Kate Elliott's Blog, page 51

LOLcat winner

This LOLcat by musingaloud won the contest:

I ask you all a question: photos

My agent is urging me to get photos for publicity purposes. I understand and agree, and should have done something sooner except I am photo averse.

What I want to know is, those of you who have recently done photos:

1) pro or amateur

2) if pro, how did the payment go?

What kind of ballpark are people asking for a shoot?

And, most importantly, how does it work to thereby use the photo for publicity related materials like a press kit that may be permanently up online or use as a photo in the back o...

That Writing Meme

All day today I have been typing words into the computer, and after intensive analysis, I have determined that I write like . . . me. Awesome!


But it's interesting. Sometimes interviewers will ask a writer, "What book that you didn't write do you wish you had written?"

My feeling is that I don't wish I had written some book somebody else wrote, no matter how much I may have loved reading it. I'm glad that other person wrote it, because I couldn't have. I can only write my books, for better ...

In Which I Plot Revenge

I expect this kind of thing when I write. I leave room for it in the writing process. I generally call it my unconscious mind at work.

I have had plots that twisted away as I was writing a scene into a somewhat new and even revelatory direction.

I have had minor characters speak words I did not expect them to say, thereby altering inter character dynamics.

I have had a walk-on, spear-carrying extra demand to become one of the major characters in a trilogy.

I have had the cumulative effect of so...

Thoughts I won't Be writing about today, plus a Review

I had a couple of different thoughts for potential posts, including one on the portrayal of women in epic fantasy (and the likelihood that historical roles for women are limited to those of sex workers and, um, girls serving drinks in taverns, plus the occasional noble girl needing to be married off and the rare harridan or, better yet harridan-crone).

That was prompted by this post by writer Mark Charan Newton, about "getting women" -- a post I much appreciate him writing. Special kudos to t...

Cold Magic ARC: The Last Draw

This is it. Your last chance to win an Advance Reading Copy of Cold Magic
(from here, anyway -- keep an eye out online because I know there are a couple of book blogs who have copies of the Cold Magic ARC intended for a giveaway) .

The last winner said she never won contests, so . . . you never know. It could happen to you.



Rule One: (suggested by sysrae ):

Because Cold Magic is kind of an alternate history (although it isn't really; it's really more, to borrow fledgist 's phrase, a different E...

Cold Magic ARC Visual/Musical Winner

Pam, from CA.

Congrats!

And thanks for the entries. Funny funny LOLcats, and some interesting musical choices (plus some stuff new to me, always good).


New contest to be announced tonight or tomorrow. I only have 2 ARCs left.

Maili Beach Regatta -- One more photo

I bought a camera, waterproof and shockproof, because I want to try to take some photos from out in the canoe so you can see what the island looks like from offshore. Thus, my first attempts to take photos, at the regatta yesterday.

The men in the medium ground (four in oranje shirts and one in white--who is, by the way, with his wife the club's founder) are part of the Platinum Masters, that is, over 60. The women in the canoe, about to go out to race, are some of the women's Platinum Maste...

Maili Beach Regatta

That's us headed out for our race. You can't see our steersman (in seat six). I'm in seat one.

West of us? Nothing but ocean (next stop: Asia).

Hammered

Which is the title of a fabulous Elizabeth Bear novel, but also a description of my brain tonight.

Every book I write provides its own unique set of pitfalls and challenges. In other words, each book writes differently.

But I can safely say that my books tend to fall into three overall sets, the Beethoven books, the Mozart books, and the other ones. Not, mind you, that I am comparing myself as an artist to these two musical geniuses. I'm just noting that the stereotypical understanding of ho...