Sable Aradia's Blog, page 64
August 4, 2017
Book Review: Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read for the SF Masterworks Challenge and the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club.
This was amazingly subversive at the time that it was written. And I suppose that a person who was raised Christian or Jewish might find it mind-blowingly subversive even now. That’s worth commending, and it’s probably why this book is one of the SF Masterworks.
But that’s not why it’s a great book.
So don’t read the rest of this review if you really don’t want spoilers! But it’s not hard to figure out.
Karl is an uncertain, awkward sort of outcast whose relationship with faith has been problematic. He wants to believe but he has been failed by love and by faith so many times, and in some horrible ways that Moorcock brilliantly presents in a matter-of-fact manner, and doesn’t dwell upon.
Happening to acquire access to a time machine, Karl, who has become a psychologist in an effort to understand the human psyche, goes to confront the myth of Jesus once and for all. And he finds that like most myths, the historical reality is nothing like the stories.
So now he confronts the ultimate choice: does he make the myth a reality?
He decides to do so, knowing, as we all know, that this chosen path results in his painful, horrible death. And he does it anyway.
And this is what makes this a great book: it is largely because of his faults, because of his human frailties, that he chooses this path. But out of this grows an act that is astounding in its compassion and its heroism. Our weaknesses become our greatest strengths.
Between this and the story that was part of the Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians collection, Moorcock has won a new fan. I’m seeking out his work. Highly recommended.
August 3, 2017
12 Book Marketing Tips from 12 Industry Experts
By Francesca Devin
Bridging a story between the creator and the reader is as spry as writing and publishing. Marketers find ways for readers to reach new means for wisdom, spur, and escape through virtually bound stories. Although major publications do that for you, there are less-observed gems in the outskirts of the internet heeding to be published. This is where indie marketing comes in.
Amidst all the know-hows you may find, we’ve hand-picked exceptional ones that make instant impact. Here are 12 clever tips from some of the finest names in the book marketing arena. Pens ready?
Read the full article at Marketing for Writers.
August 2, 2017
The 7 Tools of Dialogue
By James Scott Bell
My neighbor John loves to work on his hot rod. He’s an automotive whiz and tells me he can hear when something is not quite right with the engine. He doesn’t hesitate to pop the hood, grab his bag of tools and start to tinker. He’ll keep at it until the engine sounds just the way he wants it to.
That’s not a bad way to think about dialogue. We can usually sense when it needs work. What fiction writers often lack, however, is a defined set of tools they can put to use on problem areas.
So here’s a set—my seven favorite dialogue tools. Stick them in your writer’s toolbox for those times you need to pop the hood and tinker with your characters’ words.
Read the full article at Writer’s Digest.
August 1, 2017
Book Review: Flashing Swords! #4, edited by Lin Carter
Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians by Lin Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read for the High Fantasy Reading Challenge and the Genre Non-Fiction Reading Challenge.
This is an outstanding collection of some of the best in classic sword and sorcery writing! I had heard of all of these fine fantasy writers, but had never yet read one of them. This is an exdellent sampler of some excellent writing, and it gives you a feel of why they are so popular and respected in the field. Lin Carter‘s observations on the Sword and Sorcery genre, and the writers who write it, is also a fascinating read. I am thinking it’s time we created another such guild.
July 31, 2017
Robert Heinlein’s Five Rules of Writing
. . . plus one by Robert J. Sawyer, who is himself a successful Hugo, Nebula, and Aurora winning Canadian science fiction author. Just sayin’.
By Robert J. Sawyer
There are countless rules for writing success, but the most famous ones, at least in the science-fiction field, are the five coined by the late, great Robert A. Heinlein.
Heinlein used to say he had no qualms about giving away these rules, even though they explained how you could become his direct competitor, because he knew that almost no one would follow their advice.
In my experience, that’s true: if you start off with a hundred people who say they want to be writers, you lose half of the remaining total after each rule — fully half the people who hear each rule will fail to follow it.
I’m going to share Heinlein’s five rules with you, plus add a sixth of my own.
Read the full article at Robert J. Sawyer’s blog.
July 30, 2017
The Medieval Agricultural Year
By Rachel Hartman
#30days30authors I grew up in the Middle Ages. Well, not the Middle Ages exactly, but in Kentucky, which is close, and with a father who believed that if you didn’t have garden soil under your nails, you just weren’t working hard enough. We lived in the middle of town, but he was determined his girls would have as much good, wholesome farm experience as he could contrive to give us. We grew berries and vegetables, canned tomatoes and made jam, chopped wood and spread mulch; and when I wasn’t imagining I was really a princess in exile amongst the surly serfs, I gained an appreciation for the timeliness of growing things.
Read the full article at Strange Horizons.
July 29, 2017
I Write to Create Myself
[image error]
#30days30authors
July 28, 2017
The Marketing Rule You Can’t Forget
Today’s guest post is excerpted from Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts by Ryan Holiday, published on July 18, 2017, by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Ryan Holiday.
When I work on a project—with clients, but particularly with my own writing—I start by acknowledging a blunt but important truth: Nobody cares about what I have made. How could they? They don’t know what it is. And if they do know, still the average fan cares a lot less than I would like them to care. This too is undeniable—how can they care much about something they haven’t experienced the benefits of yet? They haven’t spent years living and breathing this thing like you have—not yet anyway.
Accepting your own insignificance might not seem like an inspiring mantra to repeat at the outset of a marketing campaign, but it makes a big difference. I always prefer to start from a place of reality, not from my own projections and preferences. Humility is clearer-eyed than ego—and that’s important because humility always works harder than ego.
Read the full articles at Jane Friedman.
Octavia Butler: Writing Herself Into the Story
By Karen Grigsby Gates
#30days30authors
Octavia Butler used to say she remembers exactly when she decided to become a science fiction writer. She was 9 years old and saw a 1954 B-movie called Devil Girl from Mars, and two things struck her. First: “Geez, I can write a better story than that!” And second: “Somebody got paid for writing that story!” If they could, she decided, then she could, too.
Read the full article at CodeSwitch.
July 27, 2017
29 Quotes that Explain How to Become a Better Writer
By Joe Bunting
The best way to become a better writer is to write and then to publish your writing, whether you publish it on a blog, in a book, or with a close friend. It’s only by practicing writing, and getting feedback on it, that you can improve.
Read the full article at The Write Practice.
Hey there! I’ve still got a Patreon yanno. 
