Kate Elliott's Blog, page 52

SF/F Fence: I Do Not Want a Fence At All

I really enjoyed this post by Justina Robson* on Babel Clash.

Personally I'm fed up to the back teeth of everyone gnawing away on these sets and their rules (shall we have another round of What is Science Fiction anyone, or do you have lives to be getting on with?) because what this boils down to is solipsism in the end; each of us states what we like and don't like…except for this exception here…

She's writing a response as part of an ongoing conversation with Mark Chadbourn, who himself po...

Promotion canape: an interview in Paris re: Crown of Stars

Excuse my lack of correctly marked letters appropriate to French. I don't know how to get them in Live Journal.

As some of you may recall, the first two volumes of La Couronne d'Etoiles (I keep looking at this, sure I have spelled it wrong) are now available in France: Le Dragon du Roi and Prince des chiens. They're published by Milady, which is part of/related to/in association with Bragelonne. Great covers, too.

In January of this year I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the office...

Self-Censorship

About a month ago, in the comments section to my post My Mind is Full of Thoughts, I had an amusing exchange with triciasullivan and a few other ljers about writing sex scenes.

Except the conversation wasn't really about writing sex scenes. The conversation was really about self censorship.

I believe I have love stories in all my books. There is, therefore, sex in my books. However, I have never been one to write explicit sex. I tend to write "fade to black" or "draw the veil" sex, which al...

What? Aren't You Done Writing Yet?

How the act of writing changes the mental vision

Some months (years?) ago, triciasullivan asked me to comment on this quote by Samuel Delany, which I suspect is from About Writing:

When I am writing I am trying to allow/construct an image of what I want to write about in my mind's sensory theater. Then I describe it as accurately as I can. The most interesting point I've noticed is that the *writing down* of words about my imagined vision (or at least the choosing/arranging of words to write down) causes the vision itself to change.

I can't c...

When Writers Have Agendas

from chat tonight (Twin A in process of reading the first 2/3rds of Cold Fire, the sequel to Cold Magic, still in first draft).


Twin A: your bad guys all have one thing in common
one way or another
they're misogynists
which is not to say you do not have good guy misogynists
but ALL your bad guys are misogynists

me: I know
it's a failing of mine

Place

My friend Julia and I went to Moonlight Mele on the Lawn, a concert series held on the lawn of the Bishop Museum. The weather was partly cloudy, giving us a few spatterings of mist, but the rain held off. We grabbed something to eat at one of the food booths and spread a blanket on the grass and settled in for 2+ hours of music, local style.

Off to the right, one could see the occasional jet lifting into the sky from the airport. The sky here is vast and open because it drops away into the ...

It bears repeating (laws of writing).

Nothing is ever wasted, not even the stuff you throw out.

Writing: How do you know when a scene has to be rewritten?

What makes a scene "not work" for you so that you feel you have to rewrite it/tear it apart (rather than wordsmith)?


This question is so excellent because it is so hard.

The short answer is: I just know.


The medium answer is:

I feel uncomfortable with it (see: "I just know" above) because:

the rhythm feels wrong when I re-read it. The rhythm of a scene should flow smoothly and inevitably for however you are defining inevitability -- you should never catch or stumble over the flow of action and c...

Cold Magic Contest to win an ARC: The Visual and the Musical

I realize that in general I need to make my contests random drawings--even those that ask you, the contest entrant, to do something--because I have the hardest time picking a favorite. Indeed, I find it nigh impossible because honestly you guys are the best.

Over the next six weeks there will be three contests to win an ARC of Cold Magic. All will ask you to do something in the comments section, and in each case the winner will be chosen by a random drawing, which means every entry has an eq...