge of its nature makes Cassiopeia A one of the most interesting and investigated objects in the sky, and in particular, the study of its connection with cosmic rays, subatomic particles that fill the galaxy with energies higher than anything achievable in laboratories on Earth.

The very high-energy part of the spectrum of Cassiopeia A results from cosmic rays (either electrons or protons) within the remnant. Until now, this range of energy could not be measured with sufficient precision to pinpoint its origin. Sensitive observations above 1 Tera-electronvolts (TeV) were required, but achieving them was daunting. An international team led by scientists from the Institute for Space Sciences and collaborators has finally achieved such observations with the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope. The researchers recorded more than 160 hours of data between December 2014 and October 2016, revealing that Cassiopeia A is an accelerator of massive particles, mostly hydrogen nuclei (protons). However, even when those particles are 100 times more energetic than those in artificial accelerators, their energy is not high enough to explain the cosmic rays that fill our galaxy.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-explanation-galaxy-cosmic.html#jCp

Writing Your Stories: When Yay Becomes Yuck

A Writer's Path

by Josh Langston

There comes a point in the development of most novels, maybe even all ’em, when the writer throws up his hands, his pen, and maybe his beer, and says, “This is shit. It isn’t working. The characters aren’t talking to me. The muse is off to South Beach, and all I can think about is mowing the damned lawn.” Or something similar, suitably loaded with creative epithets and admonishments, perhaps something even more dramatic like breaking a pencil or barking at the dog. Or cat.

Some writers, many actually, can get themselves straightened out such that they’re able to finish the tale. Others may be so dejected they kiss it goodbye and never look back. It’s that second bunch I’d like to reach. They’re the ones who need a little extra help, maybe a pat on the back or a kick in the tail. Or, more likely…

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Book Review: Slow Apocalypse by John Varley

Slow Apocalypse by John Varley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Read for the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge and the Second Best Reading Challenge.

Method of the world’s destruction: an engineered bacteria is released into Iraqi oil fields by a lovelorn scientist as vengeance, which mutates to become an airborne pathogen that solidifies all liquid gas resources on earth into useless lumps.

Nominated for the John W. Campbell Award 2013.

When you’ve read as many apocalyptica stories as I have, I suppose you become a little bit critical in ways that the average person, who probably has only read The Stand or maybe World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, won’t be. So take my review with that grain of salt.

You’ve probably often wondered, considering the limits of fossil fuels; what would happen if crude oil became useless tomorrow? Varley attempts to answer this question with the McGuffin of an oil-solidifying pathogen, which sounds a bit like bitumen to me, but perhaps this alters the very chemical structure of the stuff or something. Whatever, it’s a McGuffin. The protagonist is a comedy writer from L.A. who probably doesn’t know the first thing about how biochemistry works, so we don’t really need to know either.

Our protagonist, Dave Marshall, happens to get some advance warning because he happens to be in contact with a retired marine colonel with some clout and black-ops security clearance, who warns him when the first reports of destroyed oil fields in the Middle East start coming in. Dave wisely maxes out his credit cards and spends all the money in his bank account laying in supplies. This turns out to be the only thing that saves his family when the proverbial offal hits the air distribution device, and his advance warning of his friends and writing team helps most of them to get a leg up too; although it doesn’t save everyone and some people we never find out the fate of, which I like.

And it’s fortunate that he’s done so, because his wife is useless. Accustomed to a higher standard of living than she can currently afford based on what Dave is making, she spends the early part of the apocalypse shopping and the later part hiding in her bed and sulking, until it’s too late to get out of L.A. easily and an enormous earthquake, caused by the pathogen, trashes the city.

Part of this is Varley’s way of having an important dialogue, part of the decision-making process that humans really do struggle with after a major disaster is when to get out. Most people wait too long because of denial, and because evacuation is such a daunting prospect. Karen vs. Dave is Varley’s method of addressing that conflict, and considered on its own, it works rather well.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but a heroic effort is eventually made to pull the community together, and then to flee L.A. because they have to. Karen, the wife, eventually turns into a functioning human being, and Addison, Dave’s daughter, is a pretty useful and resourceful person.

Which is why it annoys me so much that many of this book’s good qualities are, for me, ruined by its degeneration into an American Libertarian masturbation fantasy.

First of all, after being a useless tit for most of the first part of the book, Karen becomes useful and resourceful . . . except that she willingly gives over all agency to Dave as the “man of the family.” This was a woman who didn’t do what her husband suggested because she thought he was crazy (and who wouldn’t?) but then she decides to suborn her will to his because . . . apocalypse? Nope, it didn’t fly for me.

Also, Addison, who was his ally and helper at the beginning of the book, becomes a child again who has to be told what to do when Karen decides she’s going to adjust to the new reality and take her head out of the sand. As a teenager whose parents sometimes failed her in difficult times, I can tell you that I certainly wouldn’t just accept this (and didn’t).

Also, as an adjunct to this, Karen decides, after many years of a rocky marriage in comparatively good times, that she’s just going to go ahead and have sex without birth control with Dave before they even flee L.A. Because . . . clearly she wants to bring a child into the world who might immediately die of famine, if it ever makes it out of the womb, considering the malnutrition she’s already suffering? You know, I realize that people have lots of babies in areas where infant mortality is high, but I think it would take a rational, middle-aged Western woman who has enjoyed all the benefits of white privilege and L.A.’s Hollywood society much longer to get there, is all I’m saying. Especially since her daughter is already in her late teens.

Second, naturally humanity immediately degenerates into a bunch of gun-toting barbarians. I’ve written about why this would not actually happen in the past. But I’ll sort-of give Varley a pass because the big issue, he wisely realized, was famine. With the over-populated Los Angeles area unable to drive or ship food in, food and water runs short quickly, and some people decide they are willing to kill for it. Okay, that’s probably to be expected. And with all the authorities so overwhelmed, I suppose it’s even likely.

I do wish that he had refrained from the tired old trope of a woman who had the audacity to try to survive the apocalypse on her own getting gang-raped though. Really, this is nonsense, especially when famine is the main issue, and it seems like every apocalypse writer has to try to assert the idea that a woman’s rights as a human being are dependent on Law and Order in Western civilization, so they’re a nice pipe dream while they last.

Seriously, if you’re a man reading this, is the only reason you don’t go around raping women that the cops would get you if you did? Yeah, right, didn’t think so. There’s always a small handful of psychos out there, but they’ll be psychos whether a woman is alone or not. I swear, this is becoming so much a trope of apocalyptica that there’s going to be rape-gangs going around in the apocalypse just because that’s expected. Varley lost a lot of brownie points with me for this. Probably it cost him a whole star.

When things start getting bad, the Marshalls are given the option, several times, of joining evacuations being organized by the U.S. government and military. Which they never take, because they don’t trust them. They don’t like the looks of them. The refugee camps, seen at a distance, are described as “prisons.” Nope, the only thing to do is to band together in little tribal bands and protect ourselves with our guns. Good thing they’ve got their guns.

Except . . . they really have no reason not to trust the authorities. None. The best the characters can offer is that a hospital was forcibly evacuated. Do they think that maybe that’s because it’s on an extremely unstable major fault line that might, at any time, plunge it into the ocean? No, of course not. I swear to the gods, the American distrust of government is going to turn their country into the world of The Postman when the apocalypse happens, and the survivalist libertarians will take them all back to the Stone Age!

The conclusion, while logical, is a bit anti-climatic. The government continues to censor news and information so that they can control all the former United States citizens and keep them in the dark. Except . . . maybe they’re doing that to keep other countries, such as Russia, China, or maybe even Canada, who might be in better shape, from knowing how bad things are and how fragmented their government, military and infrastructure has become so they won’t decide to invade? Does this cross the characters’ minds? Of course not. They just go right on defending their little community with their guns. Because guns.

And while we’re at it, I could have done without the smug lecture in the epilogue. “Yep, we’ve got a world where we’re living green now! Conservation is necessary, no more oil is getting burned, and we’re right back to the Victorian Age! Isn’t that nice?” Varley all but purrs, “Looks like those environmentalists got what they wanted! Isn’t this a great world?” Except that a) no it’s not, because they’re still using coal, and where possible, nuclear power, although some power plants have melted down and now there’s irradiated areas in the former U.S.; b) seriously, nobody wants to go back to the Victorian Age. Environmental advocates are asking for a transition; we know that everything stopping cold would be a disaster of epic proportions. But you know, it’s now cheaper to run solar power than gas power, and wind power is gaining all the time. There are other ways to do things, and we’re finding them.

I started out really liking this book, too. It’s well-written. The action keeps coming. The characters are ordinary people trying to survive an extraordinary situation. The ideas about what would happen should oil immediately go belly-up are worth thinking about, especially since that’s exactly what’s going to happen if and when it runs out. Maybe we should plan ahead for that, and this makes you think about it. Which is a good thing. I just wish that . . . I don’t know, I wish that Varley, whose research was so good in some areas, had chosen not to ignore contradictory information, such as the fact that the National Guard and the U.S. Military have been positively heroic in every major disaster I’ve heard of in the past several years. And I wish he understood women better.

View all my reviews

15 Similarities Between Writers & Mediums #MondayBlogs #AmWriting

I absolutely had to share this one, since I am both! Good stuff!

BlondeWriteMore

“Darling, are you feeling alright?” asks a concerned loved one. “You look like you are in some sort of trance.”

You smile and say, “my MC is trying to tell me something.”

Worry spreads across your loved one’s face. “Your MC?” they say quietly, before glancing around the empty room.

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5 Facts About the American Old West

This article is part of the Science in Sci-fi, Fact in Fantasy blog series. Each week, we tackle one of the scientific or technological concepts pervasive in sci-fi (space travel, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, etc.) with input from an expert.

Please join the mailing list to be notified every time new content is posted.

About the Expert

Hayley Stone received a Bachelor’s degree in History from California State University, Sacramento with a focus on American history. During her final semester, to complement her own research for a novel set in the Old West, she organized a special course studying women’s roles in and their contributions to the West. Family legend has it that Hayley is distantly related to famed outlaw Jesse James on her mother’s side.

Read the full article at Dan Koboldt.

Writing Without a Net

By Theodora Goss

It probably sounds as though this is going to be a blog post about taking risks in writing. After all, look at the title: “Writing Without a Net.” But it’s not. It’s going to be a post about writing without financial security, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot and want to address.

Read the full article at TheodoraGoss.com.